29 April, 2008

Mere dholana - A song of rare excellence

I came acroos the song "Mere dholana sun,meri pyaar ki dhun" , while watching the film "Bhool bhulaiiya" on my DVD a few weeks ago. I think everyone from the appreciative audience to music critics missed this song totally, The movie no doubt was a super hit and the songs too were a raging hit, especially"Hare Krishna, Hare Ram", but noone appreciated the beauty ofthe above mentioned song. AmImissing something which others have'nt? Is the song a copy of some other original work? If so, then I request someone to point it out to me. It is indeed sad that the common people have completely lost the taste for good tunes which are Raga based. I would like to know, on which Raga is this particular song based on. While the songs of Jodhaa Akbar were appreciated for their spiritual and Sufi element, this song did not get any mention anywhere. The male singer of course is a noted Carnatic vocalist M.Sreedhar, but the surprise package is Shreya Ghoshal. With this song, she has certainly made her mark finally and has left Alka Yagnik and Sunidhi Chauhan far behind. Sunidhi, alas has done a grave injustice to her talent after winning the shows l9ike "Meri awaz suno" and "TVS SaReGaMa" as a child artiste. Shreya too won the same title a couple of years later, but has since honed her skills very nicely and can now sing all varieties of songs. Sunidhi is just reduced to singing saucy item numbers.One more point here. With the advent of digital technology, singers can give "breathless" performances by simply singing ion small takes and then the editors pick them up and cut and paste the songs. It was evident in Mere dholana also, where the last portion of the intricate sargam was sung with the breath held for a great length of time. Or has the singer actually sung it "live" with no takes?