Songs and musician credits at the end. Also a caveat before I start, I am yet to watch the movie. Hoping to rectify it soon, after the OTT release tonight!
After having featured him in a few tracks in Tamil, composer A R Rahman brings Adithya RK to Hindi with Vo Nahin. A song that starts off in a similar zone to a very underrated ARR track, Meherbaan (Ada), before going on a totally different path led by the violins, which are outstandingly employed especially in the interlude and through the antara/charanam. And this goes for both the strings section by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra and the solo violin/cello by Rangapriya and Seenu. The song then takes an uplifting turn as the brilliant Armaan Khan and Sameer Khan steer the song from lament to an almost-devotional mode (Hamir Kalyani/Kedaar raaga partly I think? Terrific writing by Irshad Kamil for this portion); there is a wave of elation that washes over you as those taranas hit you. About a minute and a half later, they fade away as Adithya returns to close out the song as he started – that transition back is handled beautifully. There is something about the delightful Kya Kamaal Hai that makes me revisit another recent favourite of mine, from Pritam – Kahaani (Laal Singh Chaddha). Thematically there seem to be parallels – musings of the protagonist (a Sardar, no less!) about life and the world around them, set to an instantly likeable,Western-flavoured melody (likely nod to What a Wonderful World here, which Kamil’s lines also seem to reflect the spirit of). And in Diljit Dosanjh, we have an earnest voice, a la Mohan Kannan in Kahaani, delivering the song with the right emotions. Of course, being an ARR song comes with a likelihood of a surprise twist somewhere along the way. In this case, it is when the track goes full gospel towards the end with a lovely chorus joining the proceedings, the highlight of the song for me.
Nargis Teji and Pooja Tiwari are superb in their delivery of the folk melody in Ishq Mastana, so much so that the sudden switch to rock and roll with Mohit Chauhan feels almost like a rude interruption. That portion by itself sounds nice as well, to be fair, and I really liked when the two come together at one point; the folk tune juxtaposed with the brass and that walking bass line sounds quite cool. But overall, I would have preferred this as a pure folk song. Maskara is another track that did not impress me as much. That gabgubi phrase that keeps recurring through most of the song, and the general playful nature of the track has meant the inevitable comparison with another ARR-Irshad Kamil-Imtiaz Ali song, Katiya Karun (Rockstar). And just like Katiya Karun had an outro where it switched gears to a wistful romantic piece, Maskara too transitions in a similar way around its halfway mark. It is the singing that didn’t quite work for me here though, bassist-turned-singer Nilanjana Ghosh Dastidar appears to be as solid a singer as she is a bassist, but I personally felt that her singing style didn’t suit the song. One of the movie’s main men, Vedang Raina, who features in the second half, is a slightly better fit that way. In any case, the star of the song for me is Ashwin Srinivasan, whose flute passages (think I sensed a bit of alghoza as well) contribute immensely to the flighty nature of the Dastidar segment of the song, and later also heralds Raina’s entry.
You hear the piano prelude of Dheere Dheere and you just know that you are in for a memorable ride. And what an achingly beautiful track it turns out to be! Almost everything about this song is so perfectly tender and poignant – the waltz meter, Keba Jeremiah’s guitar and the maestro’s piano (interestingly in the first interlude, there seems to be a brief attempt to mirror the cascading violins from the interlude of Vo Nahin, which in turn felt like a nod to Vivaldi’s Storm, wonder if the callback here is deliberate), there is even that soft, twinkly chime underlining the track that has a hypnotic quality about it. And then you have the vocals. The flavour of the season, Faheem Abdullah, opens the song with the softest rendition I have heard him deliver. He is joined by Antara Nandy and then Shilpa Rao in the second stanza (found it a bit amusing that Antara Nandy’s first line in the song speaks about dariya and kashti, considering her first song for the composer in Ponniyin Selvan was also around the ocean and a boat :D). I did add an “almost” while describing this song at the start, and that is because this one too has a surprise, dark diversion led by the ladies that starts off a bit awkwardly before settling into a classical scale (puriya dhanashree/panthuvarali from the sound of it). Very briefly of course, before Abdullah, aided by some lovely humming from Nandy, resumes normal service; much like the other transitions throughout this album.
The soundtrack takes a short break from the Hindi+Punjabi milieu to give us the Bengali folk track called Dariya. While the song’s overall flavour is Bengali, Kamil’s lines switch from Hindi to Bengali to, Punjabi again! – the last one in particular making for an interesting contrast. While Armaan Khan handles the former two languages, Rahman gets Romy to deliver the Punjabi lines, both singers putting in a solid shift. I love how there is a different percussion instrument characterising each segment (all arranged and performed by Rajarshi Mitter as per credits) – for the Hindi bits it sounds like a kanjira-like frame drum of some kind, I assume it is the dubki. The Bengali lines are announced with the lovely khol, and a few moments into Romy’s Punjabi words, you hear strains of the ghatam. Amidst all of this, there is also Kamalakar’s (interestingly this album has four different flautists; not sure I have seen that many feature in a soundtrack before) plaintive flute phrases adding to the gravitas of the song. Finally, Tere Paas Main. What.A.Song. Retro songs have been all the rage in Bollywood in recent years, and this is one of the most beautifully crafted songs in the category. There is that waltz meter, the unhurried pacing of the track, a gorgeous melody carrying shades of the endearing desh raaga, and to top it all off, Deepali Sahay’s fantabulous singing that makes you go weak in the knees. There have been a lot of comparisons with Hum Tere Pyaar Mein (Dil Ek Mandir), but there is another track that it slightly reminds me of, this Malayalam lullaby by Jerry Amaldev. In keeping with the retro theme, the composer keeps this one devoid of any surprise twists. And another delightful retro touch – the two antaras set to two different melodies, something I sorely miss in songs these days! In fact, the melody in the second antara goes through some tricky ups and downs that Sahay handles admirably; the way that segment links back to the opening verse (tum saamne se, sheesha hataa lo..) is my favourite bit from the song. There is also a wonderful mélange of strings (Prague Philharmonic), guitar (Shrey Gupta) and sarod (Rohan Prasanna, who also delivers a nice solo in the interlude) accompanying the singer in that final iteration of the main melody that follows. Interesting that although this one is a female version, Kamil’s lines seem to imply a masculine PoV. Vipin Aneja does a fine job in the shorter male version that carries a more Western classical flavour, but Deepali Sahay’s rendition is a tough act to follow! It would take something exceptional in the next 4 months for this to not be the top Hindi song of the year in my end-of-year roundup.
15 years since their first outing together, the Imtiaz Ali-A R Rahman-Irshad Kamil team shows no signs of slowing down. And looking purely at ARR’s portfolio as well, this is the best soundtrack that the man has delivered in a long time!
Music Aloud Rating: 4.5/5
Top Recos: Too many to list, but start with Tere Paas Main!
Musician credits
Songs composed, produced, and arranged by A.R. Rahman
Lyrics – Irshad Kamil
Dheere Dheere
Singers – Faheem Abdulla, Shilpa Rao, Antara Nandy, Heer
Guitars – Keba Jeremiah
Strings – Budapest Scoring Orchestra
Mixed by – P.A. Deepak
Ishq Mastana
Singers: Mohit Chauhan, Nargis Teji, Pooja Tiwari
Guitars: Shrey Gupta
Indian strokes: Tapas Roy
Indian Rhythm: Sanket Naik
Tumbi: Hiral Viradia
Additional Programming: Sarthak Kalyani
Chorus Arranged and Constructed by Arjun Chandy
Chorus: Hriday Gattani, Arjun Chandy, Sarath Santosh, Aravind Srinivasan, Aparna
Harikumar, Malavika Rajhesh, Deepthi Suresh, Romy, Soubhagya Mohapatra
Mixed by P.A. Deepak
Maskara
Singers – Nilanjana Ghosh Dastidar, Vedang Raina
Flute – Ashwin Srinivasan
Guitars – Shrey Gupta
Dholak, Dhol, Percussions – Dipesh Verma, Ratnadeep Jamsandekar
Bass – Nilanjana Ghosh Dastidar
Mixed by Pradvay Sivashankar
Tere Paas Main
Singer – Deepali Sahay/Vipin Aneja
Additional programming – Shubham Bhat
Flute – Naveen Kumar
Sarod – Rohan Prasanna
Strings – Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague
Guitar – Shrey Gupta
Mixed by – Nithish R Kumar
Dariya Hi Dariya
Singers – Armaan Khan, Romy
Flute – Kamlakar
Percussion arranged and performed by – Rajarshi Mitter
Mixed by – P.A. Deepak
Vo Nahin
Singers – Adithya RK, Armaan Khan, Sameer Khan
Guitars – Keba Jeremiah
Sitar – Asad Khan
Solo Violin – Rangapriya
Solo Cello – Seenu
Harmonium – Shubham Bhat
Chief Recording Engineer – Hiral Viradia
Kya Kamaal Hai
Singer – Diljit Dosanjh
Flute – Ashish Venkateswaran
Additional Orchestration – Shubham Bhat
Chief Recording Engineer – Hiral Viradia
Chorus arranged and conducted by – Arjun Chandy
Chorus singers – Deepthi Suresh, Aparna Harikumar, Lavita Lobo, Aravind Srinivas, Ishan Rojindar, Manikandan Chembai, Arjun Chandy
Mixed by Nitish R Kumar
Sound Engineers:
Panchathan Record Inn, Chennai
Senior engineers: Suresh Permal, Karthik Sekaran
Assisting engineers: Sathish V Saravanan, Bharath, Sarath Santhosh
Panchathan Record Inn, Mumbai
Senior engineer: Nitish R Kumar
Assisting engineer: Naval Chikhliya
Head of Technical Services: Riyasdeen Riyan
Dolby Atmos Music: Riyasdeen Riyan
Musician Coordinators: R Samidurai, Abdul Hayum
Background music composed, arranged, and produced by –
A.R. Rahman
Music Editor & Supervisor –
Hiral Viradia
Background music mixed by –
Suresh Permal
Additional programmers – Sidharth Narayanan, Shubham Bhatt
Musicians –
Guitars : Shrey Gupta
Flute : Kamlakar, Ashish Venkateswaram
Saaz, Rabab, Mandolin : S.M. Subhani
Additional Vocals and Tumbi : Hiral Viradia
Solo Violin – Phrabhakaran
Strings recorded with Budapest Scoring Orchestra :
Recording Studio – Rottenbiller Hall
Conductor: Abel Tompa
Orchestra Indian Representative – Balasubramanian G
Session Producer – Bálint Sapszon
Engineered by Viktor Szabó
Librarian- Anna Sapszo, Kati Reti
Orchestrators – Samarth Srinivasan, Nipun Bhatnagar
Mumbai Strings
Jitendra Hansraj Javda, Dharmendra Jawda, Chandan singh, Raju Padhiyar, Leo velho, Margarita Gapparova
Recording Studio – Studio 504
