GREATEST KONKANI SONG HITS #1: ___________________________ transcribing the fine music of a great culture - revisiting the original magic, and recreating a modern idiom: ___________________________
"HANV SAIBA POLTODDI VETAM" ___________________________ "I'm Going Across To the Other Side Of The River" _______ LEGEND: "Hanv Saiba" This is the most famous Dekhnni (a semi-classical Goan dance form), composed by Carlos Eugenio Ferreira of Corjuem, Aldona in 1887 and published, with the help of his brilliant pianist brother Eduardo, in Paris in 1895, as ‘The Balladas de Concan’. Tipografia Rangel subsequently brought it out in Goa three decades later in 1926. Dekhnnis are often called "The Song of The Dancing Girl" (kolvont), and here a couple of these beautiful nymphs approach the boatman to ferry them across the river for Damu's wedding. This extortionate worthy baulks on one pretext or the other, refusing their offers of jewellery, flowers, etc, until satiated by a kiss! This rousing and evocative strain was even adapted by the noted Bollywood music-duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal for producer Raj Kapoor's celebrated 1973 film "Bobby". Lifted almost in its entirety, for an arguably Christian wedding-scene, it was retitled "Na Chaahoon Sona Chaandi", but the melody is unmistakable, right down to its "ghe, ghe, ghe," refrain. _______________________ TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED: "Hanv Saiba" Shiroda, Goa, March 1887. The dancing-girl's eyes glittered, her steps faltering slightly. She'd had a little too much to drink, whirling the night away at Damu's wedding. She sat down unsteadily at the ferry wharf, waiting for the boatman to take her back alone. He'd been at the wedding too - white with anger, her memory returned of the rapacious advantage he'd taken of her and her two absent companions, after he'd extracted a passionate kiss to take them across. She murmured a prayer to Kali goddess of the dance, from whom they got their name "kali'vont". He rowed her back to the islands alone, leery thoughts quickening his stroke. He was going to have all the jewellery she'd promised, to row her across, and then her. As the lithe craft beached the opposite shore his iron grip clamped her bangled wrist, and she yelped in fear. Glazed, she reached down her free hand and unfastening both the promised anklets, flung one viciously at him. It hit him square in the temple, he swore and tripped, his stout oar thrown aloft. Deftly she caught it, and both hands now free, like lightening snaked the other anklet around his collar, garrotted it to the oar and swiftly broke his neck. Quickly retrieving the other anklet, she pushed the corpse out in the boat. Downtide he would vanish in the Arabian sea by dawn. Twin points smouldered deep under the dancing waves - her eyes - Kali was also goddess of death. "Hanv Saiba" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSwX0PUZRHk _______________ Francis Rodrigues (c) 2009. Author of the multi-volume "Greatest Konkani Song Hits" series."Tales Of The Unexpected" contains many elements of the original lyric ideas. http://www.KonkaniSongBook.com _________________ _________________________________________________________________ Attention all humans. We are your photos. Free us. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9666046
