A tale of two songs.

Two songs have been composed for the Commonwealth Games. One is by Palash Sen who has a group called Euphoria.  The other is by A.R. Rahman.  Therein lies the tale.

The song by Palash Sen is fantastic. The lyrics evoke the old time Delhi- you know the sepia tinted photographs of an era long gone by. Of course Palash Sen is very much a Delhite. He grew up in Delhi and he lives in Delhi and the passion for his city is reflected in the song. We can argue endlessly whether Delhi as a city is worth being passionate about but as someone who grew up in Delhi I remember a Delhi that is every different from the one it is today.  Listening to the Delhi theme song, it is that old time Delhi, the laid-back city, the one with wide tree-lined avenues, the one of lazy winter afternoons flashes through the mind.

I listened to A.R.Rahman's song too and I think the major problem is the language. Palash Sen has very wisely stuck to Hindi.  It is different matter whether Hindi is the language of our country or not. But the fact is that the ethos, the passion is usually reflected only one's native tongue.  A. R. Rahman's song is a kichdi. It is a wannabe and unfortunately it remains a wannabe. The music content of many of Rahman's song takes multiple listening before it grows on to you. So I am keeping an open mind. Maybe I will like the music after multiple listenings.   But what do we do with the lyric. Nonsense lyrics like Take it Easy policy is okay for a movie. However, when you expand it to something like Commonwealth Games it is stupid. 

A.R. Rahman had said that he would do one better than Waka Waka, the theme song of World Cup. We will leave it for history to judge it.  Personally, I prefer Waka Waka.

In today's Delhi Times Geeta Chandran has aptly summed up the problem with the theme music. And she concludes by reminding the readers of the Asiad theme song which was set to music by Ravi Shankar and sung by Amitabh Bacchan. The point to remember is that the music as well as lyric were so simple that all of us hummed.  

As a last point I do not know how much Palash Sen was paid but definitely Rs 5 crore that was paid to Rahman for a theme song is obscene especially when there was flash flood in Ladakh and parts of Bihar are reeling under drought.