Giving My Heart in Public

Kay Kay, Dominique and Chorus - Tadap Tadap

I saw Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (We Gave Our Hearts Secretly, Darling), the movie that this song comes from, about four months ago, and since then, I’ve had to listen to this song every few days, sometimes a few times a day. On its face, it’s glossy, ornate, and filled maybe past capacity with instruments and background singers. But these frills don’t weigh the song down at all. The main singer, Kay Kay (sometimes written K.K.), raises his voice however he wants above the percussionists, and they stay out of his way. For a lot of the time, he’s almost alone. The pace stays pretty fast, and it almost sounds like any snappy Bollywood pop song, but when Kay Kay gets up high, he turns mournful.

The sadness of the song is easier to hear when you know what the words mean, so it’s lucky that someone at BollyWhat translated it for us. In the movie, even more, the sadness builds up as the song is worked into the misplaced-love story and repeated, and it winds up being really moving, if you’re liable to get taken up in sad stories. The movie’s worth talking about for a minute. It’s directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and, like his amazing movie Devdas, the music is by Ismail Darbar. It’s about Aishwarya Rai, the daughter of half-Italian Salman Khan’s demanding music teacher, who falls in love with him even though he’s sort of an oaf. She ends up having to marry Ajay Devgan, and is very unhappy about that. Then the second half starts, and a whole lot more stuff happens. Among other excitements, there’s a kite festival, a trip to Italy, played by Hungary, and a charming grandma, Zohra Sehgal, who’s the cute granny in every single Bollywood movie ever, even the ones made in the ’40s. Also Bend It Like Beckham. Salman Khan is way less annoying than usual, and gets pretty infectiously teary-eyed in parts, and Aishwarya is good, as she only is in Bhansali’s movies; like normal, Ajay Devgan is excellent. And the whole soundtrack is nice. Darbar’s music is all elaborate like this, and often as good, but he’s sort of stuck up.

He caused a controversy recently by saying he’s better than A.R. Rahman, the most famous Bollywood composer these days. On the one hand, he sounds completely self-involved, but on the other hand, he’s right - he is better. Like he says, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was better than Taal (Rhythm), and Devdas was better than Saathiya (Beloved). Each of the Bhansali/Darbar movies was better as a movie than its Rahman-scored contemporary, too. Taal is boring but prettily shot, and stars Aishwarya Rai, the extremely beautiful star of Devdas and HDDCS. Unfortunately, like I said, something prevents her from being able to act at all when she’s not being directed by Bhansali, so other than one catchy song, that movie’s more or less a stinker. The other one, Saathiya, is even less worth thinking about; just a dumb love story with pretty-boy Vivek Oberoi, unable to do anything since his great debut in the gritty gangster movie Company. So Darbar was going along okay there, bagging on his competition but safe with a good director, but the other day, he pissed everyone else off by ending the Bhansali love. So now, who knows what he’ll do.

You can buy the DVD for really cheap from various Amazon partners, or buy the CD, which has a bunch of other good songs, from IndiaPlaza. If you’re still hungry for Bollywood, I was interviewed for an article in yesterday’s Austin American-Statesman, and ultrastar Amitabh Bachchan spoke on NPR.