JAIPUR LOVES ME

Often I have written and spoken about my love for Jaipur. When returning to Delhi after a recent visit, I was wondering why I love Jaipur so much when the answer came joyfully screaming back at me, ‘Because Jaipur loves me’!

Jaipur treats me as a young man. Our domestic staff there have been working with us since my mother's time and while she was ‘Mummy’ to them, I was ‘Bhaisahib’ and remain so. Nobody addresses me with the plain, formal ‘Sahib’, ‘Sir’ or ‘Unkilji’ as they do in Delhi! And Akhila is ‘Bhabhiji’.

At the same time, there is more respect in Jaipur. People are polite, courteous and deferential in contrast to the cold unconcern of Delhi. Diggi Palace is a stone’s throw from our house and a number of Rickshawwallahs pile up there waiting for customers. When I walk past, they all get up and do a ‘Namaste’. I usually take an evening walk on the green, green grass in the nearby Maharaja College and the watchmen, far from questioning me, respectfully greet me when I enter and if I get late, patiently wait for me to exit before closing the gates. The neighbours are all hospitable, warm and helpful.

In Jaipur, we feel welcome and wanted. I ring up a veteran 9 years my senior and he immediately organizes a dinner and calls other mutual friends. A former Navy Chief wants to play golf with me. Other friends and relatives ask when we are free to come over. In Delhi, no one gives a damn!

We go to a shop and the shopkeeper knows what we want and lays out a spread of ice creams and dark chocolates. We book a table at the Rambagh Hotel and the Manager is at the porch to receive us. At the neighbourhood Coffee shop, the waiter wonders why we are coming after so long. At Niro’s, the manager smilingly confirms that they still serve sundaes such as Honeymoon Special and Knickerbocker Glory which I used to have when in school in the 1950s. He sends one of each with his compliments.

To feel younger, I often walk down the street where we lived 70 years ago. The government house on 3 Hospital Road is still standing and the paint is not cracked and dry. I see the driveway where we used to play Cricket. If I didn’t have company, I just played alone in the verandah on the right by bouncing the ball on the wall and hitting it on return. Many India-Pakistan ‘test matches’ were played that way! And there’s the balcony where a kid relative of ours sleepwalked over the parapet, fell on the flowerbed down below, dusted himself and walked off nonchalantly. Shashi Mamaji named him ‘Kabutar’ which name stuck to him for life!

Sadly, ‘Ananda’, Pitaji’s own house on the adjacent Vivekanand Marg where we lived for over 50 years, does not exist any more but beautiful memories are vividly alive. Fortunately, Mummy built her house on a portion of the plot, so the air that we breathe and the ground that we live on are the same. It helps that Akhila also loves Jaipur. She is proud of her little garden which she tends to fondly and is gratified that her efforts are rewarded with fruit and flowers on each visit.

A visit to my old School, St. Xavier’s, is a must. The majestic multi-coloured stone building has me enthralled and I can feel Fathers Pinto, Mackessack and Mann graciously blessing me.

It is a record that during every visit of ours, and we average 4-5 a year, it rains at least once in Jaipur no matter what the season. In our recent 3-week visit in March, it rained thrice and the weather turned heavenly. Every evening, a peacock family paid us a visit and for our exclusive viewing, the male performed an extended dance show on the roof of an adjacent house while the female and siblings strutted about.

Yes, the feeling is mutual. I love Jaipur and Jaipur loves me.

MY TOP ITALIAN SONGS

 

 

 

You knew it was coming, didn’t you?  My favourite Italian songs.

 

I love Italy and everything about it: its countryside, art, sculpture, food, the sound of its sweet language, beautiful women, handsome men, movies, songs and everything else! Sometimes people tell me I don’t look like an Indian and I hate that, immediately correcting them saying I am 100% Indian and proud to be so. But in Italy, when someone told me I could pass off for an Italian, I let it go smugly!

 

I have been to Italy four times and each time thrown a coin in the Trevi Fountain. Three times it has worked- I have revisited Italy, but the fourth coin’s magic is awaited. Will it work? Or would it lead to being born in Italy in my next life!

 

I have digressed: back to songs. Generalisations are not entirely fair but since I wrote about French songs earlier, to me it appears that the French are a little sad and brooding while the Italians are happier and more open with their emotions and not afraid of wearing the heart on the sleeve.

 

Now for the hard part. I love so many Italian songs that it is tough to select. However, I will attempt with two provisos: one, many will be left out because of sheer numbers and space, and two, songs listed will not be in any particular order: they are all equally good.

 

First, there are the evergreen Neapolitan songs exclusive to Italy. They date back to 1835 when the first music festival took place in Naples and was held annually till late 1940s. The songs became very popular from end-19^th century and remain so till the present. Most of them have been sung by every famous tenor starting with Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza and Beniamino Gigli down to the modern 3 tenors, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and my favourite Luciano Pavarotti, and the youngest, Andrea Bocelli.  Apart from the usual theme of love, many of the songs celebrate the sun, the sea and the city of Naples or lament the greatest tragedy for a Neapolitan which is not death but absence from Naples.

 

I have four favourites.  I was introduced to the first one by Vinnie Mama when he brought a 78 rpm disc of ‘Santa Lucia’ by Enrico Caruso on his return from a Europe visit in the early 1950s. In fact, ‘Santa Lucia’ happens to be the first Neapolitan song to be given Italian lyrics in 1849. The song is an invitation by a boatman to sail in his boat along the picturesque waterfront of Santa Lucia district in the Gulf of Naples.

 

‘Funiculi Funicula’ was composed in 1880 to mark the opening of the first funicular on Mount Vesuvius. ‘O Sole Mio’ (My Sun) is probably the most popular and won the Grammy award for Luciano Pavarotti in 1980. ‘Torna e Surriento’ (Come Back to Sorrento) praises the scenic surroundings of Sorrento. Twice I have had the pleasure of sailing in a boat from Capri to Sorrento and then a train ride to Naples and the beauty of the sea and coastline are fabulous beyond words.

 

Coming to other Italian songs, let me start with three numbers which I always requested for when visiting a nightclub or restaurant during my visits to Rome. First, ‘Il Mondo’ (The World), a 1965 hit by Jimmy Fontana and arranged by the well-known composer Ennio Morricone. For Fontana, it was his most successful recording. Inevitably, it had English versions titled ‘My World’ of which I like Englebert Humperdinck’s the best.

 

‘Al Di La’ (Beyond) sung by Betty Curtis was the Italian entry in the Eurovision song contest in 1961 but the version I like best is by Emilio Pericoli who mesmerized Troy Donahue and Suzanne Pleshette and us in the 1962 movie ‘Rome Adventure’ also known as ‘Lovers Must Learn’. It became a great hit both in the US and UK. Donahue and Pleshette’s screen romance turned real leading to their marriage a few years later!

 

‘Grande Grande Grande’ (Great Great Great) sung by the Italian singer Mina was the no.1 hit in Italy in 1972. Its lyrics were written by the famous singer Julio Iglesias along with two others. Sample the lyrics (translated) to get the flavor of the song, ‘I hate you, then I love you, and then I love you, then I hate you, and then I love you……You are great, great, great….’ This song was titled ‘Never Never Never’ in English and sung with equal passion by Shirley Bassey. The English lyrics are also similar: ‘I love you, hate you, love you, hate you…..I never, never, never want to be in love with anyone but you’.

 

Umberto Tozzi is a great Italian pop singer and I love his ‘Gloria’ which was a big hit in Italy in 1979-80. The English version of this song by Laura Branigan is equally good and was on top of the pops in many countries including 36 weeks in US in 1982. At least two other hits of Tozzi are worth listening to again and again, ‘Ti Amo’ (I love you) and ‘Tu’ (You). Along with ‘Gloria’, these are guaranteed to chase your Corona blues away!

 

In 1958, Italian singer Domenico Mondugno recorded ‘Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu’ (In The Blue, Painted Blue) which became an instant hit internationally. It was then sung in an English-Italian mix by Dean Martin as ‘Volare’ (To Fly) which too became a global hit. Its popularity lasts till today and it ranks among the best known Italian songs worldwide.

 

Dean Martin, original name Dino Paul Crocetti who had an Italian father and Italian-American mother, will be remembered as the person who truly injected Italian flavor in English songs and some of them are worth recalling here though they are not strictly Italian. ‘That’s Amore’ is a love song ‘in Napoli where love is king ….. when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, That’s Amore’. In the pre-fast food joints era, that’s when I first heard of a pizza! ‘Innamorata’ is an ode to a sweetheart while in ‘An Evening in Roma’, the lonely singer is envious of couples that he sees on the streets of Rome and invites his girlfriend to meet him perhaps for an espresso.

 

Let me mention here that there is a group called ‘Il Volo’ consisting of three handsome guys aged 26-27 who sing most of the songs mentioned above beautifully and very often, I play them on TV. Appropriately, they call their style of singing ‘popera’!

 

In an Italian-American musical of 1957 'Seven Hills of Rome', Mario Lanza sang 'Arrividerci Roma' which familiarised us with the Italian 'farewell'. 

It is now time to sing ‘Buena Sera' (Good night) a la Louis Prima.

 

ADDENDUM TO MY FAVOURITE FRENCH SONGS

I would like to add two more songs to my list of favourite French songs.

The first one is the haunting theme from the highly emotional movie, 'Un homme et une femme (A man and a woman). The composer was Francis Lai who gained international fame after this 1966 film score and won the Golden Globe award for it. He would go on to sweep all possible awards in 1970 for the musical score of the even more emotional movie, 'Love Story'.

The second song is 'Les feuilles mortes' (Dead leaves).This was composed for a 1946 French movie 'Les portes de la nuit' (Gates of the night) and sung by Irene Joachim. Johnny Mercer gave it English lyrics and it was first sung by Jo Stafford in 1950 as 'Autumn leaves'. It became a top hit and soon all famous English singers were recording it including Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Doris Day. Of course, all of us love the unforgettable Nat King Cole version of it.

Not that well-known, but the pianist Roger Williams' instrumental recording of it was the no.1 bestseller in 1955.

MY FAVOURITE FRENCH SONGS

I don't know French or Italian. That does not mean I can't enjoy songs in those languages.

A good singer can convey feelings, emotions and passion with the delivery, modulation of voice and tone, rhythm, etc. Lyrics, of course, play an important part but a well-sung song can tug at one's heartstrings without understanding them. Once one is hooked, one can go through the translations and in almost all cases one would find that the sense of the song could be correctly interpreted right at the first listening. 

So here are my top favourite French songs.

Top of the list is 'Ne me quitte pas' (Don't leave me) which gripped me from the first time I heard it during a visit to a restaurant in Rome in January 1976. I don't even remember whether on that occasion it was sung in French or Italian but that was the title told to me when I inquired. The original French song is by a Belgian singer, Jacques Brel, and there is a moving story behind it. Brel wrote and sang it in 1959 after his mistress threw him out of her life. The song is sung in a halting, expressive and passionate way, something like a soliloquy, and moves one to tears. Brel himself called it "a hymn to the cowardice of men", a degree to which they were willing to humiliate themselves. Frenchmen said it was sung at a time at which men weren't allowed to cry for women who didn't want them anymore and even the famous French singer Edith Piaf said the song had complete lack of virility. With all that, it is rated by many as the no. 1 French song of all time and has been sung in many languages around the world. The song's English version 'If you go away' was first popularised by Rod McKuen but I love Shirley Bassey's version of it.

Next is 'La mer' (The Sea) by Charles Trenet. He wrote the lyrics of the song when just 16 but set the tune in 1943 when travelling by train between Montpellier and Parpignan gazing out of the window at a lagoon in South of France. After an initial cold shoulder, the song became an unexpected hit when Trenet himself recorded it in 1946. Subsequently, it has become the best selling French song along with Edith Piaf's "La vie en rose'. It has versions all over the world with 4000 recordings and over 70 million copies as per a 2001 count. A smooth, very listenable English version is 'Beyond the sea' by Bobby Darin. It has also been sung by all-time greats, Julio Iglesias and Demis Roussos. I was first introduced to it by my Vinnie Mama after he heard it during his visit to France in 1954. And one of my sweet memories is of a train journey from Livorno to Civitavecchia overlooking the deep blue sea waters of the Tuscan Arch and humming the song when I fulfilled a long-standing promise to Akhila of a trip to Italy in 2004. 

Third on the list is 'Et maintenant' (And now) by Gilbert Becaud recorded in 1961. The song is about the desperation of a man surrounded by emptiness after his love has deserted him. Apart from the emotional singing, what is captivating in the original song is the recurring music pattern in the background from Ravel's Bolero. That really makes it unique. Its English version 'What now my love', also became very popular with big names like Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Shirley Bassey singing it and Herb Alpert providing a very catchy instrumental rendition.

When talking of French songs, one has to include the legendary Edith Piaf and she is on my list with her signature tune, 'La vie en rose' (literally 'Life in Pink' or life in rosy hues). This was written in 1945 and released as a single in 1947. Sung in a smooth, easy style, it expresses the joy of finding true love and was very appealing to people who lived through the difficult times of World War II. It created a record when 7 English versions of it reached the US Billboard charts in 1950. The singers included Edith Piaf herself, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Louis Armstrong. Edith Piaf became internationally famous after this song. This was another song which was heard by Vinnie Mama during his 1954 visit and who familiarised me with it.

'L'amour est bleu' (Love is blue) describing pleasure and pain of love in terms of colours blue and grey and elements water and wind is next. It was first performed in French by the Greek singer Vicky Leandros but my favourite is the brilliant instrumental version played by Paul Mauriat and his Orchestra. In 1967, Mauriat's version became the only instrumental by a French orchestra leader to hit the number 1 spot on the US Billboard Hot 100, a record held till 2017. A video is available today with the visuals providing the appropriate mood and colours of the song.

Finally on the list is 'Petite fleur' (Little flower), originally a non-French instrumental with Monty Sunshine playing a clarinet solo with Chris Barber's Jazz Band in 1959. It was particularly popular in the Gunroom (as the Midshipmen's wardroom is called) of Mysore when a number of my fellow midshipmen were vying for a date with a girl named Fleur. In 1964, it was vocalised in French by Petula Clark, better known in the English music world for her super hits 'Downtown' and 'This is my song'. Her lovely version finds a place in the best all-time French songs compiled by a lot of music critics.

That completes my list but at the risk of being termed vain, I am going to smuggle in another song not quite French but I deem it eligible as the title and its singer are both French. It is 'Je ne sais pas' (I do not know) by Brigitte Bardot in the 1955 British comedy film 'Doctor at sea' based on the hilarious novel by Richard Gordon. Bardot, playing a nightclub singer, naughtily sings, 'Je ne sais pas..... there are many things I don't know but I do know this, that I love you, love you, love you, je ne sais!' to Dirk Bogarde who many said I resembled in my youth!