The play by Jimmy Connors should be proof that some of the Rajinikanth stunts are actually possible!

pArtha nyAbagam Illayo (PNI) literally means “don’t you remember seeing (this one)?” in Tamil. When this song must have come out and in the years thereafter, not many in the South of India would have “remembered” seeing this one as Sway with Me (Dean Martin, 1954) or Quien Sera (1953). The latter being the original mambo song by Mexican composer and bandleader Pablo Beltrán Ruiz that has been the “inspiration” for countless renditions in various languages ever since. (Reference: wikpedia).

PNI is from the movie, Puthiya Paravai, which in turn is the Tamil version of the Hollywood movie, Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958).  Listen to PNI sung in Tamil by P.Susheela:

Some thoughts on the making of this song. Wonder what the compulsion must have been to use this tune and in this picturisation. Was Sway with Me very popular back then in the clubs (say, what?) of South of India or among the privileged or with the Anglo-Indians or AIR? Giving the benefit of the doubt to music director ‘MSV’, suppose he did not seek any external Mambo inspirations, could it be that the film’s director was a fan of Dean Martin or just a clever opportunist who just wanted to milk a “free” tune to the maximum? Or, could it be that even in the “dark ages” of information (or, the lackthereof) hit-making powers of access, re-purposing, and selective distribution of premium content was already well understood? Wonder (again) what ROI calculator Dada Mirasi must have used for this “localization” project?

Now, on the two video snippets below. The Tamil audio track has been replaced in these two, with English and Spanish respectively. Me thinks:

• ‘Sowcar’ Janaki (actress in the picturization) is so hip she can’t sway below her waist
• Sivaji (actor) is smokin’ haat!!
• Sivaji does the “smitten” from subtle Hollywood (0:49) to over-the-top Kollywood (1:45)
• Case of “Eee adichchAn kApi” (read, blatant plagiarisation) @ 1:03-1:10 in the English remix below? It goes “I can hear the sound of Violins, long before .. it begins” in English.  In the Tamil number, this section is just instrumental interlude.  Is it just coincidence then that we see the guys on the violins even though the Tamil picturization does not seem to require it?

Sway with Me (Dean Martin, 1954):

Quien Sera (Pablo Beltrán Ruiz, 1953):

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Dil tadap tadap ke will conclude my trilogy of posts on Salilda songs inspired by western music. Here, the inspiration was the Polish folk song – Szla dzieweczka do gajeczka. Some information on the original:

“The song is a very popular folk-song that originated in the Silesian (South-Western) part of Poland i.e., from the regions of Slask Gorny (High Silesia), Cieszyn and Opole regions. The ethnographer Juliusz Roger identifies it as coming from Rybnik, which is near the Czech border. That is where the famous Polish jazz pianist, Adam Makowicz, and the famous Polish composer, Henryk Gorecki, come from. It has been very popular throughout Poland for many years, for various celebratory occasions like namesday, youth gatherings etc. It has been recorded by the professional Folk Song & Dance Ensemble, ‘Slask’ produced by Polskie Nagrania, by the Lira Ensemble of Chicago and by popular singers like Maryla Rodowicz and popular Polish dance bands.  As far as the pronunciation, it goes something like this…

Szla dzieweczka: shwah jeh-vehtch-ka
do laseczka: duh lah-sech-kah
do zielonego: duh zhyeh-loh-neh-go
nadeszla tam mysliweczka: nah-desh-wah tahm mih-shlee-vetch-kah
bardzo szwarnego: bahr-dzoh schwahr-neh-goh
O moj mily mysliweczku: Oh mooy mee-lyh mih-shlee-vetch-koo
dalabym ci chleba z maslem: dah-wah-bim chee hleh-bah z mahs-wem
alem juz zjadla: a-lehm yoosh zyad-wah”

Above is information from the website, itwofs.com – chronicles of plagiarism in indian film music.  Research done by Karthik S, site-owner of itwofs.com, supported by his Q&A on this topic with Ms. Wanda Wilk, Director of Polish Music Center at the University of Southern California.  Visit itwofs.com if you ever come across a non-Indian tune that feel (you) have heard somewhere in some Bollywood movie.  Chances are the connection you are looking for has already been documented on this site.  If not, you are welcome to send your entry for the benefit of others (like me!).

Now, here is a remixed version that I created of the Hindi video with the Polish folk song (sourced from itwofs.com). Enjoy Szla dzieweczka do gajeczka (Polish original) as soundtrack for the Madhumati video:

Also, the “original” Hindi version of Dil tadap tadap ke (Madhumati, 1958):

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I had long made a mental note to find out the inspiration for the song Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke from the Hindi movie Do Bigha Zameen (1953).  I had heard in the past that this song was inspired by some famous Soviet Red Army marching tune.  Besides “being” in this movie song, I had heard this (supposedly Soviet) tune used in one of the episodes of Nukkad, a briefly popular teleserial on Doordarshan in the 80′s.  Episode was one where a Nukkad character has to keep bi-cyling in a circle for as long as he can, for some cause (don’t remember what), and this tune is used by the crowd as an inspiration to keep him going.

Watch Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke:

Continuing from my previous post on Salilda, I was determined to find out which Soviet Red Army marching tune this one was.  My search terms included different combinations of “Do Bigha Zameen”, “Do Bigha Zamin”, “Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke”, “Russian Song”, “Russian Army Song”, “Soviet Red Army Marching Tune”, “Salil Chowdhury” but I did not get very far with any of these.  Nor did I find what I was looking for.  No thanks Google!

I did however get a reference to the Russian site – Soviet Music – that has an online library of songs from the Soviet era.  I tried to listen to as many songs – available as mp3′s – in the catalog but somewhere must have missed what I was looking for.  I then tried to look for the Soviet tune by humming and searching on sites such as midomi and shazam but no closer (was I) and definitely no cigars either!

Tired but not discouraged, I decided to send a mail to the site owner of Soviet Music.  So I did, send him a mail with a link to the Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke video on YouTube.  Cometh response, the very next day

“I tried, but I cannot recognize that song. — Lake”.

Not what I was hoping to hear but the helpful tone of Lake’s e-mail encouraged me to look harder, perhaps, more closely .. the clue that was right in front of me all the time, viz., the video response posted by IndianBirdy, YT user, to the original Dharti Kahe song.  This video has a desi kid (presumably learning music) playing this tune on a bansuri.  Great!  May be, this will help isolate the tune from the Hindi lyrics so that ears not accustomed to Hindi music might be able to correlate with more familiar, native music.

So I sent one more mail to Lake with the bansuri link and prompt came his response:

“I’m not sure but maybe this one – http://www.sovmusic.ru/download.php?fname=polpol2“.

As I clicked the link and listened to the track start of with the sound of a horse trot, I knew it .. this is it!  Eureka, Voila, Wah re Wah, Nethi Adi, machAn – Bulls Eye!!! Can’t really explain the sense of exhilaration that this seemingly inconsequential and insignificant quest gave me at the end.  The likes of Christopher Columbus and Rocky Balboa might have identified with my state of mind .. India, India or Adrienne, Adrienne as the latter went!

Anti-climactically, it turns out what I was looking for is an extremely popular song, Polyushko Polye, that has versions and renditions in several languages.  duh! Below is one such version from the Russian Red Army Choir.

O Field, My Field (Polyushko Polye)

Once the key search term – Polyushko Polye – was established, it wasn’t hard to find different flavors of this song on YouTube. Below is a compiled playlist of the ones that I liked. Enjoy (the female track and the balalaika versions are very good):

Now that all the pieces have started to fit, even midomi returned meaningful results upon humming the original Russian version.  Before you click on any of the midomi results links remember these are friendly voices not intended to scare anyone ;=)

I also found this lone post linking the two songs and venturing to say how communist leanings of Salilda could have provided him access to Soviet culture way-back-when and the result is Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke!

Spasiba, Lake / Salilda / Soviet Music!

Salil Chowdhury, renowned Bollywood Music Director, gave us such immortal classics as in (the songs of) Do Bigha Zamin, Madhumati et al.  Growing up in pre-independence India, he had listened to gramophone records of western classical music left behind by homebound English colleagues of his father.  This song is his tribute to Mozart (Symphony #40).  chhAya, the title of this Hindi movie, literally means shadow in English. Coincidentally, yesterday (Sep 5th) was the late Chowdhury’s 14th anniversary.

The title of this blogpost is intended respectfully to Salilda, RIP

Enjoy Ithna Na Mujhse Tu Pyar Badha ..

.. and, Symphony No.40, 1st Movement:

Lately, I have been drawn more toward watching foreign languages films mainly due to my own subliminal desire to glimpse, feel and be belonged to the expressions of zeitgeist from around the world. Walk on Water (WOW) did fulfill my desire. It is simple yet gripping. It has an ending, contrived and feel good as it may be, that leaves you with a wish to see more such realizations. As one of the protagonists says it is possible to walk on water when your heart is pure and filled with positive thoughts, it is still possible for coexistence based on common grounds and reconciliation even among seemingly the archest of enemies.

The plot primarily brings together Eyal, a Mossad assassin, who has a mid-life crisis to overcome and Axel, a German peacenik, who is schwul (Gay) and has a Nazi lineage. Bringing context to their interactions are uncommon stereotypes such as Rafik – the Palestenian Gay guy whom Axel picks up, Pia – Axels guilt-ridden sister who has decided to live in Israel, and Menachem – the professorly, Mossad boss, who has to get a 90-year old Nazi before God does!

Interesting and refreshing for me are the paradoxical “stereotypes” that are shown — a Gay, German guy who has not bedded another German; a Jewish assassin, who cannot kill his enemy anymore; a German Gay bartender, who is a possible racist; a Gay, Arab, who wont mind making a quick €100 off his German one night stand but can muster up to tell the Jewish protagonist not to be stuck in the past.  It is a world full of stereotypes and yet people painted with such broad brushes share more things in common than we realize with “other” stereotypes.

Now, to nitpick: Not sure how you can carry a firearm into another country. May be if you are secret service! For the most sophisticated intelligence agency, why one needs to carry a scrapbook-like dossier on your target all the time?

Lastly, who Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) ends up with – rather, how the story ends – is fantastic & (yet) plausible and that’s what WOW is about.

Watch the trailer of Tu Marcheras Sur L’Eau – the French (title) version of Lalekhet Al HaMayim – from Director Eytan Fox below:

A surprisingly gripping movie on subjects that are as disturbing as they are real and present in today’s world. We can believe that these problems would go away by simply following the three wise monkeys – see no evil, talk no evil, hear no evil. That’s one option. Or, we could do something about it in our own way. I would like to believe that the director (Giuseppe Tornatore) has attempted the latter by creating awareness to one more evil dimension of the flesh trade: sex workers brutalized and exploited even more, as baby machines. In doing that however, he has created no documentary but instead a tense and suspenseful thriller that does finish with redemption at the end. Hats off to Senor Tornatore for his guts and genius!

Needless to add, this film is not for everyone. Overall there is a sense of unknown that is maintained throughout the movie about its main character, Irina. Some of the abuses Irina (Kseniya Rappoport) has suffered that she replays in her mind – and, is there for the audience to “experience” as very graphic short takes – will repulse you into disgust and squeamishness. Perhaps, it is a tad over the top but pause for a moment to ponder if such might be the condition of people reliving these horrible and traumatic experiences in their minds. Also, the scenes where Irina keeps pushing little Thea to overcome her disability crosses abusive boundaries and will be hard for most of us to watch.

If Rappoport as The Unknown Woman has done a stellar job, it also helps to have cast this unknown as THE unknown woman.

Watch preview of La Sconosciuta (2006, Italian):

Seems like an all starcast – Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris – enacting the ALWAYS BE CLOSING mantra for Sales teams. Might still work for cars, real estate(?), and insurance. However, the future (if not already) is all about social decision-making and commerce. ALWAYS BE CLOSING changes somewhat to ALWAYS BE ENGAGING with your leads and prospects .. listen and understand what they need to know and deliver it to them in a relevant and compelling way (content marketing).

Alec Baldwin is powerful and at his “engaging” best in the following:

Glengarry Glen Ross: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI

Below is another “close the deal”, “motion creates motion” Ben Affleck spiel from the movie Boiler Room (2000).

“There is no such thing as a no sale call.  A sale is made on every call you make.  Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you on a reason he can’t.”

Boiler Room (1 of 2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqDtf1aw818

Boiler Room (2 of 2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIT_RMHwCEU

Well, we all know .. and are now living what the always be closing mantra has brought upon on us ..

Back to completing my initial thought ..

When these dancing queens are evenly matched and the fare is delectable, you join the villain of the movie in remarking, sabAsh, sariyAna pOtti! (read, bravo! what a contest!).

Below are examples of the duels (or duets) I am talking about. Enjoy!

Padmini vs Vyjayantimala (vanJi kOttai vAlibhan, 1958, Tamil)

Padmini vs Vyjayantimala (same as above but in HINDI)

Vyjayantimala vs Helen (Prince, 1969, Hindi)

Madhuri x Aishwarya (devdAs, 2002, Hindi)

There are those whose time is good and then there are those whose timing is good ;=)

Nagesh was one of the blessed few whose time and timing were both good.  He was arguably the closest India had to Jerry Lewis, who coincidentally himself received a special Oscar only couple of days back.  One of the few that Slumdog Millionaire missed!

Nagesh passed away recently.  Kollywood and his fans – I am one of them – will definitely and dearly miss him. God bless his soul.