This disappointing score gets an extra star rating for the stroke of genius that closes this album. The divine Lata Mangeshkar teams up with musical maestro Ilayaraja for the first time in a Hindi film. Usually, the mukhda is the most attractive part of a song. But Ilayaraja`s Kaun dagar enters the stanzas with such rare and precise elegance, and his orchestration is so brilliant, you want him to do more Hindi films right away, especially now when the man who stole his thunder seems to be at his lowest ebb.

A lyric about ravaged womanhood, Kaun dagar is a composition worthy of Lataji. Which is more than what we can say about the rest of the score by Anu Malik. His best bet in the album is the two-version Kalyug ki Seeta. One version is pepped up by the irrepressible Shubha Mudgal, who returns to Anu`s territory after Aks with more fuel for the fire.

One quibble about this track - We wish the credits had taken the trouble to acknowledge the lovely alaaps by Mahalaxmi that accompany Mudgal`s singing. In comparison, Anuradha Paudwal`s version of Kalyug ki Seeta is pretty pale. Pretty, but pale.

Even Saajan ke ghar jaana hain (sic) (why the added "n" in the credits?), which gets the honour of being featured twice over, is pretty vapid stuff in spite of layer upon layer of orchestral affectations, when compared with Alka Yagnik`s wedding song for A R Rahman in Zubeidaa.

As for Jiyo jiyo, Sameer can certainly do better than Life is like ice cream, pal pal pighalti jaaye. A slurp on the face, what? And by the way, the usually capable KK sounds more like Anu than himself.

Lajja`s songs once again prove that Rajkumar Santoshi doesn`t have much of a music sense. Thank God for Ilayaraja, who is doing the background score of Lajja, and whose one contribution to this soundtrack in Lataji`s voice elevates the banal to the beautiful.