Last year the whole year I had researched Lata songs, almost 2-3 per day and I selected only her superlative songs and imagine at the end of the exhaustive year, I still felt I had touched but a tip of her talent , vocals and expressions. There are the beautiful classical based songs, the typical nautch girl or mujra songs, the haunting sad songs, the light romantic ones, the pure spiritual ones. It was actually like immersing in an ocean of melody.
But this is undoubtedly one of my favourites out of all those. It has a lovely mountain freshness, an echoing sound, a perfect balance of innocence and vivaciousness. One could climb a hill trail singing this song and be oblivious to the distance one had to map. Lata is truly the voice of a sylph, a dream in this and it is a very difficult song to sing. The music is by Jaidev, who is rarely named by people as their favourite composer but he did create some lovely songs for films such as Hum Dono, Reshma aur Shera, Gaman and Gharonda. The lyrics too are rather evocative, written by Jan Nisar Akhtar who afterall was Javed Akhtar ka baap!!:-))...This song is composed in Raag Pahadi in the taal Keherva and as the name of the raag suggests, many mountain songs are based on this raag such as 'Aaja aaja re tujh ko mera pyaar pukare'(Gumraah),'Saawan ke Jhule pade'(Jurmana), 'Aaja re, aaja re O mere Dilbar'(Noori), 'Dil pukare Aare aare aare'(Jewel Thief), 'Isharon isharon mein dil'(Kashmir ki Kali) and 'Kabhi Kabhie mere Dil mein'(Kabhie Kabhie) and 'Kora kaghaz tha yeh man mera(Aradhana) though it's not to say that only mountain songs have been made on it. Such is the rich wealth and legacy of our classical music that it has taken myriad shapes and forms to enthrall us over the years. Here's a translation of this beautiful song by Jan Nisar Akhtar(pardon a few poetic liberties):
All I have is my heart
And the shadows of his gaze…
And soon I am engulfed in the
Warm feel of his embrace.
Naughty sunrays kiss the mountain tops.
The breeze kisses the river as it gushes and hops.
All along this way from here to above,
Are the warm silhouettes of our love.
Dense clouds reach out and cuddle
The tall shadowy trees.
Light and darkness huddle
In an interplay of mysteries .
The long, misty road ahead
Promises of many words unsaid.
Our hearts beat free, undaunted
A lot like these valleys that are haunted
By love’s colorful alcoves
And a hundred unseen treasure troves.
All I have is my heart
And the shadows of his gaze
And soon I am engulfed
In the warm feel of his embrace…………..
