A few days ago, I was on a bus when this song floated out of the speakers. Automatic smile across my face. There is something about these songs which tenderly bless the even more tender woman in the song. What makes it even more special is Rafi's voice caressing your ears. Naazuk words made even more naazuk. Nothing can smoothen your ruffled feathers at the end of a rough day like this song. I know I am exaggerating, but it really is a lovely song.
Like many of the songs of the 1960s, this is one of the songs I heard a countless number of times before actually seeing its picturization in the movie. As usual, once you see the picturization, the quaintness of the song unfolds. It's only when I saw it that I noticed that the song starts with soft regular guitar strumming. Why so? Because there is not a single guitar in that scene! Now, that's not unusual in a Bollywood movie, but a guitar replaced by a sitar which the actor is not even playing? Well. And then you notice that the ambiance that the intro creates is nothing like the scene in the move. It's supposed to be a song about a singer serenading a princess in an ancient royal court. Thankfully, as the song goes on, you realize that it does not jar that much because there is actually a lot of sitar playing in the song and you go, "Hmm. Guitar and sitar. Interesting combination."
The songs of that period had a certain lilting quality, which my mother describes as "songs which make your heart fly." She says new songs don't have that power. This is a song which reminds one of flowers under the open sky, and for some reason, also reminds me of moonlight. At the same time, it does not quite gel with that imagery which I'm calling romantic because I can't think of a better word. The sitar makes it sound too royal for that. Really, what a strange mixture of images in my head. When he sings "Naazuk ho naaz se bhi..." I imagine Saira Banu or maybe Sharmila Tagore walking in a garden in a saree or a salwar kameez, playing with her plait. And let me also add a Shammi Kapoor following her around. But then the really complicated sitar and the powerful tabla playing in teentaal takes my mind straight to a Mughal-e-Azam type of scene.
Anyway, maybe I should actually stop dissecting this song. No need to spoil the memory of that bus trip when I gazed dreamily at the gulmohar against the blue sky and thought, "Ah! Bless the driver. He's got good taste."
