By Rizwan Z , October 10, 2006 - 01:24 IST 2 of 3 people found this review helpful
Since there's a lot of fuss going on about 'Umrao Jan wearing thinking cap (topi) making her look like a chorus girl of a qawali team, I want to give a birth to one more controversy regarding it's music. How can a muslim 'Umrao Jan' sing 'Agley janam mohe bitiya na keejo' (Do not give me a girl's birth in next birth) when Islam has no concept of next-birth or reincarnation. The pervious version of Umrao Jan (1981) particularly took care of her religious priorities & beliefs when she was even shown to celebrate 'Moharrum'wearing black dress & no jewelry. This must be noted that in original novel, Umrao Jan was even said to go to read 'majlis' during the month of Moharrum. She did have some ritual beliefs & was not a kind of a woman who could go to church like Simran (Kajol) of DDLJ to pray to God!!!!!
Looks like the whole team was set to make errors in this depict of Umrao Jan. Javed Akhtar (the lyricist) has been the worst to give 'Foreword' in the album 'Umrao Jan' in his 'totla' accent. Anu Malik could have got some other good voice to say words in this 'foreword'. I'm thankful that J.P Dutta has not recorded any bhujjan for Umrao Jan to sing in his version of the movie. The only track of the album Umrao Jan which can be said to meet at least some good standard is "Salaam" otherwise rest is just the tiring effort to sound classic by Anu Malik & Javed Akhtar.
