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Journalism of Courage
Music composer and singer Neeraj Shridhar on how he fell in love with the music of Padosan
For me,the greatest classic of all times is the album of the film Padosan (1968). The music,composed by R.D. Burman,is not appreciated enough. Its not easy to compose such beautiful and entirely appropriate music for a comedy film. Padosans soundtrack is very rich in Indian musical tradition,but it also fits the story and theme of the movie just right. Two songs stand out in particular in my memoryone is the song that Saira Banu sings in the bathtub,Bhai batur ab jayenge kitni door. Lataji has sung that song so wonderfully. The other song I love is Kehna hai,which is simply beautiful. In fact,the soundtrack of this movie has influenced me so much that I even remade a couple of songs like Main chali and Mere saamnewali khidki mein,for my own albums.
I first heard the album at a friends house in Stockholm. His father was a collector of old films and one afternoon,he got us to watch a couple of movies one of which was Padosan. I instantly fell in love with it and watched it again a few more times. I got so excited by the music that I even called over a few of my non-Indian neighbours to listen to it. The music also became a rage in my school. My classmates used to sing the song Meri pyari bindu in the classroom. Since they didnt understand the language,they would replace most of the words with gibberish,except the gud gud sound. Once,my teacher came in and heard us sing. She wanted to know what was going on. I made her watch the movie too and she too fell in love with the music.
I have three DVDs of the film,so that if one stops working,Ill still have a back-up. But its been six months since I last watched it,so I think its time to revisit that classic.
