The Kishore-set Pancham (R. D. Burman) told me that his one unfulfilled dream was to record Hemant Kumar going solo. ‘Just no one matched Hemant Kumar in voice quality!’ averred Pancham. True Papa S. D. Burman’s total number of Hemant Kumar numbers, filmed on Dev Anand, numbered not even a dozen, yet each one of the seven Hemant solos, for the Dev Anand–S. D. Burman duo, even today, rates as a vignette.
Her Nain deewaane vision prompting the Navketan Afsar in him to chant Ishq Ishq Ishq even before Zeenat Aman was born, Dev Anand whispered into singing-star Suraiya’s ear: ‘Your eyes are like a glittering diamond on a queen’s face!’ So smitten, dasher Dev Anand scurried to Bombay’s Zaveri Bazar and ‘bought one of the costliest rings that would adorn her finger’. That ring is celebrated in cine lore as a non-family heirloom that Suraiya’s martinet granny, Badshah Begum, hurled into the Marine Drive sea, just a stone’s throw from Suraiya’s Krishna Mahal ground-floor balcony. But Dev Anand, in his autobigraphy Romancing with Life gives it an altogether different dimension as he writes: ‘She took the ring I sent her to the seaside and, looking at it for the last time, with all the love she had in her heart for me, threw it far into the sea.’ For well over 60 years, we have been fed with the story that it was that old battle-axe of a granny who snatched the engagement ring from Suraiya’s quivering finger and threw it into the sea. In fact – 30 years after it happened – Suraiya actually took me into the balcony (adjoining her inside room) and ventured to demonstrate how heartless her strongarm granny had been in throwing that ring into the sea!
Suraiya was ‘Nosey’ to Dev, while she called him ‘Steve’. If Steve’s autobiography tellingly identifies ‘Nosey’ as his first and last love, Suraiya’s delicate dueting with Dev Anand is the burden of my song. Laayee khushee kee duniyaa hanstee huuee jawaanee – was it not enacting this S. D. Burman-tuned duet (alongside Mukesh) that Suraiya, on the sets of Vidya (1948), fell for Dev as for no man before him? Chaahe kitnee kathin dagar ho (rendered with Shankar Dasgupta for Anil Biswas in Jeet) is another pre-1950 Suraiya–Dev ditty falling feelingly on the ears. Yet Sanam – a film long in coming, released only in May 1951 – was the starrer, revealed Suraiya, on whose sets the two determined to wed against all odds. Vivid in Suraiya’s memory, therefore, were her two Husnlal-Bhagatram-tuned, Mohammed Rafi-shared duets going as O sanam o sanam o sanam, main tujhe pukaroon sanam sanam, o sanam o sanam and Main keh doon tum ko chor toh bolon kyaa karoge. But that was then. How did Suraiya come to view her Dev on the screen by end-1979, enacting a song? I rewind Suraiya to that Goldie Vijay Anand-promoted voice going so ringingly on her Dev – Mohammed Rafi, her standard duet-partner. The accent, I tell Suraiya, has to be on her pet Dev solos rendered by Rafi.
Nain deewaane:
Suraiya and Dev Anand
‘My absolute favourite,’ recalls Suraiya, ‘is the [1958] Kala Pani beauty, Hum bekhudee mein. I here tenderly tune with Rafi, seeing how Dev looks, in that cute-cute cap, the style of Adonis I adore! As for Nalini Jaywant – still coming through as fetching opposite Dev in Kala Pani – can you believe she is well over two years older to me? But don’t ask me to choose between Rafi’s Hum bekhudee mein and his Kyaa se kyaa ho gayaa in Guide [1965], both going on Dev so eye-catchingly. In Kyaa se kyaa ho gayaa, playing Guide so rivetingly, Dev looks super debonair, doesn’ the, compared to the screen picture that Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor present – by this mid-’60s stage? Another Dev–Rafi solo I cherish is Saathee na koee manzil, even if that top Bengal actress, Suchitra Sen, hardly looks the heroine’s part, opposite a Dev, in 1960, playing Bambai Ka Babu. How naturally poignant Rafi sounds in Saathee na koee. I say ‘‘naturally poignant’’ compared to the unnaturally sentimental way Rafi tended to sing, at times, while dueting in my company – as in Ae ishq humein barbaad na kar from Naach, coming as we headed for the 1950s! But this is a different Rafi altogether. So much so that, on a Dev looking exceedingly handsome opposite Waheeda Rehman in Kala Bazar [1960], I just couldn’t take my pick between Rafi’s Apnee toh har aah ek toofaan hai and his Khoyaa khoyaa chaand!’
‘For all that,’ I pitch in, ‘Nutan wasn’t any less impressive than Waheeda opposite Dev, was she?’ Suraiya’s reaction: ‘Nutan amazed me with the strides she made as an actress. In Tere Ghar Ke Saamne [1963], I couldn’t take my gaze off Dev, the way he went questing for Nutan in that Shimla-by-night setting. Tuu kahaan yeh bataa is a situation only Goldie could have carried off on the screen. It’s Rafi at his sonorously romantic best on my Dev. A Dev still looking as personable as he did when I fell for him on the sets of Vidya [during mid-1948] and have never ceased to love him since! Had I displayed the gumption to rebel at the time,’ Suraiya cannot help adding, ‘I would have wed my Dev and been perfectly happy with him to this day. I say this since I found Dev to be the perfect gentleman compared to Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor. Why, once, even the highly respected Ashok Kumar shocked me out of my wits by studiedly letting his evidently adroit hand, ever so lightly, graze… I just can’t bring myself to utter the word! It was some time in 1950, I think, while we were shooting for Khiladi. Some Khiladi I discovered Ashok Kumar to be at his age! Instinctively I said: “et tu, Dadamoni?” Whereupon Ashok Kumar just smiled knowingly, almost suggesting that, in films, I should be taking such things in my stride. Well, I was one heroine who would take it only in my decent stride. How Ashok Kumar fell from grace in my eyes that day!
‘At all times by contrast, Dev was scrupulously correct in his romantic approach. Even the first kiss upon me, he planted only when I looked up, offering my lips. I tell you, I should have stood up to my granny, then and there. Gone ahead and wed my Dev. But I was too much under granny’s thumb and the moment was gone. What hurt like hell was the “Woh Hindu hai” line on which they based their opposition. I owe so much to [A. R.] Kardar and Naushad alike, but I never will forgive them for the one-track outlook they adopted in creating hurdle after hurdle for me in the purely personal matter of my marrying my Dev,’ said an emotionally overcome Suraiya.
After Suraiya who? Plain Jane Kalpana Kartik, as the anticlimax of anticlimaxes in Dev Anand’s life and swipes! Kalpana’s so happening to Dev was a July 1955 development on the midnight sets of House No. 44, memorable for its Peechche peechche aa ke chhoo lo humein paa ke chup chup jaanaa ho! Thus went the Dada Burman-toned Lata–Hemant heart-stealer as a rude reminder of how Dev Anand broke a million female hearts by marrying Mona – as we knew his surprise wife through the chatterati columns of Filmfare. For the newly weds, Dada Burman, as the incorrigible optimist, devised such meaningful honeymooning Nau Do Gyarah duets (come October 1957) as Aa jaa panchchee akelaa hai; Aankhon mein kyaa jee rupahlaa baadal; and Kalee ke roop mein chalee ho dhoop mein kahaan. The 11th day of October 1957 unfolded duets sounding ultra-special as picturized by debutant director Goldie Vijay Anand on the not so eternal-looking pair of Kalpana Kartik and Dev Anand in Nau Do Gyarah. Yet, if it is on a 8-years-older Dev Anand and his 1965 Teen Deviyan (Nanda, the latter-day Kalpana and Simi) that we are still hooked, then we have the S. D. Burman–Majrooh team – as in Nau Do Gyarah– at their sweet-nothings best via Likhaa hai tereeaankhon mein kis ka afsaana (Lata–Kishore), Arre yaar meree tum bhee ho gazab (Asha–Kishore) and Uuff kitnee thandee hai yeh rut sulgey hai tanhaaii meree (Lata–Kishore).
But let us confine our dueting to heroines with whom we link Dev Anand off-screen. What better pick, in this sophisticated direction, than Zeenat Aman, the eyebrow pencil-slim beauty queen who came to be featured as the cover girl in Bombay’s Film World glossy of December 1973? As she so swimmingly unfolded on that monthly’s glitzy cover, Zeenie Baby was swooningly headlined as exclaiming: ‘If anything were to happen to Dev, I’d go to pieces!’ Something did ‘happen’ to Dev opposite Zeenie Baby, otherwise we would not have been picking up the 1973 new-wavy R. D. Burman pieces (from Heera Panna) as Ek pahelee hai tuu naar navelee hai tuu (Asha-Kishore) and Panna kee tamanna hai ke Heera mujhe mil jaaye (Lata-Kishore). Over, in the same spirit, to Zeenie–Dev’s Ishq Ishq Ishq, embodying the 1974 Asha–Kishore quartet – composed of Ishq ishq ishq zamaane mein jo kartey hain; Wallah kyaa nazaara hai; Timtim chamkaa jhilmil taara; and Bheegee bheegee aankhen aankhon mein hai paanee. Four tap-tap tunes putting the stamp on Pancham as the neo-trendsetter. All the more so if you add– to Pancham’s Asha–Kishore galaxy of 1977 – Zeenie–Dev’s Hello darling hello darling, Raat gayee baat gayee and Ek main hoon ek tuu (from Darling Darling). Without ignoring – a couple of years before that – the same R. D. Burman’s Ladeen nazariyaa ladeen (Lata-Kishore), going so captivatingly, on the Zeenie–Dev two-in-onesome, in Warrant. A Dev – as still a hero very highly paid– getting hooked on Zeenie Baby to a point of ‘no return’ to Mumtaz, his heroine in Hare Rama Hare Krishna and Tere Mere Sapne (both released in 1971). No going back to a Mumtaz whom Dev has autobiographically identified as a ‘sport’ in the matter of returning ‘advances’ made!
Back therefore to S. D. Burman in a setting in which exemplarily secular, in his romancing outlook, remained Dev. Exemplarily secular in moving from Suraiya to Zahida – in traipsing from Krishna Mahal ground floor to Chateau Marine ground floor! Traipsing to Nargis’s abode, just seven buildings away on the Marine Drive promenade. As Nargis-niece Zahida’s Gambler-lover, Dev had those dainty 1971 Lata–Kishore, Neeraj–S. D. Burman duets to play out:Choodee nahein yehmeraa dil hai and O-o-o apne hoton kee bansee banaa le mujhe.
Say Ishq Ishq Ishq and Anand Bakshi is right there to complete the song – lyric as… zamaane mein jo kartey hain: (L to R) R. D. Burman, Dev Anand, Asha Bhosle and Anand Bakshi at the muhurat of our debonair hero’s Ishq Ishq Ishq (1974)
Finally, Tina Munim, Dev’s roaming 1978 Des Pardes choice and his ritzy retort to a Raj Kapoor pulling away his Zeenie Baby for that Satyam Shivam Sundaram peep-show. Des Pardes (1978) had startlingly witnessed Dev moving away from even Pancham (from an R. D. Burman wanting to be paid more than a Navketan pittance) to bring in Rajesh Roshan. The outcome, opposite emerging Des Pardes heroine Tina Munim– Jaisaa des waisaa bhes (Lata-Kishore). Two years later, opposite the same Tina Munim, we had Sa re ga ma pa (Lata-Kishore – Manpasand). In such a together-for-ever atmosphere, certain things in his Autobiography you let go as Dev Anand’s Romancing with Life. But Dev, distressingly, happens to be ‘Romancing with Fact’ when he reminisces that Kishore Kumar’s first song, for him, was composed, not by Khemchand Prakash, but by Prem Dhavan. Dev, leave alone the man’s not being the composer of Marne kee duuaaen kyun maangoon, Prem Dhavan was not even its song-writer! This maiden solo of Kishore’s, on you Dev, was actually penned by Professor Jazbee. True, Prem Dhavan wrote no fewer than six songs for Bombay Talkies’ 1948 Ziddi, starring the then not so-young Dilip Kumar flame, Kamini Kaushal, opposite you, but this Marne kee number certainly was not one of the six songs. Moreover, the man to tune the Marne kee number was none other than Khemchand Prakash, the one who had created Rum-jhoom rum-jhoom chaal tihaaree for Kishore’s singing ideal, K. L. Saigal, in Ranjit Movietone’s Tansen (1943).
Adds Dev: ‘After he became a star-actor, and the artist in him grew in great measure, Kishore never sang for anybody except me.’ Some Dev delusion, that. Actually, after 1949-recording Jagmagjagmag kartaa niklaa for Khemchand Prakash, what did our still struggling star actor-singer do? Kishore next rendered – as a playback performer for his elder brother Ashok Kumar playing Suraiya’s 1950 Khiladi – the Hansraj Behl composed solo: O phool chun-ne waale tuu hee gulaab hai. In fact, during that very 1950 year, this stripling singer’s very own S. D. Burman, believe it or not, tested Kishore Kumar’s vibrant vocals, first on Raj Kapoor in V. M. Vyas’s Raj–Nargis starrer, Pyar, only then on Dev! That film flaunted two ear-arresting Geeta Roy–Kishore Kumar duets on Nargis-Raj. Plus two hummable Kishore solos on Raj. If Pyar had not bombed so resoundingly, those two lovely Geeta–Kishore duets, O bewafaa yeh toh bataa lootaa chaman kyun pyaar ka and Ek hum aur doosre tum teesraa koee nahein, even those two Kishore solos on Raj Kapoor, Mohabbat ka chhotaa saa ek aashiyaana and Kachchee pakkee sadkon pe meree tamtam, could well have prompted Dada Burman to fit the vocals of Kishore – as much upon Raj as upon Dev.
Six months after Kishore’s April 1951 Navketan Baazi song debut via Sahir Ludhianvi–S. D. Burman’s Mere labon pe dekho aaj bhee taraane hain, the same Dada Burman had Karan Dewan lip-synching Kishore, as Kusoor aap ka huzoor aap ka, in Bahar. That is, in the October 1951AVM film marking the coiled-springy Vyjayanthimala’s sensational Hindustani cine debut. Remember Nalini Jaywant–Ashok Kumar’s Kafila, released in May 1952? It had – on this prize pair then pneumatically involved off-screen – Lata-Kishore warbling Leharon se poochch lo ya kinaaron se poochch lo. When I rang Kishore Kumar to check on this duet, that born singer, in impeccable English, suggested: ‘Why don’t you, instead, pick my Kafila solo picturized on [my elder brother] Ashok Kumar and going as Woh meree taraf yoon chale aa rahe hain – a number Husnlal-Bhagatram got me to render even better than they did Leharon se poochch lo?’
Let us next team Nalini Jaywant with the macho Premnath. For Dada Burman to have going, on this star team in Naujawan (June 1951), the Lata–Kishore duet: Kuchch bhee kar lo jeet hamaree hain. Likewise, under Roshan’s bountiful baton in Malkin (April 1953), we had Lata-Kishore dueting, on Nutan-Sajjan, in tones of O piyaa meraa bholaa jiyaa kaahe tuu ne liyaa. That makes it, in just four years (1950–53), no fewer than five solos and five duets by Kishore Kumar on leading men other than Dev Anand. Need I go any further to rubbish Dev Anand’s claim?
Nearly half a century later I raised the matter with Dev as to whom our everblue hero preferred as his voice. ‘Kishore Kumar suited me best!’ maintained Dev. But what about Hemant Kumar? Remember, Hemant’s now-happy, now-melancholy Solva Saal solo on Dev Anand, coming over as Hai apnaa dil toh awaara, opposite Waheeda Rehman, a Dev-via-Hemant solo totalling a staggering 324 points, during the year 1958, in the Binaca Geetmala – to rank as ‘Binaca No. 1’ to this day? Nothing Ameen Sayani played in 30 years came near it. The Kishore-set Pancham told me that his one unfulfilled dream was to record Hemant Kumar going solo. ‘Just no one matched Hemant Kumar in voice quality!’ averred Pancham. True Papa S. D. Burman’s total number of Hemant Kumar numbers, filmed on Dev Anand, numbered not even a dozen, yet each one of the seven Hemant solos, even today, rates as a vignette. Beginning with Yeh raat yeh chaandnee phir kahaan in Guru Dutt’s Jaal. A 1952 solo – through one full side of the N50119 record – turned into a duet only on the other side of the disc, as Lata Mangeshkar works her Chaandnee raatein pyaar kee baatein magic on you, me and who not? Indeed, if it was in House No. 44 that Dev wooed and wed Kalpana Kartik, from that 1955 film the two solos on the Anand boy feature among S. D. Burman’s best ever Hemant Kumar-rendered numbers, coming through, with a rare resonance, as Teree duniyaa mein jeene se behtar hai ke mar jaayein and Chup hai dhartee chup hain chaand sitaare.
Hemant Kumar was all set to record Jeevan ke safar mein raahee to go on Dev Anand, when S. D. Burman craftily brought in Kishore Kumar at the eleventh hour. But losing Jeevan ke safar mein raahee, on Dev Anand playing Munimji, in no way deterred Hemant Kumar (in the same 1955 Subodh Mukerji Filmistan movie) from imparting an ultra-vibrant toning to his O Shivji byaah ne chale. As for Dil kee umangen hain jawaan – on Nalini Jaywant swinging with Dev in Munimji – the ‘braying’ interpolation, dubiously distinguishing this number, is the voice of Pran himself, if misleadingly credited to one ‘Thakur’ on the N51466 record. How Geeta-Hemant just take your breath away, as the duo SD-materialize on the trendily tuning Nalini Jaywant–Dev pair as Dil kee umangen hain jawaan. Over to Dev–Nutan’s 1960 Manzil and what dueting variety we have! With still six Goldie years to go for son Pancham’s Teesri Manzil to come up, in this Manzil that Papa SD so musically occupied by 1960, that composer tunefully accommodated Rafi-Asha Bhosle (Dil toh hai deewanaa na); next Geeta-Rafi (Chup ke se miley pyaase pyaase); finally Asha-Manna Dey (Chaand aur main aur tuu). These three SD duets are forever, yet it is Hemant Kumar, going Manzil-solo on Dev Anand, who holds you Binaca Geetmala seatbound, for weeks on end – via Yaad aa gayeen woh nasheilee nigaahen.
Do you know with which landmark number Dada Burman ended his aristocratic partnership with Hemant Kumar? With Na tum humein jaano on Dev Anand (opposite Waheeda) in Baat Ek Raat Ki. Dada Burman told me: ‘Hemant’s voice was beginning to deteriorate by 1962!’ Any evidence of that in Na tum humein jaano? Any evidence of that in Hemant Kumar’s own Bees Saal Baad, coming (like Baat Ek Raat Ki) in 1962? A Bees Saal Baad flaunting Beqaraar kar ke humein yoon na jaayiye and Zaraa nazaron sekeh do jeenishaana chook na jaaye. What Dada Burman could have more pertinently said is that his Dev Anand, by this 1962 stage, preferred Kishore to Hemant Kumar. Who shall then aver that ageless hero had not pitched for a voice in tune with the times? A voice with which Goldie Vijay Anand began his writer-director Navketan career in the second week of October 1957, the first number to unveil in his Nau Do Gyarah ‘maiden’– as a spot testimony to his song-taking wizardry – being a Kishore Kumar solo going on Dev Anand, Majrooh-written and S. D. Burman-tuned as: Hum hain raahee pyaare ke hum se kuchch na boliye.
Incidentally, the first song that he recorded for Nau Do Gyarah – Goldie told me –was the film’s climax-connected See le zubaan aesaa na ho sub kuchch khonaa pade naadan, as rendered by Geeta Dutt, with all that jazz, to unroll on a dancing Shashikala. Nau Do Gyarah came to be Goldie-followed up, at Navketan, by Kala Bazar (1960) and Tere Ghar Ke Saamne (1963), both shows witnessing Vijay Anand, as a writer-director, visibly advancing in song-taking skills. Goldie also informed me that each one of the six Majrooh–S. D. Burman-collaborated songs in Teen Deviyan (coming in the same 1965 year as Guide) had been meticulously picturized by him– at the instance of director Amarjeet, a Dev acolyte and a master publicist. For all that, the fact remains that none of us expected Goldie to grow to 1965 Guide stature – a Navketan film-happening seeing Goldie coming through as strikingly articulate in the art of song-making and the craft of song-taking. How SD so distinctly launched (in his own voice) that Goldie classic with Wahaan kaun hai teraa musafir jaayega kahaan …
I recall how, during a pleasant December 1964 afternoon on the sets of Guide, we were all set to break for lunch at Mehboob Studios, in the posh Bandra suburb of Bombay, yet there was no sign of ‘Kaanton Se Kheench Ke’ Rosie Waheeda Rehman. Dev Anand turned to Yash Johar, then his chief production controller, pointedly to ask: ‘Where in heaven’s name is Waheeda? Why isn’t she here yet, Yash? Isn’t it a vitally Waheeda linking song sequence we are filming, right now? Let’s find a fresh heroine, Yash, if she can’t make it for such an important shoot!’ Yash Johar, as the last word in Navketan diplomacy, responded with: ‘Where do I find a fresh heroine to pair with a man of your looks at this stage of shooting, Dev Saab?’Piyaa tose naina laage re and Mose chhal kiye jaaye haaye re haaye hayee saiyyan beimaan had, at that sensitive stage in Guide’s shooting, already been picturized. So realistically speaking, there was no going without Waheeda from that turning point. Probably Waheeda herself knew it to be so, though she never, from the outside, struck you as being the type to give her unit any trouble.
Would we have got those two epic dance numbers, in the quicksilver Waheeda form and format we finally did, if, perchance, this Rosie had been replaced as the heroine of Guide by, say, Vyjayanthimala? In effect by a matching danseuse-heroine with whom Dev Anand had never really tuned in Amar Deep (1958)? Why Dev Anand, even Goldie, I recall, was to have hassles in the case of Vyjayanthimala on the mode of Hoton mein aesee baat song picturization during the making of Jewel Thief (1967). You just had to hear Yash Johar on any such notion of replacing Waheeda, so dance-musically enshrined in our minds. ‘There really is no danger of such a thing happening, Raju Saab. This kind of upheaval is part and parcel of any shoot, it’s all in the day’s work!’Yash Johar told me in a conspiratorial aside.
On the sets of Guide, I had been witness, no fewer than four times, to but one stanza of Shailendra–SD’s Din dhal jaaye haaye raat na jaaye. I got to view Dev Anand – eyelids lowered and forehead bent – lip-synching Rafi in a take making compulsive audio-visioning. But yet again did Goldie call ‘Cut, cut!’As yet again did camera ace Fali Mistry, ever the perfectionist, find something amiss in the take. As it turned out, in that frame, Waheeda (as Rosie) was to appear only by way of an ‘intercut’during the songtake. All the same, Dev Anand (playing Raju Guide) had wanted Waheeda, as Rosie, to be present all the way, to absorb the pith of each linking sequence Goldie was shooting. Who can say Dev Anand did not have a point there? This Rafi solo, for some reason, had spelt trouble from the word go for Guide. And yet, master taker Goldie Vijay Anand, as writer-director, had a total grip on the Din dhal jaaye song’s evolution.
Rangeela re … Lata with Dev Anand
Imagine, Goldie was directing Guide only as the last Dev resort. Initially, Chetan Anand, with his roots in Santiniketan, was the director. How Chetan Anand (after his mid-50s Sheila Ramani–Navketan connection via Taxi Driver and Funtoosh had snapped) got hooked on the pretty Priya Rajvansh with Haqeeqat (1964) is a ‘War and Peace’ story in itself. Guide was all set to get going when Navketan’s founder, Chetan Anand, received an attractive offer, from the Punjab Government, to write and direct a war movie, based on the traumatic Indo–Chinese conflict of October 1962. His own story-line, in Haqeeqat, offered Chetan Anand the opportunity to present his newest girlfriend, the classy looking Priya Rajvansh, as the debutante-heroine in a milestone movie. That proved a bait tempting enough for Chetan Anand to opt to miss out on even such a biggie as Guide.
Let us pause to reflect upon the late beauty: Priya Rajvansh. Upon how Ghazal King Madan Mohan (via Lata Mangeshkar) lavished a couple of his prized creations, in this genre, on Priya in Chetan Anand films. It is with a pang you rewind to such timeless Lata–Madan ghazals, going on Priya, as Aaj sochaa toh aansoo bhar aayemuddatten ho gayeemuskuraaye (from Hanste Zakhm, 1973) and Hai tere saath meree wafaa main nahein toh kya (from Hindustan Ki Kasam, 1973). Do note how Madan Mohan became a Lata fixture, on Priya, in Chetan Anand movies with the 1964 Haqeeqat – with Zaraa see aahat hotee hai toh dil sochta hai/Kahein yeh woh to nahein and Khelo na mere dil se o mere saajana. The Priya–Chetan, Lata–Madan spell endured in Heer Raanjha (1970, written in memorable rhyme by Kaifi Azmi) via Milo na tum toh hum ghabrayein and Do dil toote do dil haare. Any wonder Dada Burman publicly hailed his 1947 Do Bhai assistant Madan Mohan’s work, in Chetan Anand’s Heer Raanjha, as an object lesson in thematic scoring to fellow music directors?
Hai tere saath meree wafaa … Take away Lata and
what’s left of Madan Mohan?
With Chetan Anand thus out of Guide, Raj Khosla, as one full of musical insights, came to be handpicked by Dev Anand to assume the movie’s directorial reins. This, offputtingly, was the moment in which the movie’s twinkle-toed heroine, Waheeda Rehman, chose to put her Piyaa tose dancing foot down. Waheeda let it be known she was out of Guide if Raj Khosla was directing the show. Waheeda had clashed with Raj Khosla as a director (about the revealing way he wanted her to dress as a vamp) in her 1956 debut movie with Guru Dutt Films – C.I.D. This was the film with which O. P. Nayyar emerged as the music director to present the maiden song to go, on the vamping Waheeda playing Kamini, in the vibrant Shamshad shape of Kahein pe nigahein kahein pe nishaana. So tantalizing a tune was this one that it had S. D. Burman publicly admiring OP for his enrapturing use of the sarangi in a Shamshad solo ultimately turning out to be, situationally, ‘Waheeda-enticing as Waheeda-enticing could be’. Waheeda had felt offended by the tone in which she came to be addressed: ‘Listen, this is your first movie. If you start objecting to these minor things, no other producer will sign you.’ According to Waheeda, ‘I refused to put on a particular dress in C.I.D., my first movie with Guru Dutt Films. The shot was ready, the artistes were waiting and, one by one, Raj Khosla and others were trying to convince me that there was nothing bad in the dress. But I said only thing: “I don’t like this dress. Let them not sign me, but I will not put on this dress. Get me another.”’
‘Two or three days later, when Guruji [Guru Dutt] returned to Bombay, he was informed that he had signed a very difficult girl. “I am told you created some trouble about that dress?”he asked me. “Yes, it was not decent,”I said. That was all we talked about it. He did not like to argue unnecessarily about anything. However, I did see him losing his temper sometimes. “If he does that with me, I won’t work and would go back to Hyderabad!”Yes, I did create quite a few problems for him and, perhaps, any other producer would have never tolerated it. But he was a different man, another like him I haven’t met again,’added Waheeda generously.
I have quoted Waheeda only relevantly to help in comprehending why the vibes were just not there. In fact, I recall that Guru Dutt, who was producing C. I.D., featuring Dev Anand opposite the sheeny Shakila, had returned, in the nick of time, to soothe ruffled wings. As to what prompted Guru Dutt so sadly to miscast debutante Waheeda as gangster Bir Sakhuja’s moll (looking so ill equipped to enact Kahein pe nigahein) remains a mystery extending beyond that crime thriller’s climax. remains a mystery extending beyond that crime thriller’s climax.
Still, by the mid-August 1958 Solva Saal stage, if Waheeda graduated to being Dev Anand’s heroine in that film, Raj Khosla too was no ordinary director after nearly three years into the job. Well-read and well-bred, Raj Khosla, from that stage, was prepared to accommodate Waheeda – for all her poise and grace – only up to a point. Still Waheeda (with her dancing prowess) was integral to the Guide theme. Otherwise Dev Anand, perhaps, would not have easily given up on his chosen musically oriented director Raj Khosla, a long-time personal friend. Such a conspiracy of circumstances is what finally brought Goldie Vijay Anand into the piquant picture as the writer-director of Guide. When Goldie insisted upon rewriting the entire Guide script according to his dance-musical lights, certain misgivings, in the Navketan camp about young Vijay Anand’s literary weightage in the matter of handling such a sensitive theme, only got to be fortified.
Goldie’s subsequent treatment of the Guide theme might have banished any lingering directorial doubt about his cinematic credentials to come to grips with such a hallmark movie. But it is important to mention that even Goldie had problems ‘bringing out’ Waheeda during the shooting of Guide. Notably during the Kaanton se kheench ke yeh aanchal sequence requiring the film’s heroine, Rosie, to just let herself go. I spot-interacted with the fast-talking Goldie who, refreshingly open-minded in his outlook, just opened up on Waheeda, almost as if it was something he had to get off his chest. Waheeda, contrary to the impression we formed of her all-round skills after watching Guide, had taken a lot out of Goldie, before turning up Piyaa tose trumps. Goldie sketched out how he found Waheeda to be discomfitingly inhibited in her approach to those delicate love scenes with Dev playing Raju Guide. To quote Goldie: ‘Dada [Burman] had the Kaanton se kheench ke yeh aanchal tune going exactly as I had pictured it before Shailendra came to put in the words for Lata Mangeshkar to render the number with all the delicate vocal shadings I wanted. My dilemma simply was how to get Waheeda going. Time and again, I had to impress upon her that she must be viewed as totally breaking her mental shackles, when Rosie hits the Kaaton se kheench ke yeh hay after wondering whether she should really be having anything more to do with Guide Raju.
‘Waheeda, after some eight years in films, was still so full of typical Indian reserve that I had a hard time getting her to feel totally carefree – in tune with Rosie’s temperament in Guide. Particularly while bursting into the Kaanton se kheench ke yeh aanchal song-number, I found I just could not totally cut through a Waheeda still subconsciously holding back. I had to re-emphasize to Waheeda how I needed Rosie to shed all misgivings for her to take off with Dev, astride that truck, lip-synching Kaanton se kheench ke yeh aanchal. Finally we managed, but only I know how! Moving away from Kaanton se kheench ke yeh aanchal,’ went on Goldie, ‘let’s come to the sequence in which Raju takes hold of Rosie and tries to convince her – just before my Tere mere sapne ab ek rang hain song-take begins. It was not easy, getting Waheeda to unwind, as Dev, playing Raju Guide, chatted her along. For all my urgings, Waheeda just did not seem to be able to come out of her inbuilt sense of shyness. No less tough were those Guide ensembles of Saiyyan beimaan and Piyaa tose naina laage re, even after I had myself danced it out for her. Unlike most other directors, I am quite adept in the specialist area of dance demonstration – demonstration of how, precisely, the steps are to be taken. No doubt Waheeda is a wonderful dancer. But getting her to break out of her cloistered upbringing needed some effort on my part! It took me 21 days to picturize Piyaa tose naina laage re. You have no idea how much trouble, for how many days running, I had, before I could get Waheeda, as Rosie, really responding in that shoot. At the end of it all, I found I just could not totally “get to” a Waheeda still reticent about enacting it my way.’
‘If Waheeda proved such a tough nut,’I chipped in, ‘how did you crack the Ayyangar Brahmin tradition-bound Hema Malini opposite Dev in Johny Mera Naam [1970]?’Goldie’s responded: ‘Oh Hema, with her talking eyes, was one up on every other heroine I have handled! Perhaps because she regularly danced off-screen too, Hema could evoke the very nuance of feeling I wanted in a trice. Take O babul pyaare. For Kishore’s Nafrat karne waalon ke seene mein pyaar bhar doon going on Dev in Johny Mera Naam, I had turned to Kalyanji. But, to tune something like O babul pyaare for Lata on Hema, I knew it had to be Anandji. Hema was just superb, the way she gave expression to O babul pyaare in the precise contours I sought. I don’t think I could have ever got Waheeda to do it the vivid way Hema executed it.’
Goldie had a very special cinematic mindset. In December 1964, I asked him if in okaying an S. D. Burman tune like, say, Kaanton se kheench ke yeh aanchal, his first criterion is that the number must be ‘singable’. Came back Goldie: ‘My first criterion – and Dada Burman understands it in all its subtleties – is that the song I am okaying must be “actable”. Once the song is “actable”, it automatically becomes “singable.”’ What a master song-taking point Goldie made there! Given such an off-beat tune-okaying attitude of mind, I, naturally, asked about how much that master song-taker, Guru Dutt, had inspired Vijay Anand in the art. Goldie, of the Navketan school, deflated me by insisting that he had not been influenced by Guru Dutt at all. ‘All song-taking I do is from my own mental scripting all the way! First and foremost, as I have already pointed out, the song, the music going with it, must be “actable”. Here is where I knew I could totally depend upon Dada [Burman]. For example, I had just to suggest to Dada – in the evoking of the Khoya khoya chaand idea on Dev in Kala Bazar [1960] – that the tune had to be neither too light nor too heavy. That Dada’s approach needed to be such that the tune could fly on the words. Dada immediately got the fine point and the outcome was Khoya khoya chaand as “written to tune” by Shailendra.’
As the cineaste par excellence did Mahesh Bhatt & co. revere ‘Goldie’Vijay Anand. Guide shaper Goldie viewed editing as critical to the film’s unfolding
‘Next,’added Goldie, ‘just think, it took Dada hardly five minutes to get the exact weight of song I wanted in the case of what came to be so well “written to tune”, by Hasrat [Jaipuri], as Tuu kahaan yeh bataa is nasheilee raat mein, as visualized by me to go, in the multi-shaded voice of Rafi, on a Dev in pursuit of Nutan through the night in Tere Ghar Ke Saamne. Nutan is another I could get to emote just like that. I tell you, I never had, with any other heroine, the kind of problems I did with Waheeda!’Goldie could not help adding. Well, viewers only know that Waheeda was simply fabulous in her enaction of Kaanton se kheench ke yeh aanchal, making even more compulsive viewing in her dancing out of Piyaa tose naina laage re and Saiyyan beimaan. I must add here that never is any Goldieie viewpoint to be lightly dismissed, considering Vijay Anand is venerated as a cineaste influencing a whole generation of film makers – as a writer-director ahead of his times. One look at Goldie’s Guide photoplay and the ageless Dada Burman had exclaimed: ‘The theme, as scripted by Goldie, offers me fullest scope. I’m going to give it my best shot. I have full confidence in young Goldie’s ability musically to bring it off.’
The song-lyrics of Guide were to be initially written by Hasrat Jaipuri. A Hasrat who had given Dada Burman wondrous results, on Dev Anand, in Tere Ghar Ke Saamne (1963), via Rafi unforgettables like Dil ka bhanwar kare pukaar, Sun le tuu dil kee sadaa and Tuu kahaan yeh bataa. So Hasrat proceeded to formulate the opening sentiment of the Guide song as Din dhal jaaye haaye raat na jaaye. As Hasrat, always fast-thinking, ‘wrote to S. D. Burman tune’, there was a certain unease discernible in the Navketan camp, including Dev Anand, Goldie, S. D. Burman and Dada assistant R. D. Burman. It just was not coming right, as ‘visualizer’Goldie imaged it. Indeed, things got to a point where Hasrat lost his cool and burst out: ‘Ek bhadwe ke liye main aur kyaa likhun?’ (What more do I write for a mere pimp?) If it was as a mere pimp that Hasrat viewed the central R. K. Narayan character of Raju, a change of song-writer was indicated, felt the Navketan musical brains trust. Hasrat was later to tell me that he himself opted out of Guide, before Din dhal jaaye haaye, his first song for the film, could be recorded. As there was a spot change of song-writing guard, Dada Burman, for one, felt fulfilled upon hearing that his all-time favourite poet, Shailendra, was to assume Guide’s song-writing responsibility. Shailendra came to retain the Rafi solo’s opening line as Din dhal jaaye haaye raat na jaaye – as a sentimental concession to the fact that Hasrat had been his long-time confrère. How, from that point, Din dhal jaaye took Guide ‘reshape’ is screen history.
Goldie, whose vision and imagination just soared with the Guide took theme, never looked back from that take-off stage at which he began ‘envisioning’the film’s music in creative collaboration with his pet composer, Dada Burman. As we finally saw on the widescreen, SD alone could have tuned, as he did, Piyaa tose naina laage re (in Raag Maand) and Mose chhal kiye jaaye haaye re haaye (in Raag Zinjhoti). No one but Waheeda Rehman–Goldie or no Goldie – could have danced out Piyaa tose and Saiyyan beimaan in the style in which those sequences ultimately came off. Only Goldie Vijay Anand could have orchestrated the theme in the idiom by which Guide came to make a calibre of viewing ultra-bold for its times. It thus saw Waheeda’s inherent acting dynamism and her intrinsic dancing potential fully realized, for the first time, on the Indian screen. Guide becomingly won, for Waheeda, the 1966 Filmfare Best Actress award. It concurrently fetched Dev Anand the Best Actor and Best Picture prizes. Even more rewardingly, in a sense, it recognized Vijay Anand as the Best Director. Plus Guide fetched Fali Mistry the Best Colour Photographer award for his wizardry in keeping mental pace with a Goldie so full of innovation all through. As for S. D. Burman, he certainly came up with his finest ever score in the film. Only to be denied the Best Music Director award.
It was a final resolution in exact tune with the way Shanker-Jaikishan had pipped ‘Sangeet Samrat’Naushad at the 1960 Mughal-e-Azam post through something, comparatively, so ordinarily scored as Dil Apna Aur Preer Parai. The Filmfare 1966 Best Music award to Shanker-Jaikishan’s Suraj, instead of to S. D. Burman’s Guide, speaks for itself. The same award, coming eight years later to SD (for Jaya Bhaduri–Amitabh Bachchan’s Hrishikesh Mukherjee-directed Abhimaan – 1973), did not quite elate Dada. He, befittingly, had wanted the Best Music citation for Guide as the score of a lifetime in Hindustani cinema. An SD score seeing Mohammed Rafi attaining his high Kyaa se kyaa ho gayaa meridian on Dev Anand. A Dev Anand philosophizing it all for award loser S. D. Burman (a great sport as an East Bengal supporter in football) in a Guide-situationally adapted Kazi Nazrul Islam strain of:
Megh de, paanee de, chhaaya de re tu Rama megh de,
Shyama megh de,
Allah megh de, paanee de, chhaaya de re tuu Rama megh de …