Hoshwalon ko khabar - A Cover Version

Song: Hoshwalon ko khabar
Film : Sarfarosh 
Composer : Jatin-Lalit
Originally Sung by : Jagjit Singh 
Genre : Ghazal 

Covered by : Murali Venkatraman

Thanks to Raja Govindarajan for introducing me to the wonderful world of semi-classical singing in Hindi, Bangla and Telugu in 2000.  He sent me two cassettes with the choicest melodies of Ghulam Ali's ghazals, Hariharan's Hazir, Ajoy Chakraborty's raagpradhaan and SPB's old telugu classics.  While gravitating to SPB's numbers was easy as my soul was nurtured in a south-indian family, I could not help but get severely attracted to ghazals and raagpradhaan. Thus over the past 15 years I have been predominantly into (self)learning the nuances of these genres helped amply by my wife Lalita and given some good pointers by my good friend Ramanan Moorthy (Dallas). In this process, I discovered a whole array of singers who made me crave for more and more of the melody genre where their deft singing embellished the gazillion accidentals which one could miss if a careful listening is not accorded.  Singers like Manna dey, Shyamal Mitra, Sandhya Mukherjee and Haimanti Shukla whose works I flirted with have now become the staple source.

However, both urdu and bangla are tricky languages with inflections, intonations and pronunciation that one needs to familiarize with, to an extent that he does not sound out of place or at times, idiotic. Both are north-indian languages which are similar to hindi in some sense ( urdu in grammar and bangla in vocabulary) but far different from it in many aspects as well ( urdu in vocabulary and bangla in pronunciation ).  Hence a singer constantly and consciously requires to examine his/her diction.  This had pretty much shunned me from singing and releasing anything in public for quite long.  However, I believe I have now reached a reasonable level where I do not at least sound downright out of place and this is probably the best I could hope for :)

When it comes to pronunciation, the master is Jagjit Singh.  Here I start with a famous ghazal of his from the film Sarfarosh.  Bouquets and brickbats welcome :)

Shivashankari Shivananda Lahari - A Live performance

Song: Shivashankari Shivananda Lahari
Film : Jagadalapradhapan 
Composer : Pendyala Satyam
Originally Sung by : Seerkaazhi Govindarajan (Tamil) and Ghantasala (Telugu)

Covered by : Murali Venkatraman

One of the ridiculously difficult compositions which tests every aspect of singing like akaaram, fast swarams and high notes sung by two different giants - Seerkazhi Govindarajan in Tamil and Shri Ghantasala in Telugu.  My humble attempt at the request of Bala (Sapthaswara).

Aankhon ko - आँखों को - An original in Hindi Feat. Ali Pervez Mehdi and Kuhoo Gupta

Singers: Ali Pervez Mehdi, Kuhoo Gupta,
Orchestration : Eshwar Ravishankar
Lyrics : Sajeev Sarathie
Flute : Vijay Venkatesh Kannan
Backing Vocals: Tara Balakrishnan, Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam
Recording Engineer: Abin Pushpakaran 
Cover Art : R. S. Arun Prakash

Composed and Directed by : Murali Venkatraman

A new original brimming with romance in the silken vocals of Ali Pervez Mehdi and Kuhoo Gupta.  Ali - the son of illustrious ghazal singer Pervez Mehdi, is a growing musical force in bollywood circles.  His vocals came to to be known in India through the song "chadha de rang" and he was kind enough to sing the male lead.  Working with Ali has always been a desire which this song thankfully fulfilled.

This is my second work with both Kuhoo Gupta (singer) and Sajeev Sarathie (Lyricist) and I am extremely thankful for their aesthetic inputs.  This song has been in the making for around 3 years and it finally out.  This is my first extensive collboration with Eshwar Ravishankar who has crafted the orchestration and with Vijay Venkatesh Kannan who has played the flute.  Thanks to them as well.  My thanks to Tara and Sindhuja who were kind enough to provide backing vocals.

My good friends have been telling me that I should make music videos. But logistics have completely prohibited such an exercise.  So a simple video with pics of all the artists is presented.

Lyrics

आँखों को जो आँखों का इशारा मिल गया,
दिल दिल से मिलाने का इरादा हो गया,
पर्दे रहें, क्यों दरमियाँ,
दो जिस्म हैं, जब एक जाँ,
अब शर्मो हया को विदा कह दो न...
आँखों को....

सांसों में है मदहोशियाँ,
कानों में ये सरगोशियाँ,
धीमे स्वरों में कोई बात बोले,
सुन के जिसे मन ये बेताब डोले,
होंठों से,
हो...शबनम को तुम,
प्यार से,
हो....चखने भी दे,
मेरी बाहों में तुझको उठा लूं मैं
सीने से लगा लूँ जरा पास आ...
आँखों को....


मन में उठे तूफ़ान सा,
एहसास ये अनजान सा,
नस नस में क्यों कोई प्यास घोले,
अब तो न संभले मन ये संभाले,
ले ले पलकों में तू, अब मुझको छुपा,
कोई देखे न मुझको तेरे सिवा,
आँखों को....