French window opens to phillum songs

MUMBAI: It's not often you run into a Frenchman singing Itna na mujhse tu pyar badhaa/Ke main ek badal awara. And has meticulous notes translating the song as, Ne m'aimez pas autant-de plus en plus/Parce que je suis un nuage vagabond. But that's Pascal Heni, a heartbreakingly charming Frenchman who sings Bollywood and Tamil film songs. C'est tres bizarre, mais voila.One moment he's singing Zindagi ek safar hai suhana from Andaz, yodelling and all, the next he breaks into Rajaavin Paarvai in Tamil from the film Anbe Vaa. One scarcely knows any Indians who can sing both Bollywood and Tamil film songs, so Heni must be as much of a rara avis as they come. He was in the city last week, working on a DVD and live concert which will have him trilling away our favourite phillum hits. "In Indya, popular cinema is a pretext to make songs," says Pascal Heni,with pretty unerring accuracy - and even prettier franglais. "To think of popular Indian cinema wizout ze songs, c'est impossible," he shrugs. He doesn't say that to deride Indian cinema, on the contrary, it's helped the actor and music composer stumble upon what seems like a life mission, at least for now. He can't understand either Hindi or Tamil, but his enthousiasme is not to be dissuaded by such petits trifles. He understands the songs he sings, of course. "I sing everywhere I go in India, in the hotel, taxi, street," says Heni, who has an unmistakably Peter Pan air about him. "Everyone does a (he mimics an openmouthed double-take). When I sing here, it makes ze people very laugh like crazy, and zey also sing with me. I'm happy Indians love old Hindi songs. Tout le temps (all the time), they tell me 'Old is gold.' It makes ze people proud, but very simple-proud, when I sing. They feel their songs are their patrimoine (heritage). I would like to re-establish ze nobility of thees songs." So while Bollywood is going all out to make a mark in the West, Heni takes the reverse route. His adoration for filmi music is not so much a post- Devdas , me-too phenomenon, as a love that goes back 15 years, when he was a tourist in Malaysia.