#474

      Song:    piya aaja re, dil mera pukaare piya aaja re
               samaa hai pyaara pyaara, javaan hai ye nazaara
               betaab dil hamaara, nazar hai besahaara
               piya aaja re, dil mera pukaare piya aaja re

      Film:    Footpath (1953)
      Singer:  Asha Bhosle
      Music:   Khaiyyaam
      Lyrics:  Majrooh Sultanpuri/Sardar Jaffri (?)
      *ing:    Dilip Kumar, Meena Kumari

One of the four glorious Asha solos from this peerless soundtrack,
Khaiyyaam's first as an independent composer, I think. It's a pity that
these beauties have been eclipsed by 'shaam-e-gham ki qasam'; haven't
seen them figure on any compilation.

The lyrics of this song seem to be at odds with the picturization and
situation in some places, though - the song is depicted in a sad,
brooding setting, and though most of the song reflects this, phrases
like "samaa hai pyaara pyaara...", etc. seem misplaced. Nevertheless,
it is a lovely song, in Asha's early voice. Her voice and singing style
are rather unusual in this movie ; Vandana (Venkatesan) had written
about this a while ago on RMIM. Reproducing part of her post here:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Asha's style in FOOTPATH (Was: Lata sounding like Suman)
From: vvenkate@pcocd2.intel.com
Date: 1996/10/01
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.misc

[...snip...]
"Footpath" with Khaiyyam's music was one of the first movies with big
names like Dilip Kumar and Meena Kumarito feature Asha Bhonsle
exclusively as the lead female singer.  If you can get hold of the four
Asha solos in "Footpath", it will be an interesting study in Asha's
early style of singing.

The lori in which she sounds so sweet, so delicate and so close to her
didi's voice is:
    "So ja mere pyaare so ja so ja,
    akhiyon ke taare so ja so ja"
I would say she sounds sweet also in the sad solo:
    "Piya aaja re dil mera pukaare piya aaja re"

She sounds a tad nasal and Geeta Dutt-ish in the `moony' song :
    "Kaisa jaadoo daala re, balmaa na jaane,
     ghadi ghadi machale re, jiya nahin maane"

And then she sounds herself (or what OPN would later make her establish
as her own style) in the fast club number:
    "Arararam, arara rarara rarara rarara rum
     suhana hai yeh mausam, salona mera baalam
     miTenge saare dil ke gham, arararam!"

It is hard to beleive that when I played these four songs
from "Footpath" to two very knowledgeable friends during the RMIMeet
(West), they had trouble recognizing all of them to be Asha.

It is a crime that HMV has popularized only the Talat solo "Shaam-e-
gham ki kasam" from this movie and sentenced these Asha gems to
oblivion.  If anyone has listened to the "Footpath" solos, I would love
to hear a more informed analysis of how Asha developed her style of
singing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

In addition to the songs, this movie has got an excellent background
music score by Timir Baran... fits the sombre mood of the movie quite
well (wonder what fascination Zia Sarhadi had for these dark themes...
Footpath, Aawaaz, etc.)

Also, could someone confirm the lyricist? It is one of the two I
mentioned.