Contributed by Avinash Ramchandani
avinash@indolink.com

Bhairavi, an exemplary album of contemporary semi-classical Hindi music, delivers as another Plus Music success. Laxmikant Pyarelal were quiet for quite some time before this album and Prem Granth released. The music here is excellent as classical music goes. The lyrics and the singing are outstanding as well. Kavita Krishnamurty is superb in her 6 triumphs in this album. Roop Kumar Rathod sings outstandingly in his two songs. Udit Narayan is good in his two less classical songs. The lyrics are the best that I have heard in a while. Amit Khanna won a national award for his brilliance in this album.

The first song, a slightly less classical number, "Belam Kesariya", delivers as a fine number sung by the brilliant Kavita Krishnamurty and a little less brilliant Udit Narayan. The lyrics are great. The music is good also. "Ab Ke Saawan Main" is a very classical number by Kavita Krishnamurty. She sings with grace carefully crafting her ups and downs through the song. The next song is the only song that isn't extremely classical. "Kuch Is Tarah" is sung beautifully by both Kavita Krishnamurty and Udit Narayan. Udit Narayan is especially excellent in this song. L-P's music is great as well. This song slightly reminds of the numbers in Hema Malni's TV Movie, Mohini.

Roop Kumar Rathod sings the next song, "Moh Maya Ko". Rathod shows off his classical talent inspired by the very classical music with the slight now-a-day adjustments. Another classical song, "Om Namah Shivay" delivers as the best performance by Kavita Krishnamurty and Roop Kumar Rathod and the best song in this album. Powerful singing by Krishnamurty and Rathod bring this song to that level. "Chal Ri Pawan Sang Mere" brings out the best in Krishnamurty again, although the song doesn't deliver as well as the previous. "Beech Bhanwar Se" is another very classical number. Rendered well by Kavita Krishnamurty, this song delivers another round of applause.

Kavita Krishnamurty, the main singer of this album mentioned that this, along with Jatin-Lalit's Khamoshi, is one of the albums that most challenged her recently. She also mentioned that this, along with Khamoshi again and Saaz, are her favorite albums recently. Taking this in respect with my own evaluations of Khamoshi and this album (Saaz is yet to be released), I would tend to agree that as of late, these two albums are her best. Laxmikant Pyarelal's best in a while has come to this album and the lyrics of this album can only be challenged by the lyrics of Plus Film's Papa Kahte Hain, which has Javed Akthar as lyricist. This album is bound to do pretty well in the box office. It is bound to start a trend in the music industry favoring classical music.

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