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I had not even entered my teens when this movie was released (1981) but I still remember the youthfulness and freshness of this RD Burman/Anand Bakshi combo. It’s surprising how Lata could maintain that innocence in her voice throughout the album, singing for a supposedly 16-yr old Vijeta! Amit Kumar’s voice suited the then-heartthrob Kumar Gaurav to a T!

The first song is an evergreen classic “Yaad Aa Rahi Hai”, with some excellent singing by both Amit Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar. Till today this is considered as one of the best “Miss You” songs. The song appears in a solo version again, which sounds as beautiful, albeit a bid sadder. The instrumentation in both the versions is not too heavy and sets the mood of the song perfectly.

“Dekho Maine Dekha Hai Ek Sapna” is a super-hit song that was quite popular in those days. Listen to “Main Ayee, Ayee, Ayee, Ayee .. Aaja” and you will wonder what Lata-ji did to sound that youthful for almost 40 years!! The song talks about the dream house by Kumar Gaurav and Vijeta Pandit on screen, with every stanza describing the rooms one by one. Years later, an attempt was made again to capture this innocence by Lata/Abhijeet in “Chhota sa Ghar, hai Ye Magar” from Darr (1983), but “Dekho Maine Dekha” remains as one of the better ‘let’s-build-a-dreamhouse-together’ song!

It was said that even though RD was married to Asha, he reserved his best tunes for Lata. He does, however, give the quintessential sultry number to Asha-Ji here with “Kya Ghazab Karte Ho Ji” . It is picturized on Aruna Irani (in a special appearance) playing naughty with a very coy and innocent looking Kumar Gaurav. Asha Ji, as expected, shines! This is right down her alley. The naughtiness, the seductiveness, the innuendoes .. it all comes through. Way to go! No one else could have done justice to this.

“Kaisa Tera Pyar” is a beautiful roothna-manana duet by Amit and Lata. For some reason, this song was not all that popular, probably got overshadowed by the other songs in the movie – though it certainly ranks very highly in my eyes. The innocence, the naughtiness comes across better in the superbly-tuned antaras of the song .. listen to “Ik Dillagi Maine ki thi … Tune to dil se laga li” and you will know what I’m talking about. Great singing by both Amit and Lata.

The last song “Yeh Ladki Zarasi Deewani” is quite chaalu compared to the other songs of the movie. Not a bad fare at all, but definitely not up to the par with the others (although I have to admit it was my favorite when I was in my early teens!) . A typical chhed-chhad song, with Asha-ji taking the mike instead of Lata, (wonder if Lata refused to sing this one or was never approached because of the “style” of the song). The song is full of masti … with the guy and the gal taking turns to tease each other to death! “Kisi Shaitan Ki Naani Lagti Hai …. Gaadi Ka Koi Model Purana Lagta Hai”.

All you youngsters out there, if you haven’t heard Love Story … it is so worth buying thanks to some sweet sounding youthful chhed-chhad bhare numbers in it, plus it has the name RD Burman associated with it. So grab a copy, and find out what you missed out on!

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