2-12-08 Nain Milakar Chain Churana

I am so stoked about your neat thing today – not only beacuse I found it, but because of where it led me.

All right, last year on Diane’s Kamikaze Fun Machine, there was a song that I’ve only heard once on WFMU, Nain Milakar Chain Churana by a group in Luton, Bedfordshire, England called The Knockouts (downloads here). It was everything punk should be: fast, hard, guitars that went jangle-jangle, and it had the bonus of being rather melodious to boot. It’s on their album The Remarkable Sounds of India (available from Topplers or straight from the band). Well, I decided to look for it on YouTube today – not expecting much, as The Knockouts are probably unknown outside of Luton and the WFMU music library - but lo and behold!

As Carl might say, “They were saying something in this, like, language.” Not that I minded.  

Now, on the right of every YouTube movie is a list of “Related Movies”, and in that list was a link to something called Nain Milakar Chain Churaana – different spelling, so it didn’t show up on my original search. So I click through.

I have a new rule now: When on the hunt for neat things, always click through. It’s how I found these guys, and it’s how I found this:

Turns out that Nain Milakar Chain Churana is a song from a 1967 Hindi-language film called Aamne Saamne and originally sung by a Bollywood playback singer named Mohammed Rafi (also here), a guy who’s sung a lot of songs. According to Netflix: 

A husband (Shashi Kapoor) becomes the obvious suspect after his wife is killed and he inherits a fortune, but there isn’t enough evidence to convict him. Still under police surveillance, he takes his money and moves to the city, where he’s soon planning to marry a wealthy neighbor (Sharmila Tagore). That’s much to the dismay of her fiancé (Prem Chopra), who’s convinced his rival is up to something far more sinister than simply stealing his girl.

Here’s another version with another spelling, Nain Mila Kar Chayen Churanaa (ah, the joys of transliteration). It’s not as massive-dance-number intensive as the above – more traditional, I guess you could call it, although I have no idea what’s “traditional” in India.

It’s bizarre, isn’t it? Three songs, and I’ll bet you the lyrics are spot-on identical for each, but one sounds like it came off of NPR’s Non-White Persons’ Ethnic Music for Sensitive Yuppies show, one’s straight outta Bollywood and the last sounds like it was cooked up in a New Delhi garage.

It’s all in how you play it.