All style, no substance

Sukanya Verma

If Rajkumar Santoshi's Damini depicted the saga of one wronged woman, Lajja boasts of four.

Lajja (shame) is the story of four women who have one story to tell. Starring Rekha, Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Manisha Koirala, Ajay Devgan and Mahima Chaudhry.

Besides its marathon starcast, the film boasts of music by Moulin Rouge Chamma chamma fame Anu Malik.

Is the music as hot as its cast? I think not!

The album kickstarts with Anuradha Sriram oozing oomph in Aa hi jaiye. The needlessly heavy arrangement and loud beats mar this fairly decent track.

Alka Yagnik, Richa Sharma and Sonu Nigam hum the wedding ditty, Saajan ke ghar jaana hai. What more can we say, except that it's a regular shaadi-bidaai number?

Anuradha Paudwal is at her gloomy best in Kalyug ki Sita which talks about a woman's hardships and failures.

Remarkably, when Shubha Mudgal croons the same in her inimitable husky voice, Kalyug ki Sita reaches new dimensions.

In complete contrast to Kalyug comes the spiced-up, peppy Jiyo jiyo. Despite lines like 'Life is just like ice cream', this carefree song manages to catch your fancy, thanks to KK's spontaneity.

Badi mushkil is another worthwhile track, sung by an impish sounding Alka Yagnik. Exciting part is that the song has been picturised on the gorgeous duo of Madhuri Dixit and Manisha Koirala sharing screen space for the first time.

Kaun dagar, composed by guest composer Ilaiyaraja is nothing worth writing home about. Save the fact that one gets to hear Lata Mangeshkar after quite a while.

The music of Lajja is a perfect case of all style, no substance. Anu Malik doesn't do justice to Lajja, which is a shame considering he's capable of far better fare.