As much as songs from films are part of everyday life in India, it seems to me that one often overlooked but beautiful element are the instrumental tunes: dances, background score, themes which recur throughout, and above all title music. I always notice the title music especially and discovered in writing this post that I have already uploaded at least ten title songs in the posts about the movies they belong to. It sets the tone for the film and if I like the opening music a lot I settle in more eagerly for the rest of it: I was hooked on Teesri Manzil immediately by the music and the visuals behind the opening credits:
(Yes, I also buy wine based on how pretty the labels are. I like pretty.)
As a gori mem who enjoys her gigantic icy-cold Kingfishers every day while in India (and “several” glasses of wine every other evening), I do love a good song about the devil’s potion! Inspired by Dusted Off’s post on the same subject, I have changed one of her rules: I’m including fake-pretend drinking because it’s a fascinating (to me anyway) artifact of Hindi movies. If you need to chase someone off, or get them to hate you—pretend to have a drink! (I would be lonely and unwanted indeed!) Of course some would point out that *most* movie drinking is “pretend” unless you are Dharmendra. I am only including songs from movies I’ve seen, where I loved the song and the performance and picturization of it. Liking the film is a plus too, but not strictly necessary.
MemsaabStory 