‘Chulainge aasman’ crash lands
A world cup song featuring various artistes fails to please viewers.
KARACHI:
We got star struck when we saw Shoaib Akhtar and Shahid Afridi coming out of limousines in Ali Zafar’s ‘Jazba’ , ‘Duniya hai dilwalon ki’ was visually stunning and predictably, Ali Azmat did not require a video to rock the nation. However, little did we know what was around the corner, a world cup song which begins with the inspirational poetry of Allama Iqbal, moves on to visuals of film actress Meera juxtaposed with a Shaheen and ends with three guys hailing for Pakistan.
This world cup song features an assortment of people. This time it is no newcomer, rather our very own Jawad Ahmed accompanied by the upcoming Lahore based composer/singer Faraz Khosa whose song “Tanha Tanha” was a hit, a new face, Fuad Ahmed and Meera is the proverbial cherry on top.
Titled ‘Chulainge Aasman’, the video has been on-air for the past couple of days. Looking at the production quality and composition the song won’t do much for the artistes. What starts off as “Nahin Tera Nasheman Qasre Sultani ki Gumbad Per, Tu Shaheen hai Basera kar Paharaon ki Chataanon mae” ends up directly crashing into the ground.
The new formulaic method of making patriotic songs in Pakistan is perhaps the biggest misconception of local artistes; that using inspirational poetry and featuring various artists in a song/video will guarantee its success. Why iqbal’s poetry channelized the youth by junoon was not only because the poetry was powerful, it had a lot to do with how it was utilized -- the melody was so catchy, the compositions were strong, the listener couldn’t help enjoying it. As is the case with ‘Laal’ and Faiz Ahmad Faiz .
For someone like Jawad, “Chulainge Aasman” is a waste of talent, he created patriotic masterpieces like ‘Dosti’ it was a terrible mistake to feature in a bad song and that too for a world cup. Faraz Khosa on the other hand, is so passionate that he chose to direct his own video and insisted it had to feature Meera. In a patriotic song? Perhaps because she is a pop icon for all her absurdities and looks good, in which case the director could have spent a little on wardrobe. She doesn’t even serve the purpose of eye candy in the video. Special mention must be made of two cricket shots that come in-between, one official ICC world cup animation that appears randomly and who can forget the cropped online images of Shoaib Akhtar and Imran Khan.
So far, Ali Zafar, Ali Azmat, Jawad Ahmed and even Meera have put in effort to cheerlead the Pakistani cricket team, one can only hope that their efforts don’t go to waste; even though some efforts seem forced and misplaced.
Despite several attempts to get in touch with the team who worked on this project, no contact could be made till the filing of this report.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 6th, 2011.
We got star struck when we saw Shoaib Akhtar and Shahid Afridi coming out of limousines in Ali Zafar’s ‘Jazba’ , ‘Duniya hai dilwalon ki’ was visually stunning and predictably, Ali Azmat did not require a video to rock the nation. However, little did we know what was around the corner, a world cup song which begins with the inspirational poetry of Allama Iqbal, moves on to visuals of film actress Meera juxtaposed with a Shaheen and ends with three guys hailing for Pakistan.
This world cup song features an assortment of people. This time it is no newcomer, rather our very own Jawad Ahmed accompanied by the upcoming Lahore based composer/singer Faraz Khosa whose song “Tanha Tanha” was a hit, a new face, Fuad Ahmed and Meera is the proverbial cherry on top.
Titled ‘Chulainge Aasman’, the video has been on-air for the past couple of days. Looking at the production quality and composition the song won’t do much for the artistes. What starts off as “Nahin Tera Nasheman Qasre Sultani ki Gumbad Per, Tu Shaheen hai Basera kar Paharaon ki Chataanon mae” ends up directly crashing into the ground.
The new formulaic method of making patriotic songs in Pakistan is perhaps the biggest misconception of local artistes; that using inspirational poetry and featuring various artists in a song/video will guarantee its success. Why iqbal’s poetry channelized the youth by junoon was not only because the poetry was powerful, it had a lot to do with how it was utilized -- the melody was so catchy, the compositions were strong, the listener couldn’t help enjoying it. As is the case with ‘Laal’ and Faiz Ahmad Faiz .
For someone like Jawad, “Chulainge Aasman” is a waste of talent, he created patriotic masterpieces like ‘Dosti’ it was a terrible mistake to feature in a bad song and that too for a world cup. Faraz Khosa on the other hand, is so passionate that he chose to direct his own video and insisted it had to feature Meera. In a patriotic song? Perhaps because she is a pop icon for all her absurdities and looks good, in which case the director could have spent a little on wardrobe. She doesn’t even serve the purpose of eye candy in the video. Special mention must be made of two cricket shots that come in-between, one official ICC world cup animation that appears randomly and who can forget the cropped online images of Shoaib Akhtar and Imran Khan.
So far, Ali Zafar, Ali Azmat, Jawad Ahmed and even Meera have put in effort to cheerlead the Pakistani cricket team, one can only hope that their efforts don’t go to waste; even though some efforts seem forced and misplaced.
Despite several attempts to get in touch with the team who worked on this project, no contact could be made till the filing of this report.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 6th, 2011.