When Amitabh Bachchan and Rahul Dev Burman actually made magic
Writing stories from Indian films and music
Bachchan has a particular dancing style which he possibly adapted from the famous dancer - actor Bhagwan. The yesteryear star who had featured in a song that was featured in a recent Anurag Basu film and had gotten quite famous again.
Bachchan had perfected his steps majorly through the mid seventies, especially in the films with Rekha, Parveen Babi and Zeenat Aman where he could actually stop, start and sway like Bhagwan did, to the trippy songs created for him then.
RD Burman was still missing out. Kalyanji Anandji had created Don by then and it had become a rage. The other fun films with dancing involved were happening from Hera Pheri onwards in 1976 but RD Burman wasn't getting to score a total outright dance number with him. Shaan occured but Bachchan was a scheming thief doing all kinds of shady stuff while the thumping dance scores happened and so on screen, though Bachchan shook around a bit, nothing major happened.
Five years went by. Bachchan was swinging away at his peak and yet RD Burman was maybe feeling deprived.
Till...Jahan Teri yeh nazar hai.
Yes, it was inspired by the Iranian song "Heleh Maali" by Zia Atabay, sung in Persian. But if you happen to hear that song, the initial couple of riffs has been taken and a bass line in the middle has been adhered to, but then RD flew with it in all controlled directions.
Why that?
Possibly, because the situation of the song appealed to RD so much and he really wanted to create that all time hit dance song by Bachchan so much that he brought in that Arabic percussion to suit Bachchan's unique stop start dancing to the hilt.
It's a film that you may not revisit many a time if you do not have appetite for jail and revenge stories. But this song is so unique that it is on every Hindi film music lover's playlist for sure. And you just can't imagine anyone else dancing to it except Bachchan.
And then the signature use of Bass guitar, claps, dafli in succession for rhythm among all the other percussion being used!
All to accentuate what Bachchan would be doing on screen.
Here, I take RD's work to another level. He was a fantastic visual conceptualiser too. He had perfectly fathomed how Bachchan could emote and act-dance the song. He provided the perfect dance pitch and the dance director PL Raj, who was actually responsible for Bachchan's signature move, took the whole sequence to another level.
The song had been recorded with very good arrangements and the equalising in the song is world class. Burman understood bass better than any other composer of his time or later. And he allowed Kishore Kumar to sing at a high pitch keeping the orchestra at a different pitch, thus creating a aural pleasure that's hard for any DJ to recreate.
It's probably why no DJ tries this score for redoing.
And how Bachchan brought this to screen!
I don't have too many good things to say about Tinnu Anand's film making other than the fact that he created this song impeccably with his cinematographer. Allowing Bachchan to remain in the middle of the screen as he jived, waltzed and did his trippy folksy steps a la Bhagwan.
Bachchan-Kishore-Pancham.
Not too many great gems as they had their own issues.
But this transcends everything else!!