#64 Gulaal: Top 100 Bollywood Albums

Music: Piyush Mishra

Lyrics: Piyush Mishra

Label: T-Series

Director: Anurag Kashyap

In interviews that happened around the release of the movie, Anurag Kashyap said that the idea for Gulaal was born of the song Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye from Pyaasa, and dedicated the movie to Sahir Ludhianvi and other such visionary poets. It is no surprise then, that the soundtrack of the movie turned out as amazing as it did. What was a surprise though, was that it was delivered by a man who was until then known as a playwright, actor and lyricist. The eight songs that Piyush Mishra created for Gulaal, while occasionally veering into Vishal Bhardwaj and Indian Ocean territories (both of whom he had incidentally worked with in the past), marked his resounding arrival as a composer. Mishra was in equally fine form as lyricist, producing some powerful poetry that was predominantly dark with brief respites by way of cutting wit.

Best Song of Gulaal: The movie that owed its existence to the SD Burman-Sahir Ludhianvi-Mohammad Rafi classic also had a song that explicitly paid tribute to it, and a superb tribute at that. Based on the opening line of the Pyaasa song, Piyush Mishra created Duniya that amped up the despair and anger in the original, in the process also acting as a fitting theme song for the political drama that Gulaal was. There is no need to compare with Rafi's immortal rendition of course, but Mishra's prayer-like earnestness worked perfectly in conveying the song's emotions. 

1. Ranaji (Singer: Rekha Bhardwaj)
2. Yaara Maula (Singers: Rahul Ram, Asheem Chakravarty)
3. Aarambh (Singer: Piyush Mishra)
4. Aisi Sazaa (Singer: Shipa Rao)
5. Sheher (Singer: Swanand Kirkire, Piyush Mishra)
6. Beedo (Singer: Piyush Mishra)
7. Duniya (Singer: Piyush Mishra)
8. Raat Ke Musafir (Singer: Rahul Ram)

Listen to Duniya from Gulaal here:

(With contributions by Praveen VR, co-founder of musicaloud.com)

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