"Sagaai" - an under-appreciated gem

When talking of C.Ramchandra and his great soundtracks, "Sagaai" gets usually overlooked. If so, its more to do with the utter luminousness of tracks like "Yasmeen", "Parchhaain" and "Albelaa" than with any deficiency with "Sagaai", for on repeated listens, I find myself becoming more and more enthralled with the quality of the soundtrack. This is a soundtrack worth treasuring. It has the usual CR-Lata heavenlies but also showcases, IMO, Rafi at his melodious best !! My favorites from this track :

i) o baabuu kaise dil pe kare.n kaabuu batalaaye jaa : This film followed the runaway success of Samaadhi which boasted of gore gore o baa.Nke chhore. CR has obviously tried to repeat the success of the song here using the same singers - and IMO, he succeeds brilliantly !! Its a total fun song where both Lata and Ameerbai sound wonderful. Where I occasionally skip gore gore o baa.Nke chhore, I never do o baabuu. Its a much livelier song..

ii) aa.Nkho.n se jo bhii aa.Nsuu bahegaa
iii) dil kii kahaanii kahanaa to chaahe.n
No track of CR can be complete with some Lata beauties and what beauties these are !! A slightly nasal tinge to Lata's voice make these songs extra sweet. Amongst the best of this great combo..

iv) udhar se tum chale aur ham idhar se : I saved my favorite for the last. Oh, what a song this is !! I can never ever tire of hearing this. Rafi was meant to sing like this. What flair, what melody and what style he brings into a simple and effortless rendition. Yes, Lata is sweet as ever but to me, its Rafi's singing that makes this song ultra-special to me. I might have no hesitation in nominating this as the best ever Lata-Rafi duet. CR managed to keep Rafi under restraint and hence got some of his best renditions.

The song has other nice songs too - a pleasing Lata-Talat duet mohobbat me aese zamaane bhii aaye, a bunch of fun songs, Lata's o DaDDiijii and her chorus backed triplet with Chitalkar and Rafi, jhukatii hai duniyaa jhukaane vaalaa chaahiye. Overall, an evergreen gem of a soundtrack.

Tere saath chal rahe hain yeh zameen - Angaarey

A charming duet from one of S.D.Burman's less successful yet fondly remembered tracks from the early 1950s. Talat and Lata dazzle here, clearly at their respective peaks. Lata sounds deliciously sweet..

Lata - "bahaaren phir bhii aaye.ngii"

One of the finest of Lata's melodies ever. This is indisputably great composer Shyam Sundar's biggest claim to eternal fame. An early Lata voice in all its raw beauty. Cant get enough of this..

"Paava manippu" - A timeless soundtrack

Director Bhimsingh had established a nice team around making simple, family themed melodramas usually starring Sivaji Ganesan in the lead with Savitri, Gemini Ganesan, Devika, Balayya, Ranga Rao, Thangavelu and Chandrababu making regular appearences as well. "Paava manippu" came after "Pathi bhakthi" which was the director's first big success. But this was the film which really established the Bhimsingh theme of "small family stories". And of course, it boasted of sensational music.

Viswanathan Ramamoorthy had delivered brilliantly for Bhimsing in "Pathi bhakthi" but even by their own exalted standards, "Paava manippu" was a stunner. Every song in the track is worth treasuring for centuries and milleniums.. TMS, P.Suseela and P.B.Srinivas all at the peak of their powers. My favorites from this track :

vandha naaL mudhal : TMS is awesome. Kannadasan pens a critical take on humans and even a Tamil illiterate like me is wondered by these words :

paravaiai kaNdaan vimaanam padaiththaan
paayum meengalil padaginaikkandaan
edhiroli kaettaan vaanoli padaiththaan
edhanaikkandaan panamdhanaip padaiththan

A poor translation :

<i>he saw the birds and invented planes
the leaping fishes gave him the idea of boats
echoes he heard and created the radio
what did he see to create money</i>

I have always felt that the last line in the stanza we hear is an edited or a resung version - a badly done one at that. If you hear the stanza, the sound of the last line stands out obviously. What did Kannadasan actually pen in there ? I recall having heard somewhere "madhangaLai padaiththaan" instead of "panamdhanaip padaiththan" (meaning religions or castes). I wonder...

paal irukkum [Youtube] : A superlative Suseela solo going on Devika. The prelude music to the melody is a representative of the composers duo's orchestral finesse and the reason why they were such a revolution in Tamil cinema. So breezy, yet it hits you where it should.

aththaan ennaththaan : Perhaps the most famous Tamil song ever. Lata Mangeshkar's statement at the time to this song being one of her favorites raised this song's popularity all over the country and it has acquired a cult status, a song synonmous with the romance of a shy girl. Wonderful lyrics . superlative composition and subdued orchestration and beautiful singing.. perfection.

Other superb songs in the track include TMS' "silar siripaar silar azuvaar" and P.B.Srinivas' "kaalangalil aval vasantham". It is interesting that though this film has Gemini Ganesan in just a supporting role, the PBS song has become the definitive Gemini Ganesan song. No retrospect of PBS or Gemini Ganesan can ever be complete without a mention of this hugely popular melody.

A stellar soundtrack.. one of my all-time favorites !!

Jab jab phool khile tumhe yaad kiya - Shikast

A stunning beauty from Shankar Jaikishan during the pair's creatively peak years of the early 1950s. Lata and Talat sang a number of songs for SJ during this period and this duet is one of their very best. One of the definitive melodies of the time..