ar rahman - guzarish (ghajini soundtrack)

tu meri adhoori pyaas pyaas
tu aa gayi mann ko raas raas

Alright, I feel like a bit of a schmuck quoting Hindi when I don't even really speak the language. But this is a beautiful song that just carries you away, and you don't need to understand every word to adore it for what it is.

"Guzarish" translates (as I understand it) to something like "I beseech you." Rather strong words, yeah? A kind of ultimate love song, an unrealistic feeling of adoration that only exists in movies, and even there, on a random Namibian desert with actress Asin walking by Aamir Khan and letting the cloth of her dress barely touch him in the wind. Oh, and he's bare-chested (and probably had to wax beforehand.)

I love this song. Not just because it is an ultimate love song, but because I distinctly associate with it "how I learned not to hate Chennai."

I vividly remember hearing it for the first time while watching "Ghajini" in theaters this past December -- not a great movie, but totally enjoyable, particularly among a passionate audience of Rahman fans, when I discovered just how much fun going to the movies here is.

I remember downloading the song, playing it like five times a day, and then searching the net for translations... and it's one of those songs which holds up. Yet, of course, it works better in the Hindi, the little of which I know.

And, months after I had become obsessed with the song, I remember the amazing joy of figuring out that it's my friend's angelic voice on the operatic solo in the background -- wow.

And so now when I hear "Guzarish," I think of a fantastic kind of love, a feeling of becoming more comfortable in my skin here, my on-again, off-again love affair with Hindi, and my friend. Certainly on my India soundtrack.