Music Review : 3 Idiots

In his 'Ballad Of The East And West', Rudyard Kipling wrote- 'Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great judgment seat.' However, it did happen rather recently and the impossible was achieved, not once but twice, interestingly in the Hindi film industry, and by the same team! Yes, the culmination of intellectually satisfying cinema and mass entertainment was achieved two times in the iconic films - MUNNABHAI MBBS and LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI. With two unifying factors; humanity and non violence (Ahimsa), Sanju's 'Jaadoo ki jhappi ' and 'Gandhigiri' bonded Indians, cutting across all divisive forces. And the same team, consisting of producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, director Rajkumar Hirani, composer Shantanu Moitra and lyricist Swanand Kirkere , the team who gave us cult movies like MUNNABHAI MBBS (music by Anu Malik) and LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI, and are back to bring us an all out entertainer, aimed mainly at the youth and in particular the campus crowd. And naturally when the lead actor is Mr. Perfectionist, Aamir Khan, things simply reach dizzying heights, as he is always associated with good quality films with chartbusting music. The music of both MUNNABHAI MBBS and LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI became quite popular, although the super success of the films played an important part in making the compositions popular with the audience.

In case of MUNNABHAI MBBS, it was an 'in form' Anu Malik, whose compositions fitted beautifully into the narrative. However, the audio of LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI by Shantanu Moitra did not get the same patronage and popularity as that of the first part. In fact there were a lot of 'inspirations' in two tracks 'Pal Pal' ('Theme For A Dream'- Cliff Richards) and 'Aane Chaar Aane' ('Chala Jaata Hoon' - SHABASH DADDY, 'Sare Ke Sare'- PARICHAY), and the best number, 'Bande Mein Tha Dum' was merely a tribute to the legendary patriotic song, 'Aao Bachchon'. So, without wasting any more time let us check out the music and see if the Moitra-Kirkere team can come up trumps in terms of the audio album this time around and give us beautiful original scores like in PARINEETA!

The album opens with 'Aal Izz Well', a song that has the capability of becoming a college anthem due to a lot of reasons - a) The first and most important one being it's totally 'bindaas', chilled out rhythm that rocks to the core. b) Secondly the most interesting part, the lyrics by the multi faceted Swanand Kirkere which just like the rhythm is something that the youth will simply freak out on as its full on humour and evokes laughter. Must add here that they are very apt and identifiable and at the same time they give that feeling of inspiration and hope without being preachy, a difficult task indeed, but achieved to perfection by Swanand , 'Confusion hi confusion hai, Solution kuch pata nahin, Solution jo mile toh saala question ka ab pata nahin.' c) Next is the excellent rendition by Sonu Nigam, undoubtedly the best singer that Bollywood has to offer and giving him solid support is Shaan and the lyricist Swanand himself, as they put in all emotions to chart out a number that will sooner or later become the favourite of the youth and the children as well. d) Last but not the least, the light music arrangement in the background where the fusion of Hindustani and western music has been brilliantly achieved.

Category: Music Reviews