Pascal of Bollywood

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An outrageous shirt reconciling psychedelia with kinetic art, a blindingly flashy gold watch and a mobile telephone decorated with Hindu goddesses… With a roar of laughter, Pascal of Bollywood announces that his costume is “unusually sober”. Barefoot in his Rajasthan Batas, Pascal Héni (the name on his passport) has come from his house in the Paris region today, where “wandering” frogs and miniature birds such as the white eye or the Tanimbar parrot-finch hop and flit in freedom. Immediately, our oddball singer brandishes the DVD of his favourite film, “An Evening in Paris”. The subject? “An incitement to passion and travel filmed by Bollywood in the very Courrèges Paris of 1967.” The ultimate proof that he genuinely loves this feature film? The song sung over its credits provides the brilliant opening for the first album by this Frenchman, who has won fame in India, under a stage name borrowed from the country’s prolific film industry. A flashback on the long-distance career of this crooning charmer, who will soon be a prophet in its own land, thanks to his enthusiastic covers of made-in-India soundtracks… On the roofs of Paris… Pascal is “a pure child of Les Batignolles”. There will always be a place in his heart for the Parisian quarter where he was born on the 25th April 1963. Surrounded by music from the earliest age, he remembers his mother singing a wide repertoire of pop songs she knew by heart from dawn to dusk. Then, in a teasing flash, he tells us that his rich baritone came from his father, «The Voice », an unconditional lover of vocal experimentation and imitation, whose greatest idol was Joe Dassin. Having dreamt of becoming a singer from infancy, he fell for prodigy Noam, his doppelganger at the time, at the age of 7. Then as he grew older, he fell under the charm of Dick Annegarn, Boris Vian or Marie Laforêt (someone he actually imitates very well). Unashamed, he reveals the love he had of Guy Lux and Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier shows. Having become a great connoisseur of Gallic musical heritage, he also pays tribute to “Casino” by Betty Mars, “Cigarette” by Charles Dumont (one of Piaf’s great partners) and “Pourquoi un pyjama?” (Why pyjamas?) by Régine. A skylark in the spotlight Still backed by his family, he set out to follow his star at the Conservatoire of dramatic art in Créteil. Between the ages of 15 and 20Pascal devoted to theatre and cinema, though keeping polishing his musical universe. In his “poet stage”, the “sounds man searching for the musicality of words” embarked on a sequence of four albums and a series of shows setting to music Rimbaud, Tristan Corbière (with the composer Stéphane Leach), Céline, Nietzsche, Artaud and three songs from Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. Also featured in his repertoire were a hundred or so songs written by himself or friends such as Maryse Wolinski. Design queen Andrée Putman took him under her wing, this troublemaker driven by DIY energy. The Indian swan At the time, “fine voice” were not in vogue and his was incompatible with the imperatives of fashion. Pascal stayed on his path, and with his passion for travel, he set off for Malaysia in 1987. He reached a turning point there in Kuala Lumpur’s Little India and began his collection of Bollywood cassettes. Between Christmas 2001 and summer 2004, Pascal travelled to India 9 times. After some frantic phonetic studies, he became a mine of information on the differences between “marvellous” Hindi, “ultra-percussive” Tamil and “Francophile” Bengali. He swept all before him in the subcontinent! Smoky dives, the French Embassy, high society, shanty towns, theatre halls: he gave concert after concert to unanimous, enthusiastic acclaim. “My dream was coming true: at last, I could just be a voice; at last, I could be kitsch!.” Having made an impact at the start of this year on Béatrice Ardisson’s compilation “Indomania”, he followed his waking dream “A Star is Born”-style, recording his album in the middle of the monsoon this summer, in the sacrosanct Spectral Harmony Studio of Bombay. His conductor? Pyarelal, “the 500-soundtrack maestro”, a living legend of 65, who exceptionally agreed to record other people’s songs for the occasion. However, at the very first studio session, he had Pascal “nailed to a torture stake”, making him repeat “dhundo” 200 times. Pascal’s vocal partners? Four superstars, from the legendary Jaspinder Narula to the young Shreya Ghoshal, revealed by the film “Devdas”. Refusing to be categorised, strongly attached to his roots, on the album, Pascal alludes to “La Vie en rose.... Indian-style”. “ I love sparkling colours! “ , he says, emphasising the point with the sequined picture illustrating his liner. “I celebrate the joyful side of India, but I know that sequins can be black,” concludes this man in a million, who knows the cost of paradise. Pyarelal The birth of a duo It is impossible to speak of Pyarelal’s life and career without alluding to the very similar life and career of Laxmikant. P and L, the best-known initials in Indian film: inevitable and (almost) inseparable. Laxmikant and Pyarelal were originally from humble backgrounds in Bombay. L’s father died young, while P’s was a remarkable trumpet player. Born in the 30s, they were both young prodigies, soon appearing with classical orchestras and in the studio: Laxmikant on mandolin at 10 and Pyarelal on violin from the age of 12. Legend says that they met at a cricket match, but they are more likely to have got together when playing their instruments: little boys perched on their chairs to avoid being submerged in the orchestra… Laxmikant and Pyarelal learned their lessons the hard way, first as musicians, then as assistants to the best-known writers of the day. Between lean times and recognition lay a film and a year: “Parasmani” in 1963. The song sung over its credits by the brilliant Lata Mangeshkar, remained at the top of the charts for weeks, and an endless series of hits and awards followed. From that point on, the duo wrote the music for the vast majority of Bollywood productions for more than 20 years. The 500-soundtrack man Today, Bollywood films engender one or two hits, but the films of the 60s and 70s contained ten or so, each more popular than the last. By far the majority were written, arranged and conducted by L&P. A simple glance at their filmography shows that in 1973 alone, L&P wrote the music for… 20 films! The same year saw the greatest success ever in India – the film “Bobby”, whose soundtrack sold more than 20 million copies worldwide (indeed, Pascal covers its greatest song, “Main shaayer to nahin”). Between 1962 and 1998, they wrote no fewer than 489 original soundtracks! Sadly, 1998 was also the year of Laxmikant’s death. Laxmikant was no more, but Pyarelal, a respectable figure always dressed in white, took up the torch alone, remaining a genuine living legend with 5,000 songs to his credit. Linked destinies Enchanted by this repertoire, Pascal Héni finally had a chance to meet “Magic” P. Their linked destinies resulted in “Pascal of Bollywood”. The tracks on the album are not all by L&P, but unusually, Pyarelal agreed to arrange them all, conduct the orchestra that brought them to life and keep a paternal eye on our Bollywood Frenchy. Bollywood Story Dreams, music, mysterious legends, outrageous costumes… and sheer joy! India is the world’s number-one film factory. More than 800 productions are shot each year in Bombay, the country’s film capital. Films are the nation’s leading leisure activity and national passion (along with cricket), since Bollywood’s main goal is to… make cinemagoers happy! Music is Bollywood’s universal language, acting as a link with a country populated by so many different ethnic groups who do not speak the same language. A Bollywood film without songs and dancing would be quite simply inconceivable. The music suggests the influence of Eastern pop in its string arrangements, classical Indian music in its beats, rock and electro. To make a good Bollywood film, you first need a love story complicated by social problems, such as caste or religious differences, and spiced up by a touch of the erotic (simply suggested though: everything must remain very chaste). Dream, music, mysterious legend, joy, delirious, colours, crazy costumes, unreal sceneries, dance, beauty of melodies, texts and rhythms, these are the ingredients of cinema which can’t do without songs. Also, as you have guessed, you need hits - truly memorable numbers to mark each high point of the film. So for more than 50 years, Bollywood has been producing the anthems you hear on the radio, the ones that everyone hums in the bus, that fill the hearts and minds of every individual here. Hollywood vs. Bombay = Bollywood!

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