Britney Spears and Lata Mangeshkar share the same connection that Parineeta the film and Louis Armstrong do, and it has to do with cheating

Indian Express

4 days ago

Pradeep Sarkar's romantic drama Parineeta turned 20 this week. The film, which is based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel of the same name, boasts a stellar cast, linear but effective writing, and an album which draws you in and keeps you in the chamber of bliss and desire that it has created. One of the most well-known tracks from the film is Sunidhi Chauhan's 'Kaisi Paheli Zindagani', which features the mesmerising Rekha, who makes one forget all their troubles as she dances around on the beautiful composition by Shantanu Moitra. What Moitra, Sunidhi, Rekha and Sanjay Dutt's oddly placed saxophone performance in the song also makes you forget is that this tune doesn't belong to any of these people.
The bluesy and groovy chorus actually comes from a song released 17 years before Moitra was even born, and that song was 'A Kiss To Build A Dream On' by Louis Armstrong. If you can't remember him (which I doubt), he is the man that also performed the legendary track 'What A Wonderful World', written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby and Oscar Hammerstein II in 1935. The original tune was interestingly composed for a song called 'Moonlight on the Meadow', but it sat on the shelf until Oscar adapted it for the lyrics of 'A Kiss To Build A Dream On'. Bear in mind that no one is discrediting Moitra for what he did with the album and the song. Maybe he, like many other composers, musicians and artists in the world, believed in the old adage, 'You're not trying if you aren't cheating.' He took 'inspiration' and created a track that has stood the test of time and is still very prevalent in the track list of singing reality show contestants. In all sincerity, it is a serene performance by Sunidhi and it only goes to prove that we have the skill and the appetite for all kinds of different sounds, both as creators and consumers.
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There have been enough discussions about Indian composers and how the line between inspiration and ripping off in their minds is not just blurry; it's non-existent. It is quite easy to sit down and start bashing these artistes who, even though they made great songs, never really made anything original. So in the interest of doing something different, we are going to focus on the times when the West took inspiration from our Maliks and Pritams (not exactly) and used our sounds to make hits of their own, and while there are many examples of this phenomenon, we are going to focus on a select few.
The first on this very less talked about roster is a song from the 1963 film Taj Mahal, titled 'Chandi Ka Badan', and the song had two female and male singing parts sung by Asha Bhosle, Meena Kapoor, Manna Dey and Mohammad Rafi. This quick-paced Qawwali track with several tempo and cadence changes somehow lit a fire of innovation in producer Just Blaze as he started cutting and editing parts of the song to create a base for himself, the foundation upon which he would make the song 'React', which was the lead single on Eric Sermon's album of the same name. The song also features one of the pioneers of hip-hop, Redman, and listening to the track almost feels like you're consuming a creation that hails from a parallel universe. People keep talking about the things we got before GTA 6, but we had Asha Bhosle and Redman on the same song before we ever got GTA San Andreas (2004); let that sink in.
This seems like a natural segue, as the next track we are talking about concerns Bhosle's sister, the great Lata Mangeshkar. The nightingale of India appeared on some of the most iconic songs of Bollywood in a career that lasted longer than Queen and The Beatles combined (one point for the colonies, I guess). Her song 'Tere Mere Beech Mai' with S P Balasubramaniam from the movie Ek Dujje Ke Liye (1981) was a massive hit, and it must have transcended international boundaries because producers Bloodshy and Avant definitely liked what they heard. They liked it so much, in fact, that they chopped the sample (when a producer takes out specific pieces from the track, and not the complete melody or bar as a whole) and put it in a song which arguably became the calling card for the 'Princess of Pop', Britney Spears. The sample taken from the Mangeshkar song was used for Spears's 'Toxic', a track that became the artiste's first and only track on Spotify to hit a billion streams. It also got Spears her only Grammy award; even though it was for Best Dance Recording, we will gladly chalk that up as a win in our books.
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Let's take a short detour to explain our next entry. Producer and rapper Dr Dre is known for his skill of isolating certain sounds from previously made tracks and using them to create something entirely new. Dre acknowledges the skill and prowess of those who came before him and uses it to his advantage. However, many Indian producers refuse to look at the work of their predecessors and fall into the trap of romanticising the West, even though in Anu Malik's case the West can be as close as Iran. Another producer like Dre, who believes in learning from yesterday to create for the present, is Timbaland. The producer and rapper has gone on record several times and talked about his love for Indian culture, especially the music. Now don't get me wrong, not everyone from the 'land of the brave and free' is able to look beyond the surface-level attractions our country has to offer, and people like the aforementioned gentleman are definitely an exception. Timbaland has talked about his obsession with Indian instruments and showcased his love for the same in his track 'Indian Flute'. While the song in itself appropriates every stereotype that Indians have about hip-hop and Americans have about our 'exotic' country, it puts the sounds from our country on the centre stage. He samples the Been or the Pungi for the track and has repeatedly used Indian string instruments in other tracks as well.
What one hopes to achieve from constructing a narrative like the one above is to instill a sense of self-belief in the upcoming and existing crop of music producers of the country. Indian music is currently going through a big transition; fusion music has never been bigger, hip-hop finally has some self-owned ground to stand on, and there is an actual quantifiable wave of new talent emerging from the country. While a track like 'Kaisi Paheli Zindagani' or Mohammad Rafi's 'Kaun Hai Jo Sapno Mai' (sampled from Elvis' Marguerita) are great examples of inspiration done right, it can be argued that we don't really need them. What we need from our musicians is to read the literature and inform themselves with the godlike music pieces that Indians have created since time immemorial. Bands like Agnee need to be studied, and bands like Bombay Bandook need to be supported. Musicians like Laxmikant-Pyarelal need to be studied, and musicians like Amit Trivedi need to be given their due, not just for the music they make for films but for their own creations, for tracks that aren't moulded to a narrative but are only shaped according to the artiste's free will and beliefs. If the saying 'You aren't trying if you aren't cheating' really is true, then maybe we can start peeping into assignments created by our own alumni. Maybe all we need to do is acknowledge our own greatness, and then we can shine bright enough to light up the entire world, one song at a time.