An errant son of a famous father drifted into a lifestyle of money and marijuana. Mehmood was one of the most prolific comedian/actor, director and producer in Bollywood in 60s and 70s. Maqsood's relationship with his father was far from smooth, but somehow didn't make it to tabloids. His initial acting forays as a child actor in 60s and then a few off-beat films in 70s were limited success. At some point he moved to Australia & New Zealand.
In mid-90s, Maqsood Mahmood Ali released an album. Titled Sunoh (Listen), it featured beautiful lyrics, easy to hum along songs, sung with a slight nasal voice. The album featured a song 'O Sanam' that stayed in MTV Asia's music charts Top 3 for 60 weeks, and won him Channel V Viewer's choice awards. With a neat Egypt themed video, it received plenty of screen time on Music as well as regular Indian television. Lucky Ali became an instantly recognizable name. The video starts off with Lucky Ali, an archaeologist, travelling to a dusty desert place on a motorcycle with a side car. Apparently he is the rebirth of an ancient feudal lord. This turns out to be coincidentally the same place of his previous life. The key (literally) to his memories is this large key, a key to a prison cell. He remembers the painful events of his past life.
In his previous life Lucky Ali arrested the older person related to the lady in veil and convicted of some crime. This enigmatic lady, all we can see are her beautiful eyes, is played by Lucky Ali's then wife Meaghan Jane McCleary. Veiled lady is determined to free the man, played a false love affair with the feudal lord. This is about 2:30 minutes into the song where she, and a bunch of other veiled ladies, steal the key from a sleeping feudal lord. Sh
e eventually succeeded in freeing man, but herself got caught. The feudal lord really fancies the girl, but what she has done can't go unpunished. She convicted to be beheaded. The love remains unfulfilled.In this life, Lucky Ali as an archaeologist feels sad for his previous life and sings the song in remembrance. At last he throws the key away in despair.
The first time I heard this song, I was hooked. The simplicity of the song, the ease with which it could be hummed or sung along appealed to me instantly. The slight nasal twang didn't really bother me. The video was superb, a well made short story in a 4 minute song. The mellifluous Urdu words (some of which I had to look up for their meaning) were easy to sing. The entire album had great songs, and the songs just wove into one another into an entire album of rustic melodies.
Listen to an unplugged version on soundcloud but better still, watch the wonderful video
