Producer/s: Pammi Baweja
Director: Sanjay F. Gupta
Music: Vishal Shekhar and Pankaj Awasthi
Lyrics: Vishal, Irshad Kamil, Pankaj Awasthi, Amit Mishra and Dev Kohli
Vocals: Alisha Chinoy, Harshdeep, Mahalaxmi, Pankaj Awasthi, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sonu Nigam and Vishal
Label: T-Series

The Bawejas have ensured that their productions have good music. Some examples are 'Diljale, Dilwale' and 'Qayamat'. It's another matter that their recently released music of ‘Main Aisa Hi Hoon' was ordinary, commercially. Their latest offering, ‘Karam' has an entirely new team. Lets check it out.

The first number 'Tinka Tinka' has some beautiful lyrics - 'Tinka tinka zara zara, Hai roshni see jaise bhara, Har dil mein armaan hote to hain, Bas koyi samjhe zara'. Alisha Chinoy excels in this lovely composition by Vishal Shekhar (‘Shabd', 'Musafir'). The lyrics by Vishal and Irshad Kamil lift this song to a higher level. Some beautiful use of piano and soft percussion beats enhances the song.

'Ishq nachaya kare' has Sunidhi singing to Vishal's lyrics. The introductory male vocals have a fleeting influence of 'Aisa Jadoo' from 'Khakee'. The lyrics are routine ' Har gham ko ek banaya karo, Dhadkan ke taal sunaya karo '. The vocals by Sunidhi are good but in between someone comes with a pathetic imitation of Jim Morrision's 'Stoned Immaculate'. The number can be classified as an item number and may dominate the dance floors for a brief period.

Next up 'Le ja' , with some philosophical lyrics by Vishal - ' Le ja, Saanse hi to baaqi hain, Ise bhi le ja, Dhadkane khali hain, Inhe bhi leja '. The singing by Vishal and Harshdeep is decent. Vishal's vocals are a mix of Adnan Sami and Hemant Kumar. The song depicts a chaotic state of mind, accompanied by background sounds and vocals, quite reminiscent of Deep Purple's 'Sweet Child In Time'. The combination of Punjabi and Urdu lyrics is unique and praiseworthy.

'Tinka Tinka' has its synthesized instrumental version, which is routine in nature and to an extent a disappointment, keeping the quality of the original track.

The title track 'Tera Hi Karam' has music by Pankaj Awasthi and lyrics by Pankaj Awasthi and Amit Mishra. Sample the depth of the lyrics - ' Tera hi karam, Mere saath hi Chala, Mere saath hi ruka, Mujh pe raha har dum tera Karam'. It's an outstanding track, with excellent lyrics and unbelievable vocals by Pankaj Awasthi. A new classification 'Sufi-Rock' (which has just been created by Awasthi!) is born with this composition. This short track is a level above the rest of the 'Sufi' numbers including Kailash Kher's 'Allah Ke Bande' and is bound to take the music connoisseurs by storm. But to appreciate this number one has to have some knowledge of music forms and high octave singing .The casual reviewer will list it as 'just another number '.

The album also has 'Le Jaa' as a filler, which is a repeat of the first version with no changes.

The 'Ishq Nachaya Kare' instrumental is dominated by percussion beats but only the parts sung by Sunidhi has been made 'instrumental', the rest of the song remains unaltered.

Up next is a slightly remixed version of Pankaj Awasthi's 'Tera Hi Karam' . The remixing only manages to adulterate the class of the original composition and bring it down from excellent to good. The repeated use of 'Chalta hai, Hum sab pe jadoo tera ' becomes irritating after a while.

'Koi Aisa Alam' by Sonu and Mahalaxmi goes ' Koi aisa alam banke ayee ho, Jaane kis duniya ki tum parchaeen ho, Bhooli yaadein saath mein laye ho '. It's a nice, soft, subdued romantic duet and both Sonu and Mahalaxmi manage to infuse feeling into their singing.

On the whole 'Karam' is another good offering from the Baweja camp, with two outstanding tracks - 'Tinka Tinka' plus 'Tera Hi Karam' and is slightly different from the usual. Released at another time it would have done much better than what it will. It's definitely worth buying.