'Stanley Ka Dabba' entertains with situational songs (IANS Music Review)

Film: 'Stanley Ka Dabba'; Music Director: Hitesh Sonik; Lyricist: Amole Gupte; Singers: Shaan, Vishal Dadlani, Sukhwinder Singh, Shankar Mahadevan, Hamsika Iyer and Aditya Chakravarty; Rating: ***

Amole Gupte's directorial debut 'Stanley Ka Dabba' seems to be a simple, sweet, innocent film and its music, scored by Hitesh Sonik, is quite apt for it. Although most of the songs are situational, yet they do have a hummable quality.

The album begins with pleasing number 'Life bahot simple hai'. Sung by Shaan, the track basically talks about life from a child's perspective and Shaan aptly infuses right emotions while crooning it. Not too many instruments are used and the composition is simple. Before you know, you start humming the song. A good beginning.

Next comes in a faster and peppier track 'Dabba' by singer Sukhwinder Singh. It's basically a situational song about the importance of a tiffin box. Children give ample support to Sukhwinder in this fun song.

'Nanhi si jaan' packs in a few elements of rock and is about the courage and determination of a young boy. Shankar Mahadevan softly croons the song and makes it one of the best songs of the album.

Then comes in 'Tere andar bhi kahin', which has minimal music. Vishal Dadlani goes behind the mike to sign this free flowing, slow moving song and the composition has a slight effect of jazz. A nice but situational track again.

This song has another short version sung by young boy Aditya Chakravarty. The orchestration is lesser in this version.

Next is 'Jhoola jool'. An average song sung by Hamsika Iyer, it is the only track with female voice in the whole album. The slow number seems to be a track that a mother would sing for her child; it's like a lullaby.

Finally, the album ends with an instrumental theme song called 'Stanley's theme'.

On the whole, the songs are pleasing and worth listening.

(26.04.2011 - Ruchika Kher can be contacted at [email protected])