"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)

"Main Hoon Don" from the 2006 Don (translated into English)

Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan's much-hyped latest movie My Name Is Khan opens globally and in select theaters in America this weekend. The Indian-made drama about anti-Muslim discrimination, which filmed a sequence at the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose (a spot that's not too far from where I currently live), is getting a huge push from Fox Searchlight in the States. So because of My Name Is Khan's opening, I'm looking back at an earlier Khan vehicle. I'm posting (for those of us who don't understand Hindi, including myself) the English translation of the Hindi lyrics for "Main Hoon Don," a highlight of Khan's 2006 remake of the classic Amitabh Bachchan cops-vs.-gangsters flick Don. The translation was taken from the English subtitles on UTV's Don DVD. "Main Hoon Don" is called "I'm the Don" in the English subtitles on the Bollywood Entertainment DVD of the 1978 version, while the UTV DVD of the remake prefers "I Am Don."

The updated "Main Hoon Don," sung by Shaan and composed by the trio of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, is one of several numbers from the Don franchise that can be heard during A Fistful of Soundtracks' "Chai Noon" block on Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon and early Wednesdays and early Fridays at 4am.

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"Main Hoon Don"

The people in this world...
have clutched their hearts again!
I have returned...
...bringing back with me
a lot of excitement!
Look who's here.
Back to rule your world.
Who's got you mesmerized?
For whom do you wait with open arms?
(Backup singers) Who is this charming man?
Recognize me.
I am Don.

(Instrumental)

I bid my life...
...and gamble with death.
I have no regret...
...nor do I care...
...who I make my enemy.
No enemy of mine,
will live too long.
I am very dangerous.
I am very dangerous...
...and forever cunning.
(Backup singers) Who is back to win the world over?
Recognize me.
I am Don.

(Instrumental)

Their eyes inviting...
...many women have wanted me for themselves.
But these two eyes
that are glancing into mine...
...have mesmerized me.
These eyes...
...tell me...
that they are hiding an intoxicating secret.
I am getting addicted to them...
I am getting addicted to them...
and my heart is falling under its spell
(Backup singers) Who is here that has fallen under this spell?
Recognize me.
I am Don.

(Instrumental)

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If Fox sends Khan to promote My Name Is Khan on one of its "news" channel's shows, what a train wreck that would be. Khan, who's no stranger to racial profiling in America because of an unfortunate case of life imitating art imitating life, would probably have to be subjected to a cavity search and comments like "Wow, the Star Trek sequel came out sooner than I expected."

AFOS: "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangster" playlist

Airing this week in the Wednesday Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series rerun time slots is the episode "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangster" (WEB85) from February 19-25, 2007.

1. James Brown, "The Boss," Black Caesar, Polydor
2. Nino Rota, "Main Title (The Godfather Waltz)," The Godfather, MCA
3. David Schwartz, "Theme from Deadwood," Deadwood, Lost Highway/Universal
4. The Police & Henry Mancini, "Every Breath You Take/Theme from Peter Gunn (Mr. Ruggerio's Remix)," The Sopranos: Peppers & Eggs, Play-Tone/Columbia/Sony Music Soundtrax
5. Giorgio Moroder, "Tony's Theme," Scarface, MCA
6. Elmer Bernstein, "Prologue," Hoodlum: Original Score Soundtrack, RCA Victor
7. Ennio Morricone with Gheorghe Zamfir and Edda Dell'Orso, "Cockeye's Song" (from Once Upon a Time in America), The Ennio Morricone Anthology: A Fistful of Film Music, Rhino
8. Ennio Morricone, "The Die Is Cast," Bugsy, Epic Soundtrax
9. Howard Shore featuring G.E. Smith and Larry Saltzman, "Cops or Criminals," The Departed: Original Score, New Line
10. Richie Buckley, "Arcade Getaway," The General, Milan
11. Kalyanji Anandji, "Theme from Don," Bombay the Hard Way: Guns, Cars & Sitars, Motel
12. Shaan, "Main Hoon Don," Don: The Chase Begins Again, T-Series
13. Ennio Morricone, "Al Capone," The Untouchables, A&M
14. Ennio Morricone, "The Sicilian Clan--Main Titles" (from The Sicilian Clan), Ennio Morricone: The Gangster Collection, DRG
15. Ice-T, "New Jack Hustler (Nino's Theme)" (from New Jack City), A Rap Collection, Giant
16. Sammy Davis, Jr., "The Ballad of Johnny Cool," Johnny Cool, Rykodisc

Reruns of AFOS: The Series air Wednesdays at 10am and 3pm. To listen to the station during either of those time slots (or right now), press the play icon on the blue widget below the "About me" mini-bio on this blog.

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.