#44 Masoom: Top 100 Bollywood Albums

Music: R.D. Burman

Lyrics: Gulzar 

Label: Saregama HMV

Director: Shekhar Kapur

Shekhar Kapur's 1983 adaptation of Erich Segal's Man, Woman and Child was one of only three instances where RD Burman won a Filmfare award. In a decade that is generally considered the weakest for Hindi in terms of musical output, Burman produced some of the standout songs – particularly in collaboration with the man he shared a special camaraderie with, Gulzar. And Masoom was an album where every song had the duo delivering at their best, with some fine singers at their disposal. One of the songs (female version of Tujhse Naraz) even had a bonus by way of a brief prologue from the lyricist.

Best Song of Masoom: Another album where multiple songs qualify for the top spot, but I will pick Huzoor Iss Kadar in this case. The playful romance in Gulzar's lines is given a mellow ghazal-like treatment by Pancham; Bhupinder Singh and Suresh Wadkar ace the vocals, complementing each other wonderfully.

On a related note: A year before Masoom, Segal's Man, Woman and Child had another Indian take, Balu Mahendra's (director of Sadma) Malayalam movie titled Olangal, starring Amol Palekar. The movie had a short but brilliant soundtrack from Ilaiyaraaja, featuring my favourite Raja song in Malayalam, Thumbee Vaa (you have GOT to listen to the bass!). The song's tune was adapted by the composer multiple times in different languages, twice in Hindi. The most recent instance was Gumm Summ from Paa (2009).

1. Do Naina Aur Ek Kahani (Singer: Aarti Mukherjee)
2. Huzoor Iss Kadar (Singers: Suresh Wadkar, Bhupinder Singh)
3. Tujhse Naraz Nahin Zindagi (Singer: Anup Ghoshal)
4. Tujhse Naraz Nahi Zindagi (Singer: Lata Mangeshkar)
5. Lakdi Ki Kaathi (Singers: Vanita Mishra, Gauri Bapat, Gurpreet Kumar)

Listen to the entire album of Masoom here:

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

#45 PEHLI NAZAR: TOP 100 BOLLYWOOD ALBUMS