June 30, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 25, 1429

KARACHI: Mehreen Jabbar, who proved her mettle as a director on the small screen a few years ago and had always aspired to make it big on the large screen as a film-maker, has done a fine job, going by the picturisation of songs from her maiden venture Ramchand Pakistani.

Four tracks rendered by two singers, both steeped in classical music, Shubha Mudgal and our own Shafqat Amanat Ali, from the two sides of the Tharparkar border are refreshingly different from the kind we get to listen to in movies from both sides of the great divide these days.

Ms Jabbar has used them as background songs and filmed them imaginatively. The beauty of the desert comes to life. Thanks to all three, Mehreen, her composer and her cinematographer, Sofian Khan. Featuring also in the movie are three folk numbers recorded, years ago, in the voices of Mohammad Jumman, Allan Fakir and Mai Bhagi, which have been borrowed from the archives of the Institute of Sindhology.

The Mudgal and Shafqat numbers were written by Anwar Maqsood and composed by the immensely talented Bengali composer Debajyoti Mishra, who has to his credit the scintillating score of Rainbow.

The composer and the film director couldn’t make it to Karachi, where the music launch was held recently. He is in Kolkata, and Mehreen is in New York, basking in the success of her film, that won appreciation at four international film festivals. But one did hear them on the phone. Her father, Javed Jabbar, who made the offbeat movie Beyond the Last Mountain in the seventies, was one of those who spoke at the launch.

He gave a list of the people who helped in the production of the movie in different ways. Imran Aslam and Anwar Maqsood also regaled the audience with their mercifully not-too-long speeches.

Javed Jabbar aroused the interest of the audience when he spoke in some detail about the two instrumental medleys that Mishra had composed as background music. “Mishra synthesised the sounds of the Tharparkar region and the music of Gujarat and Rajasthan. He also used instruments and tones from other parts of South Asia and the Middle East,” said JJ, the film’s producer.—AN