"Chai Noon" is now also on Wednesdays at noon on A Fistful of Soundtracks (starting March 3)

A Fistful of Soundtracks is the only film music Internet radio station I know of that devotes a few hours to Bollywood tunes. In 2006, I added to the AFOS schedule a Bollywood block called "Chai Noon" on Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon and early Wednesdays and early Fridays at 4am (for British listeners).

I recently updated the "Chai Noon" playlist after not having done so for two years. There are now tracks from newer Indian movies like De Dana Dan (oh hello, catchy synth line from Usher's "Yeah," didn't expect to run into you here), the heavily-marketed-to-the-West My Name Is Khan and a film that hits theaters in India and Indian American neighborhoods this Friday, Teen Patti (a 21 clone that stars Amitabh Bachchan and Sir Ben Kingsley, but hey, at least this riff on 21 has an all-Asian group of poker whizzes, unlike the whitewashed official 21).

Because I've added so many new tracks to "Chai Noon," I'm giving the block two additional time slots starting the first week of March. The extra slots are Wednesdays at noon and early Thursdays at 4am.

Here's one of my favorite "Chai Noon" tracks, the Giorgio Moroder-esque jam "Aaj Ki Raat" (or "Tonight Is the Night"). Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy wrote it for the 2006 version of Don, which paired up Priyanka Chopra (dig those legs of hers during "Aaj Ki Raat") with Shahrukh Khan (whose aggressive promotion of My Name Is Khan included an amusing appearance on the British "chat show" Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, where he kissed Torchwood star John Barrowman, who did another one of his hilarious fake fainting reactions whenever he kisses other male stars). Sung by Alisha Chinoy, Mahalaxmi Iyer and Sonu Nigam, "Aaj Ki Raat" was also featured in Slumdog Millionaire.



"Aaj Ki Raat"

Roma:
Night and wine have met we are intoxicated
Body and heart are both ready to melt

Anita:
Celebration surrounds us
but yet I am anxious

Roma:
Why does my heart beat faster?
Why does my heart say...
..."you fools do not know this yet?"

Everyone:
Tonight...
Who knows what will happen?
What will we gain?
What will we lose?
Tonight...
Who knows what will happen?
What will we gain?
What will we lose?

(Instrumental)

Roma:
What will happen in just a few moments?

Anita:
What was always mine will be mine again.

Roma:
The night will decide who resides in whose heart

Anita:
The decision has been made...
...that I will be victorious

Roma:
You fools do not know this yet

Don:
Tonight...
Who knows what will happen?
What will we gain?
What will we lose?

Everyone:
Tonight...
Who knows what will happen?
What will we gain?
What will we lose?

(Instrumental)

Don:
Come, let me tell you something, secretly
Soon, the night is going to change its hue, secretly
Then I will take you away with me, secretly

Anita:
Where will you go?
Look! Here I am.

Roma:
You fools do not know this yet

Everyone:
Tonight...
Who knows what will happen?
What will we gain?
What will we lose?

(Instrumental)

The funky score music in Amitabh Bachchan's Don sounds an awful lot like Together Brothers and Police Woman

This weekend, I finally got around to watching Amitabh Bachchan's 1978 Bollywood classic Don, which contains a musical number that Black Eyed Peas sampled in the first few seconds of 2005's "Don't Phunk with My Heart," and I was amused by how Don's score composer duo Kalyanji Anandji seemed to enjoy copping other musicians' works as much as BEP did with KA's hit songs.

In this clip of karate-trained Roma (Zeenat Aman) disguised as a ditzy nurse, KA's theme for Roma...

... is basically Barry White's main theme from the 1974 blaxploitation flick Together Brothers, better known as the tune Quad City DJ's sampled in 1996's "C'mon N' Ride It (The Train)."

Also, the duo's theme for tightrope walker/safecracker Jasjit (Pran), or as I like to call him, Indian Dudley Moore Dressed Like a Gay Johnny Cash, is a note-for-note rip of Morton Stevens' Police Woman theme. Every time Indian Dudley Moore's on-screen, I keep expecting him to make like Angie Dickinson and disguise himself as a hooker.

This was a few years before E-mu invented the Emulator sampler, so the Indian musicians recreated the tunes instead of sampling them. The illegal use of themes from other films or shows is a staple of '70s Asian action flicks ranging from Don to King Boxer/Five Fingers of Death (Lo Lieh is gonna get Ironside on your ass). Barry White must have been too chill or too stoned or too unable to squeeze himself out of his bubble chair to care.