Waheeda Rehman

Songs of the ‘Earthen Lamp’

Diwali is round the corner. Yet another festival that the Corona virus shall devour. The festivities will have to be low key this time round with all norms of social distancing in place. For me, the best part of Diwali has always been lighting earthen lamps (दीया in Hindi) with ghee or oil and cottonContinue reading “Songs of the ‘Earthen Lamp’”

Solo Songs of Lata – Vocal Preludes Special

There is a genre of songs which is unique and uncommon – where there is a prelude, which has both instrumental as well as vocal music. This genre of poetry is perhaps called Qat’a in Urdu and vilambit laya (introductory slow tempo) in Hindustani classical music. The prelude is slow when compared to the restContinue reading “Solo Songs of Lata – Vocal Preludes Special”

Songs ‘Spoken and Sung’

I hope I have piqued your curiosity by the title of my post. I actually did not know how better to christen it. In this post, I refer to songs where the lyrics are first uttered or spoken sometimes in a poetic and at other times in a sing song fashion and then the sameContinue reading “Songs ‘Spoken and Sung’”

The ‘Terrace’ Songs – Part 1

In this pandemic, lucky are those who have a terrace for they can at least get a whiff of fresh air and pretend that they are not completely home bound. In fact, with the kind of multi storeyed structures that we live in, we are almost like Trishanku – neither is the earth ours norContinue reading “The ‘Terrace’ Songs – Part 1”

In search of sculpted serenity

Have you watched the movie ‘Dil diya dard liya‘? Loosely based on Emily Bronte’s work ‘Wuthering Heights’, this movie was made in the year 1966 with Dilip Kumar and Waheeda Rehman playing the lead roles. There are several reasons to watch this movie – its melodious music, the gorgeous sarees worn by the leading lady and lastContinue reading “In search of sculpted serenity”