Marhaba ... o ... Marhaba

The theatrical trailer came out long ago, i think two or three weeks back ... but today for the first time i got to see it in proper quality(esp the sound); and just one word to describe it ... AWESOME. I'm a kind of Ashutosh Gowarikar fan; everyone liked Lagaan, obviously, but a lot of people did not like Swades. Well, it was critically acclaimed, as the Jodha Akbar trailer points out, but common people mostly did not get to appreciate its beauty, mainly because they expected another lagaan. That is one main characteristic of the Indian(mainly Tamil) audience; they go to the cinemas always with their minds expecting one more dose of the director's/hero's previous offering. This feature of theirs has been the cause for many a movie undeservedly flopping at the BO.
The single most impressive feature of Swades is its Soundtrack(both the songs and background) by the god. The songs are all of tremendous potential, but the ones always mentioned are either Yeh Tara Woh Tara or Yun Hi Chala, made popular by the music channels. My favourite song in the album, of course is Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera, which never fails to give me goosebumps when Rahman goes Chahe to kis disha me jaye vahi des........ Rahman, of course rocks in the BGM department, with totally awesome meaning and elegance to otherwise unimportant or unnoticed scenes(like the chorus that goes aaaayyyoooo re when SRK enters the village; or the modifies version of Dekho Na when Geeta's marriage is cancelled). The concept of the movie is pretty simple and some sets that supposedly depict NASA may be ridiculed, but in all... SRK puts in a good performance, far away from his sentiments-family theme song-crying in the climax routine; new heroine manages to look beautiul(she's thin, but hey...she lives in a drought-struck village); it does manage to stir up some patriotism in you, and wonder why people go to the US and never return(though you are also planning to do the same). We may find a lot of negatives with careful scrutiny aimed at finding negatives, but my point is just this: The movie did not get the recognition and profits it deserved, nor did the music.

Focussing on Jodha-Akbar, it is said to be a period film about the mughal emperor Akbar focussing primarily on his romance with a Rajput princess, Jodha. I do not like Aishwarya Rai or Hrithik, but am eagerly waiting right now for the audio release, which has been frustratingly postponed a lot of times, with the present release date fixed at Dec 18. The song playing in the background of the trailer i.e. the one previewed by ARR in his Delhi concert - Azeem-O-Shah-Shehenshah (roughly estimated by me to mean O mighty unthwartable Emperor!) is just AWESOME from whatever i have heard till now; the drum beats and the trumpet, the chorus of marhaba and the part that goes theem thom thananana are keeping me on my toes, waiting to grab the CD when it releases; i have very very very very very high expectations on this album, like three times what i usually feel when an ARR album is about to release.

Until then, i might as well go ...Marhabba....o ... Marhabba ....