Making music with small-time crooks

Everything about Bhindi Bazaar Inc screams bad**s, and the music tries hard to play along

Bhindi Bazaar Inc
Sandeep-Surya
Saga Music
Rs 99

Everything about Bhindi Bazaar Inc screams bad**s, and the music tries hard to play along. On the gritty streets of Mumbai, if roadside Romeos and gutka-chewing goons were to break into a song, with random crowds joining in the choreographed dance, this is what it might sound like. Directed by Ankush Bhatt, the film features Kay Kay Menon, Prashant Narayanan, Piyush Mishra, Pawan Malhotra, Shilpa Shukla, Deepti Naval, Shweta Verma, Vedita, Gautam Sharma and debutant American artiste Caterina Lopez. Music director duo Sandeep-Surya has brought together a host of singers like Tochi Raina, Suraj Jagan, Sandeep Goswami, Sweta Pandit, Prashant Narayanan, Roop Kumar Rathod and Shibani Kashyap to lend their voices.

The first track, Akkad Bakkad is such that you can sing along without ever having heard it before. A medley of familiar sounds, vintage catch phrases and lyrics allow you to do it. The album makes a good first impression with this four-and-a-half minute song. It starts off with Jagan mouthing lines like 'tere baap ka kya jata hai', and he concludes it with 'haraami toh sare hain'. Aa Ja Re Piya is sung by Kailash Kher and it is a sentimental track that compares love to the change ofu00a0seasons. Seamlessly blending swaras and alaap, the song adds a touch of spiritual romance to the album.

This is followed by a tango-esque tempo broken by the sultry voice of Shibani Kashyap in Taan Ke Seena. Expect this one to sashay at the edge of your consciousness waiting to break out as an awkward hum during a boring meeting. Pay close attention to the voice of Tochi Raina and Prashant Narayanan as they sing a parody. 'Maaldaar ki jeb, garib ki zindagi aur patang kat gayi' portrays a sorry situation in an ironic rhyme. An abundant dose of tabla partakes in the classical-modern sound of this song, but the hero here is the lyrics.

The voice of Roop Kumar Rathod bleeds through Kitni Baatein Hain, with an impressive flute solo and violin accompaniment to take the place of a sad number that will make you wallow in self-pity. As the norm goes, Hindi films create about four original songs and fill the rest of the album with a pimped out version of the same tunes, under the guise of remixes. The remixed versions of Akkad Bakkad and Maldaar Ki Jeb don't fall too far from the originals. While a few tracks save the album, Bhindi Bazaar Inc doesn't offer much original thought and plays out as a pass ufffd playlist of small-time heroes in a film about small-time crooks.

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