Word Play: Piya

I was looking through my notes to see what I could do for my next post. I was ill, up to my forehead in work and deadlines, and frustrated with people who could not keep the names of their characters straight, much less their ages and the chronology of events. More particularly, I was feeling totally wiped out by what seemed to be a cocktail of bugs all mutating inside me, and suffering withdrawal symptoms from watching too many serious, meaningful films. I needed a break. 

More than a year ago, when I was muddling through another boring day, I decided that it wasn't enough to make a list of 'My Favourites' that restricted me to that genre or category of songs. So I came up with Word Play. My excuse was that Hindi songs tend to use some words more than most, and so, why not find a way of listing my favourite songs that contain a particular word? What it more probably meant was that an idle mind is a devil's workshop. As my younger son says (and it makes me want to smack him!), Whatever!

The advantage, of course, was that these songs cut across genres, so it could be about love or heartbreak, meetings or separation, betrayal or philosophical musings. The settings could be rural or urban or in-between, and I didn't have to worry about defining the category I had set for myself, and explaining to my readers that no, that song does not count, because this is what I mean when I said that, and so on.

This category of songs does not need any definition. There is only one condition - the song has to begin with the chosen word,  or at the very least be the second word in the first sentence. (Preludes to songs did not count towards the condition.) I began the series with Raat.  My second word choice is almost as, if not more, ubiquitous. Piya.

Why not? Where would music and poetry and literature be without love? Where would we be without that blessed emotion? Equally obviously, one cannot 'love' without having someone to love. So, piya. 

After all, what's better than love to cheer oneself up? (I might say 'A goblet of Cointreau', but never mind me; my romanticism often gets dulled by my cynicism.) So I spent some time listening. The best romantic songs actually do not resort to clichés. I mean, if you are going to rhyme saiyyan with baiyyan... 

In any case, after a wonderful time spent soaking in some wonderful, wonderful melodies, I had to pick out all the songs that fulfilled my condition, and from those, whittle the list to the songs that I personally love. Piya. Beloved. Priya, priyatam, mehboob, mehbooba... so many, many synonyms, so much emotion vested in the syllables. So here, in no particular order, are my final selections.

 

1. Piya tose naina laage re  

Guide (1965)

Music: SD Burman

Lyrics: Shailendra

Artiste: Lata Mangeshkar

I lied. I do have a favourite, and this is it. Waheeda Rehman has long been one of my favourite heroines, one of those fortunate few who seem to have it all, beauty, grace, talent, and she's a fantastic dancer to boot. This song is one of the finest demonstrations of her talent for dance. Set as a series of stage performances, Piya tose naina laage re is the perfect synergy of music, lyrics and its exposition - nearly nine minutes of it. There are other dances in the film; in Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai for instance, where she dances nimbly on the crumbling walls, or my other favourite Mose chhal, or the snake dance sequence, which is one of the best I have ever seen, where she forgets herself in dance.

2. Piya piya na laage more jiya 

Phagun (1958)

Music: OP Nayyar

Lyrics: Qamar Jalalabadi
Artiste: Asha Bhosle

Another favourite heroine, Madhubala, and a lovely song that sings of the pangs of a first love. The lyrics are a bit more explicit in their longing than one would expect from a village girl of those times (we are used to more coy expressions of their regard), but still so innocent in their expression. The flute interludes are lovely, and the song ends with a long flute solo. Watching the clip (I saw the film a very long time ago, and have forgotten most of it.) I'm reminded that Madhubala may have been very graceful, but dancer she was not. This film had one of OP Nayyar's best scores, a dozen songs that included Ik pardesi mera dil le gaya (which borrowed the been music from the earlier Nagin) and Main soya akhiyan meeche.  

3. Piya aiso jiya mein  

Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam (1962)

Music: Hemant Kumar

Lyrics: Shakeel Badayuni

Artiste: Geeta Dutt

It's a different flavour of love, waiting for the beloved to arrive. Dressing up in anticipation, listening to each footstep and wondering if it is him, the anticipation veiled by innate shyness, the playfulness that is yet anxious, the feeling of losing oneself in another... Geeta Dutt's voice expressed every fluttering emotion in the wife's breast as she gets ready for her husband's arrival, and was mirrored onscreen by my favourite heroine of all time - Meena Kumari. 

4. Piya piya piya mera jiya pukare 

Baap re Baap (1955)

Music: OP Nayyar

Lyrics: Jaan Nisaar Akhtar

Artistes: Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle

A very playful romantic song, and with the music director's signature tonga beat, Piya piya piya had Asha Bhosle pairing up with her favourite colleague, Kishore Kumar. (The pair sang the most duets together.) A sulking Kishore, who miraculously cheers up when his beloved pops up from behind, a beautiful Chand Usmani and an avuncular father sitting beside a stoic cart driver, the song is beautifully picturised, with Kishore and his signature yodelling and Asha at her playful best. What was technically a recording glitch when Asha intervenes earlier than she should have, was papered over onscreen by Kishore gently closing his beloved's mouth, and continuing the song. It just made it seem all the more natural. 

5. Piya main to huyi baawri 

Shart (1954)

Music: Hemant Kumar

Lyrics: SH Bihari

Artiste: Lata Mangeshkar

The film is one of the many that are ruined by lackadaisical direction, no semblance of a coherent plot, and a hero who couldn't act (Deepak), but the heroine more than made up for all this. Shama was beautiful, could act, and this song is a perfect example - watch the expressions flit across her face. She is romantic and playful by turns, and is perfectly in sync with Lata's delightful rendering of this semi-classical number. The immensely forgettable film had an unforgettable score by Hemant Kumar that included multiple versions of the plaintive Na yeh chaand hoga and the romantic Dekho woh chaand chhupke. 

6. Piya main hoon patang 

Raagini (1958)
Music: OP Nayyar
Lyrics: Jaan Nissar Akhtar

Artistes: Asha Bhosle, Kishore Kumar

Picturised on Kishore Kumar and Jabeen Jaleel in a romantic mood, the lyrics fully express the nascent feeling of being in love. Funnily enough, Kishore has songs with both Jabeen and the film's heroine, Padmini, even though the film's hero is Ashok Kumar. Not one of OP Nayyar's greatest scores, but Raagini  had the caché of having Mohammed Rafi playback for Kishore Kumar (Man mora baawra) and the classical Chhed diye mere dil ke taar kyun (sung by Pandit Lakshman Prasad Jaipurwale and Ustad Niaz Ahmed Khan Saheb). 

7. Piya kaise miloon tujhse 

Saranga (1960) 

Music: Sardar Malik

Lyrics: Bharat Vyas

Artistes: Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi

You cannot have love without separation, nor separation without the longing to meet one's beloved. What is love after all, if it is not put through trials and tribulations that make the heart grow fonder in absentia? Add in a heroine who has to face many troubles, and a hero who is dying of love for her, and you have the stage set for a wonderful paean to love and longing. (I could have done without the dying fish, though.) Saranga may have been what was often referred to as a B-grade film starring Jaishree Gadkar and Sudesh Kumar, but it had a stupendous musical score.

I do not usually go beyond the 60s in my song lists, but sometimes, just sometimes, I make an exception. While collating this particular list, I found a few songs that I like very, very much. The golden age of Hindi film music may have passed, but there were still a few directors and music directors who kept the flag flying. The next three songs are indicative of an age, yet diverse in their scope. They may not (all) be everyone's cup of tea, but I think they have held their own through the passing of the ages. 

8. Piya sang khelo Holi 
Phagun (1973)
Music: SD Burman
Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri
Artiste: Lata Mangeshkar
One of the few films in this period that used songs to pull the narrative along, it sets the tone for the rest of the film. Picturised on the beauteous Waheeda, the song celebrates the coming of Phagun, the month of Holi. Set against a Maharashtrian backdrop (another rarity in Hindi films), the rich Shanta (Waheeda) is waiting for her husband to come home, but is persuaded by her friends to take part in their celebrations. She gives in to their pleas and dances in exuberance only to have her loving husband come home and spray her expensive sari with rang. What follows next forms the rest of a very different tale by Rajinder Singh Bedi. 

9. Piya bina
Abhimaan (1973)
Music: SD Burman
Lyrics: 
Artiste: Lata Mangeshkar 
It is interesting that this brings in a shade of love that is the most heartbreaking. What does you do when your beloved is angry with you for no fault of yours? When the quality that made him fall in love with you is the same quality that is driving him away? In a tale of a marriage riven asunder by ego, each line that she sings is indicative of her grief at his leaving, and how empty her life is without him. It is a grief that is heard and understood by their friends, yet he is unbending. One of SD Burman's last scores (he composed for less than a dozen films after this), he breathed life into the songs in a film that narrated a tale of how music becomes responsible for the disharmony in the protagonists' lives. 

10. Piya tu, ab tu aa jaa

Caravan (1971)
Music: RD Burman
Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri
Artiste: Asha Bhosle, RD Burman
I reserved this for the last because this is truly what I term a guilty pleasure. It is very different from the other songs on this list because even though it sings of longing, a) it is a nightclub number i.e., it is not really sung by a woman to her beloved and b) musically, the song veers from the softly romantic or folksy notes of the previous songs to bring in thumping western rhythms. RD Burman's music for this film traversed myriad genres, from the joyous Goriya kahaan tera des re to the crazy Daiyan ye main kahaan aa phansi (a song that Asha claimed was the most difficult song of her career) to this provocative, sensuous number; add Asha at the height of her vocal prowess, and a beautiful, graceful Helen, and one can understand why this song had become the anthem of a generation, and still holds sway over the airwaves.

If I did expand my criteria to songs that had the word piya in the mukhda, my list would have multiplied manifold. Never mind. I can always find some category to fit them in. So many more movies to watch, so many more songs to list, so many more books to read, and so. little. time. 

Why don't you list some of your favourite songs for me?