while writing last night, i looked at the lyrics properly for the first time in forever. and the whole depth and understanding of a feeling, then translating it to words took my breath away.
that main bhi jioo tu bhi jiye...
how much in it. in barely eight syllables a whole story of two people's lives. and of a sort of loving that you never think is possible till you're in it.
sukh mera le le, main dukh tere le lu
take my happiness and i'll take your sorrow
main bhi jioo, tu bhi jiye
(that way) i too will live and so will you
because i can't live if you're unhappy... i can still live if i am unhappy, but you? somewhere an echo of khushi's way of loving arnav ji in it, and maybe in his brusque dammit way, he says that too and only she can hear it.
this inspired writing in hindi songs.. i do miss.
this one is by majrooh sultanpuri. my other fave comes to mind, kaifi azmi's yeh nayan...
raat haseen
night's beautiful
yeh chand haseen
this moon is beautiful
tu sab se haseen mere dilbar
you're the most beautiful one, my lover
aur tujhse haseen
and more beautiful than you...
aur tujhse haseen tera pyaar
is your love
tu jane naa
you don't know
at tu sabse haseen, i sigh, but at tujhse haseen tera pyaar a defibrillator would be handy, though at tu jane naa, the need for it will end.
in this song too... that main maan bhi loo kabhi haar. a different kind of love felt and written of here, a kind we perhaps lose touch with every day, then wonder what went missing.
actually, i don't think i have heard love songs like these in english ever. in the song of the african slaves in america... in some kinds of jazz, there is this intensity, a certain rawness, a flinging of the human soul out there, stretching the emotion all the way. but for the man woman love, the simple connection of pyaar/mohabbat/ikraar, the love so much written of and in so many ways, the older hindi songs i feel are unique. they take it to places so unknown and terribly beautiful... wonder if the influence of ghazal and its unbridled love comes into play. it's not a soppy smarmy sacrificial sort of soupy love, there is real giving in it and almost a magnificent one, there's need, desire, play, longing, breaking free.
... take my joy and give me your sorrow so that both you and i may live. just look at that. there is a wanting to live and own in this love... to go to lengths farther because that love lets you... and interestingly no achhi bahu patriarchal note in it... yeh nayan is sung by a man as are many of our love songs by the writers of the fifties, sixties, seventies, gulzar even now...
of course, the directors asked the lyricist to write a song and give a certain nuance or note to it, describing the scenario, etc., but then the poets, yes they were all that... took the brief and brought their sensibilities to it and their fabulous grasp of language... urdu/hindi... in its most distilled elegance and depth. and the fab composers of the time stepped in, together what beauty they created. too many songs are in my head, too many writers, and singers and actors and images...
yeah, the hindi film love song... something else.
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