#416

          Song:   ruutha hua chanda hai ruuthi hui chaandni
                  tum hi kaho kaun manaaye ji
                  ruutha hua kaanha hai ruuthi hui baansuri
                  kaise koi geet sunaaye ji

          Film:   Aaram (1951)
          Singer: Lata Mangeshkar
          Music:  Anil Biswas
          Lyrics: Prem Dhawan
          *ing:   Madhubala, Dev Anand
 

  I had elicited considerable flak a while ago when I had said that this was
  probably Anilda's best soundtrack yet, but I'll say it again. Applying
  the metric of "highest percentage of excellent songs = best soundtrack",
  and refraining from belaboring the by-now superfluous "IMHO", this IS
  his best soundtrack. It does sound judgemental, so flay that if you
  will :-)

  Except for the highly amusing "yeh zindagi hai yo-yo" in Manmohan
  Krishna's voice (which does have it's own charm), there is not a single
  song in this movie that fails to enthrall, which makes the selection
  of one song from it an exercise in picking first among equals. Reading
  from left to right... Lata solos like "man mei.N kisi ki priit basaale..",
  "ujDi re mere pyaar ki duniya..", "mil mil ke bichhaD gaye nain..", etc.,
  Mukesh's "ae jaan-e-jigar", Talat's "shukriya ae pyaar tera"... each
  competes with the other in greatness. I remember the time when I first
  saw this movie, going into a series of Goshes, Omigods and Wows every time
  a song came on- see, I'd heard all these separately, but had no idea they
  all belonged to the same movie, and a Madhubala movie to boot.

  So anyway, this one was selected for an added reason - the delightful
  visuals that go with it : a young, playful, angelic Madhubala trying to
  cheer up a brooding, sulking Dev. Finally, at the end of a predictable
  sequence of contrived pouts (and cigarette puffs for effect), our man
  comes around, as Lata concludes with -
          dekho ji haT gayii kaari badariya
          chamkaa hai chaand phir baaji bansuriya
          dil to hai(?) maan gaye, zid hai magar pyaar ki
          pehle kise kaun bulaaye ji

  A brilliant harmony between tune of the song and it's picturization, and
  though it does not demand much by way of acting from either, it is
  immensely enjoyable to watch.

  Strange thing is, there is not a single song picturized on Dev Anand - of
  the two male solos, one is on Premnath (the wrong vertex of the romantic
  triangle) and the other ("shukriya ae pyaar tera") on Talat himself.

  To drive it home... an a-mazing soundtrack. Nuff sed.
 

  ..Hrishi