RD Burman song 'Dhanno ki aankhon mein' [youtube search page] from Gulzar's movie 'Kitaab' (1977) starts with distinct notes of an electric guitar. I first heard it on radio, many years later, one of those classic songs that get played on radio often. The song did not have that '60's Van Shipley kind of guitar sound', remember that one minute of strange sound, an old film melody played on 'slider tanpoora' that AIR used to broadcast in-between program changes. (Is that the origin of Hindi phrase, 'Apni Tau Tau bandh Kar' ? ) Great though Van Shipley with his acoustic steel guitar was [sample this video], but Dhanno ki aankhon mein was different, it started with a distorted flanger guitar sound.
Hearing that sound, if someone had asked me to guess the picturisation of the song - A train driver, a no-character,a nobody in the film, belting out the song from engine cabin of a train, at night, to his lady love - Dhanno, who is dutifully, at the appointed time, at the signal and sound of approaching train, carrying a laltain of love and expectations, and she gets a gift from her man, a new sari hurled from the moving train; and a young boy, the actual protagonist of the film, hitching a free ride on this train, gets to witnesses this strange game of moving love - would have never been one of my million guesses. When I finally saw the song, years later, you can imagine my surprise.
I had a similar surprised feeling recently when I watched the picturisation of song 'Fatak' [youtube search results] from Vishal Bharadwaj's Kaminey. I liked the song when I first heard it on radio. How can anybody not like a Hindi song with 'bhanwara' in it? After listening to first few lines, if someone asked me to take a guess, I would have said, "It's a 'peppy' song for 'puppy love', so lots of happy dancing with shoulders moving up and down, down and up. No"; stretching my mind a bit, I would have said, "So, it has to be about the bad twin, his evil character."
Dhan Ta Nan . It turns out to be a song about goodness of Nirodh, a campaign for NACO (everybody should know it means 'National AIDS Control Organisation') that runs and dances in by-lanes of Red zone, Ghalib warns youth about Aids, says, '' Ye Ishq nahin aasaan, Aji Aids ka Khatara hai, So wear a patwaar. River of fire.", (and I didn't catch catch this part on radio. Did they play it?) and no bumblebees, instead the song has Aliens with Martian eyes, Khatarnaak, now that's a first for Hindi cinema and Bhanwara gets a new meaning with this song. Or did Bhanwary always meant that? Or is Gulzar now saying, "Dhanno be careful. After all he's a driver. An engine driver, yes, but still a ‘high risk group’. A real bhanwara."
In the 70s, Dhanno could get lot of Saris without having to worry about Aids, no one had even heard its name. The epidemic officially started in year1981 and got a new name 'AIDS' only in 1982.
But somethings never change. Isn't 'Main tumhare bacche ki maa Banne wali hu' part of the storyline of Kaminey? So here we have good hero singing to others the benefits of patwaar and at the end of the song, heroine, Sweety, not Dhanno, runs up to him and say's 'You broke your patwaar. Fataak! We are drowned. Me pregnant, you daddy, too long we have tarried, O let us be married.'
This movie is going to be fun. No doubt about it.
-0-
I know Dhan Ta Nan is that sound from those old Hindi films. But can someone point out the actual film(s) with the actual Dhan Ta Nan sound and not just something similar sounding effect. I tried to recall, but no use. Is Dhan Ta Nan then a separate genre of background sound from Hindi films?
Fataak! Kaminey Bhanwaray Ke Kaan Ke Neechay Ek Dhanno Kheench Ke
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I find it interesting that Vishal Bharadwaj used 'Dhanno ki aankhon mein' in Ishqiya (2010)