Favorite Wedding Songs

This post is dedicated to our good friend Darshit (Dunkdaft), who's getting married *today*! Please join me in congratulating him, his bride, and their families, and in welcoming the bride to our extended family of Bollywood bloggers and geeks (because that's what we surely are, by osmosis)!


Here are some of my favorite wedding songs, defined as songs that are great to play during (Indian) weddings, especially during music parties that many weddings devote an evening to. (They are often combined with the Mehndi/Henna night.) The term 'shaadi ka pavitra bandhan' (the immaculate institution of marriage) is ubiquitous in the movies, and many of these songs deliberately include interesting, and often amusing, commentary on it.

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Paa (2009): Auro's Aura is Bollywood's Delight

The underlying theme here is familiar -- Bollywood entertainment to the core, with a phenomenal performance that takes an average film to another level.

Great actors do that. Amitabh Bachchan is better than great.

We've known this for decades, as he's obviously long been at the point where nothing he does professionally will ever take away from one of the most remarkable careers in all cinema. The inverse doesn't hold true, of course, i.e. he can certainly continue to add to it all. We know better. So it's hardly surprising that he take on the challenging Paa (forget the mannerisms including voice, how does allocating three to four hours per day to brilliant prosthetic makeup sound?) and not only transform himself completely, but assume the role of his character to the extent we don't get to see Amitabh at all, but get to sense his presence and the brand of cinema he's notorious for -- core Bollywood, this.

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Tum Mile, Life Partner, Love Aaj Kal, and Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani: Let's draw some circles

These 2009 films illustrate how we have made significant advancements in our approaches to determining romantic compatibility. Yes. We have progressed from the less practical approach of trusting astrology, to the more practical one of trusting surveys and quizzes on social networking websites!

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Favorite films of the 2000s: Which are yours?

A remarkable decade for Hindi cinema nears its end, and as we look behind (and forward), what better occasion than the week of Thanksgiving and Eid to recap some favorite films that I'll remember the past 10 years by? Please add your favorites -- if you have a blog, perhaps you could consider compiling your list there?

Before we get to the films, a note of thanks to you, dear visitors, for making this space what it is. This blog was registered in 2005, but I didn't post much at all until a couple years later. It has since been a welcome avenue to discuss films with some very cool film lovers and connoisseurs, from whom I continue to learn much, and for whose participation I am thankful. This blog would be pointless without you.

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3 Idiots (2009) lyrics and translation: Give Me Some Sunshine and Jaane Nahin Denge

Children's Day was celebrated this weekend (November 14). This picture of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Walt Disney is displayed in the lobby of Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California. (Here's a slightly larger image.) This is displayed right outside. And these are relevant because Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment just recently released the trailer to Like Stars on Earth, which releases in the U.S. on January 12. (The release schedule for other countries is as follows, per Aamir at his blog: Australia: Nov 11, 2009; U.K.: Oct 26, 2009; Russia: Jun 18, 2010.) And it's a relief the Disney DVD will include the original Hindi language audio as well! (The film is now dubbed in English too.)

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3 Idiots (2009) lyrics and translation: Zoobi Doobi

Song three of five the soundtrack to the upcoming 3 Idiots, which is also the subject of my favorite trailer of the film so far (you've got to see it, below; what do you think?), is a fun throwback track which pays tribute to old Hindi films and, in the words of Aamir Khan, to one Hindi film made in English (that would be Titanic (1997))! It's the only song in the album which involves a woman singer (Shreya Ghoshal does the honors, opposite a very in-form Sonu Nigam).

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