Indeed, Kailash’s class was evident

It is always a pleasure to listen to a singer who happens to be an old favourite, and more so if his voice is unique.

There’s no two ways about the fact that that word perfectly describes the voice of Kailash Kher, who rendered Chhoti Si Chiraiya (which could be translated to, “A little bird”).

If the seven songs from Mimi (2021) on my blog dedicated to A R Rahman’s compositions were arranged in the alphabetical order, that track – which was four minutes and 35 seconds long – would be the first.

Amitabh Bhattacharya wrote it.

The vocAlists were chosen Kherectly

Arziyan was the longest song on the soundtrack of Delhi-6, which released in 2009 – it was eight minutes and 41 seconds long.

It was tailor-made for both the vocAlists (Javed and Kailash Kher). So it was no surprise that they were nominated in the Best Male Playback Singer category at the Filmfare Awards.

The track, which was penned by Prasoon Joshi, merited repetitions (to allow it to grow on the listeners). And once it did, it deserved listening to on loop.

In a nutshell, it could be described as the quintessential A R Rahman composition.

Kailash’s rendition was pure class

There were three versions of Mangal Mangal, the title track of Mangal Pandey: The Rising. That was a triple treat for Hindi film music aficionados in general, and fans of A R Rahman (who composed them) in particular.

They were rendered by Kailash Kher.

Interestingly, the original was just a couple of minutes and 29 seconds long.

Its Agni version was four seconds shorter than the aforementioned version.

The third version of the track – the Aatma version – was four minutes and 19 seconds long. Sukhwinder Singh joined Kher behind the microphone.

Javed Akhtar penned them.

(Ud)It was the KatcHiest track

The piece de resistance of Swades’ soundtrack was Yunhi Chala Chal, which was, incidentally, the longest song in the film as well – it was seven minutes and 28 seconds long.

It was the perfect song to play when one is on a road trip or at a jam session with friends.

And the best part of it is it gave the listeners a message (to keep going forward) without becoming preachy.

Penned by Javed Akhtar and composed by A R Rahman, (Ud)it was rendered by Narayan, Hariharan and Kailash Kher (the highlight of the track).