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Movie details of 1947: Earth
Music: AR Rahman
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Label: T-Series
Director: Deepa Mehta
Earlier this year, A R Rahman composed parts of the OST for Gurinder Chadha's Viceroy's House, dubbed in Hindi as Partition: 1947. This is not the first time he did music for a partition-themed movie though – that was the 1998 film which came out as part of director Deepa Mehta's controversy-laden Elements trilogy. Every instalment of the trilogy featured some brilliant songs by the composer, but it was Earth that struck a chord with the audience the most, with such numbers as Rut Aa Gayi Re and Dheemi Dheemi. The soundtrack also contained a couple of finely executed instrumental pieces, and prominently featured singer Sukhwinder Singh who had been active in the industry for a while, but shot to fame just that year with Rahman's Chaiyya Chaiyya.
On a slightly related note, Rahman was involved in another "elements" project in Tamil not long after this; the 2000 movie Rhythm had songs themed on the five elements. Some of them made their way into Bollywood via Lakeer, but were far better in their original form.
Best Song of 1947: Earth – Riding on Javed Akhtar's words that masterfully drew parallels between the spring season and the blossoming of love, and Rahman's arrangement that made fab usage of stringed instruments, Rut Aa Gayee Re would easily rank among the career-best songs of Sukhwinder Singh.
The 1947: Earth Playlist
Listen to the entire album of 1947: Earth here –
(With contributions by Praveen VR, co-founder of musicaloud.com)