The phenomenon of the various regional language film industries feeding material to the Hindi film industry in Bombay, and vice-versa, has been going on for a long time. In a country so diverse in its cultures and languages, it was always been natural to translate what works from one market into another market in the hopes of recapturing its success. In the early 90s, A. R. Rahman‘s music made it to a wider audience through very much this same process, of Tamil films being dubbed for a Hindi audience. By the early 2000s, while A.R. Rahman was still being translated to Hindi on occasion, there was a small surge of remakes instead of the dubs. The Hindi film industry was going through a small resurgence and the larger budgets meant remaking a film with more recognisable cast and in recognisable settings for the Hindi audience was a viable and attractive option. Chalka chalka re from the 2002 film Saathiya was one such song translated into Hind in a remake of a Tamil film (Alaipayuthey).
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Tag Archives: gulzar
Tum pukar lo
Hemant Kumar, while never gaining the sort of insane popularity as other playback singers of Hindi cinema during his time, always had a unique presence. On the surface, the slightly quivering quality of his voice set him apart from the rest, but beyond that, he had a honest cadence and a truly emotional delivery that made many of his songs nothing less than haunting. There can’t be a better example of all his strengths of voice and music than Tum pukar lo from the 1969 film Khamoshi.
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Naam adaa likhna
In 2005, Yahaan arrived and went by without anyone noticing, for the most part. The undervalued Jimmy Shergill might have had something to do with it, or the first outing of an actress no one had heard of, Minissha Lamba, or the ever complicated setting of Kashmir. But in spite of the lukewarm reception, the movie was a gem. The story was interesting, the camera work by Swedish cinematographer Jakob Ihre was beautiful, and the songs laced with Shantanu Moitra‘s music were ethereal. Of those, Naam adaa likhna stood out above the rest.
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