Maxtech Entertainment has hit upon a surefire formula: they will be releasing four of the eight Ritwik Ghatak classics in VCD in quick succession, and if the stampede by the press, cameramen and film enthusiasts at Nandan on November 4 was anything to go by, this ?star? is hardly cloud-capped. He lives on, larger than life, bigger than the stars themselves. Ghatak?s 79th birth anniversary saw the release of the Meghe Dhaka Tara VCD (Rs 299), the first in the Ghatak series, to be followed by Subarnarekha, Komalgandhar and Nagarik, his first feature film. Meghe Dhaka Tara was first released in 1960 and Ghatak has written somewhere that he considiered this fillm to be his creative best. Need one say anything more other than, just get off your seat and grab the VCD.

A milestone is a milestone. And Yash Chopra?s Veer-Zaara (Yashraj Music; Rs 55, CD Rs 145) brings with it the resurrection of a legend, Madan Mohan. Thirty years after his death, his son and music buff Sanjeev Kohli ferreted out over a 100 tunes left behind by the maestro and shortlisted the handful used in the film which is setting out to legendise modernday romance on the lines of Shirin-Farhad, Laila Majnu and Sohni-Mahiwal.The music has been recreated by Sanjeev Kohli and the sublime lyrics fitted in with a perfection of a master craftsman like Javed Akhtar. Then you have Yash Chopra?s mascot, Lata Mangeshkar, entering the memory lanes where so many Lata-Madan Mohan gems still lay strewn.

These are reason enough to rejoice and celebrate; Veer-Zaara comes at a time when music is all dhoom machale. So, it is no mean achievement that it can quietly hold the tremulous finger of the disc junkie and lead him into gentle melody that works like therapy. Naturally, coming with such expectations, it doesn?t seem to do too much at first listen. But it is when you hear it softly in a high-profile restaurant or an upmarket lounge bar or in the quiet of your living room again and again, it kind of spreads into your veins. It is also the kind of music that will get huge mileage after people see it on the big screen. To be honest, Lata doesn?t sound like she did even a few years ago, say, in Dil To Pagal Hai. But it is still like watching an old magician pulling out rabbits from the hat, blindfolded.

There are 9 tracks in the cassette and a bonus two in the CD (not in the film), from the patriotic Aisa des hai mera to the chulbuli Hum to bhai jaise hain (so Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani-ish Javed Akhtar) to the dreamy Tere liye and Yeh hum aa gaye hain kahaan.

But straight off the bat is the over-boundary, Main yaahan hoon, sung by Udit Narayan (who gets the two best numbers in this score). Beautifully written, thematically smooth and a song that stands batons above all the others here.