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).
Continue reading
Tag Archives: a r rahman
Yeh haseen wadiyan
As much of a startling change to the landscape of Hindi film music as A.R. Rahman was in the mid-1990s, his transition from Tamil films to mainstream Hindi cinema was also a gradual one from the audience’s perspective. He only showed up on the average film-fan’s radar with the release of the Hindi dub of Roja and its music in 1994. The film had been released in the original Tamil two years earlier and was Rahman’s first outing as music director, but the Hindi songs that came out of the later release sealed his place in minds of a much larger audience. It also explains the popularity of the songs of Thiruda Thiruda at the time; the people wanted to hear more, even if it was in a different language. However, it all really started with Roja, and Yeh haseen wadiyan remains one of the memorable tracks from the film that’s still played often after nearly two decades.
Continue reading
Konjam nilavu
As teenagers in the 90s, we had started to assert our tastes in music beyond our parents’ choice of old Hindi film melodies. While we liked those too, we were ever open to new influences, and so it was during a ride in our Aunt and Uncle’s car, that our cousins put in the audio tape for Thiruda Thiruda. That was the first time I heard Konjam nilavu, or Chandralekha as it came to be referred to popularly, especially in its later Hindi version. Considering no one in the family spoke or understood the language, the playing of the original Tamil soundtrack was even more strange and memorable.
Continue reading