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Bride's mother steals the show
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For the once in a lifetime occasion, Music Today has come up with a collection of wonderful marriage songs. ANJANA RAJAN tunes in.
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Photo: Sandeep Saxena.
On song... Minu Bakshi in New Delhi.
EVERYBODY AGREES a marriage in the family means new beginnings. Not only for the bride and groom, but also for the parents, who have to get used to the idea that their children are now grown up, with a life of their own. But for Minu Bakshi, a professor of Spanish and a trained Hindustani classical singer, the wedding of her daughter ushered in a new beginning beyond what your ordinary samdhan might expect.
India has a rich tradition of songs for every occasion, especially nuptials, where every stage, from getting the bride and groom ready, to feeding and teasing them and finally tearfully seeing off the bride as she leaves for her new abode, is accompanied by a folk song. And Minu was thinking about the kind of songs she would like to use at her daughter's wedding. Much of this tradition is now glazed over with the popular cinema culture, but Minu decided to put her training in vocal music to good use by recording songs in her own voice.
Initially she and her family recorded a collection of eight songs. "Then Music Today stepped in, and they really liked the songs," she relates. The result was an album, Lao Mehndiyan, consisting of 19 tracks, released this week in New Delhi at a flower-laden, star-studded event.
Earlier she had sung Punjabi shabads for an album produced by HMV, but, "This is the first time on such a large scale," she says.
Minu trained in Hindustani music under Ustads Ghulam Hussain Khan and Maqbool Hussain Khan (grandson of the legendary Bade Ghulam Ali Khan). With remixes, disco songs and raucous film numbers ruling the charts, and technology taking precedence over melody, most singers proudly declare they have no formal training at all. Good old riyaaz seems to be of no consequence, any more. "I think the way it is going, it looks like it," feels Minu, "but there are those who stay with classical music, and many young people like it too."
Danceable tunes
To keep her traditional offerings trendy, she admits she and composer Satish Sharma have changed "quite a bit" in terms of adding instruments and catchy rhythms. Then she adds what may be the clincher for today's happening set. "It's very danceable."
As for future albums, Minu smiles, "Till now, I was just doing it as a hobby, but now, this is surely just the beginning."
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