The music of Umrao Jaan

The music of Umrao Jaan comes across as a welcome digression from the regular fast-paced pop-beat-insipred music dished out in most of the films these days. It's actually a little hard to believe that the score is composed by Anu Malik - he, of "oonchee hai building" and "tan tana tan tan tan tara" fame, and although an ever so slight influence of common romantic hindi film songs is noticeable in a couple of songs, it still is a good composition.

The only problem which stood out for me almost immediately was how misfit Alka Yagnik's voice sounded given the setting of the film and Umrao Jaan Ada - the character. Over the years Alka Yagnik has become the defacto voice for say, a Shilpa Shetty or Preity Zinta running around singing romantic numbers. It's a bit hard to imagine that voice as that of a courtesan singing in a mehfil. Perhaps listening to the songs while watching the film will help change that perception. It's not that Alka Yagnik does a bad job of it - that's unheard of - but it's amazing to now notice how effortlessly Asha Bhosale would have fit in such a playback role. I may draw flak from music connoisseurs when I admit that I haven't yet listened to all the songs from the original Umrao Jaan, so I'll have to put off comparisons with the original for a while. Wouldn't have been such a bad idea for Anu Malik to have given a new singer a couple of songs. All in all though, the music deserves a thumbs-up.

Songs worth listening to in particular : Pehle pehel, Jhute ilzaam, Main na mil sakoon jo tumse, Poocch rahe hain

Update: It turns out that I have infact heard (and liked) the songs from the original one without knowing that they were from Umrao Jaan.

Pune = Karachi?

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are visiting Pune and while that is quite common in terms of the hordes of famous Hollywood celebrities that make their way to the city, what is rare is that the producers of the film (in which Jolie is playing slain journalist Daniel Pearl's wife) have found resemblance between Pune and Karachi! This is interesting not only for the fact that all these years I have heard that Mumbai and Karachi look quite similar, but because I really doubt if Karachi has anywhere near as many potholes on its roads as those that adorn dear old Pune.