Ek gaana tha – The Reincarnation

I am sure Himesh Reshamiya would some day read this post, and by what follows, I will ensure that he curses me for this post more than I curse him for his atrocities on Hindi Film music.

Almost everyone in the country has heard the song Ek Haseena Thi from the movie Karz that came up in 1980. The song started off with Rishi Kapoor’s speech about lovers, followed by the singing of the incomparable Kishore Kumar, and Asha Bhonsle. The song served the purpose of narrating the whole story of Ravi (played by Raj Kiran), who was murdered by his lady love, Kamini (Simi Grewal). Then the man is reborn and becomes a successful singer Monty (Rishi Kapoor), who finally takes revenge from Kamini.

But when the movie came up, it could not be said that a day will come when the movie will be reborn and the song will reincarnate too, in a very very different form, and be sung by none other than the nasal champ Himesh Reshamiya.

The story of the movie was recently copied by Om Shanti Om, but they did at least some things right. They had their own songs, some of which were quite good too. But yesterday, when I heard the new version of Ek Haseena Thi by our very own Mr. Reshamiya from the about to be released Karzzz, I realized how badly things can be copied and despite that, no justice is done to them. He did the same mistake as was done by Ram Gopal Verma in his Aag around a year ago, who copied a blockbuster like Sholay with such carelessness -- casting ‘Jai’ as ‘Gabbar’ is just an example -- that anyone in the world could guess its fate.

The song has been such brutally raped by Himesh that even Shreya Ghoshal couldn’t save it. The changes have been done at places where Kishore Kumar was just brilliant. I really appreciated the fact that he admits he is nasal, but this is really unacceptable that he thinks he can do better than Kishore Kumar by changing the timings where to increase or decrease the pitch. I am serious I would have done a better job than this cold patient at least.

It was enjoyable to listen to one part of the song though, not as appreciation of the quality of singing, but realizing how bad it can get -- “….apne mehboob se aisa dhokha kiya, aisa dhokha kiya, aisa dhokha kiya, zeher usko diya, zeher usko diya, zeher usko diya”. I’d suggest everyone to go through this piece, it’s hilarious. Not just the singing but also the music is commendable. The drum player seems to be suffering from some stomach disorder. His effort is worthy of an applause too.

The song gets even interesting in the last stanza, when the lyrics are world class. The lyrics of the old song were like “Uspe yeh karz tha, uska yeh farz tha, farz ko karz apna chukaana tha”. The new lyrics of the new song go like (Please take note of positions of the words Farz and Karz) “Uspe yeh karz tha, uska yeh karz (again) tha, karz to farz (just the reverse) apna chukaana tha”. Even kids know it is “farz nibhaana” and “karz chukaana”, but our Mr. Reshamiya is unaware of such small things too.

You are all requested to listen to the song once at least. It would give you immense pleasure perhaps, or you might join me in getting Himesh out of business!