THE MIRAGE OF GOING
HIGH, HIGHER AND STILL HIGHER
Shaayad kabhi milnaa ho jaaye
Baithe hain issi armaan mein hum
Tuu ne to kanaara paa hi liyaa
Uljhe hain magar toofan mein hum
Ae jaan-e-wafaa phir aaj humen
Ae jaan-e-wafaa phir aaj humen
Pichhla woh zamaana yaad aaya
Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi
Phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya …1
WHO BUT NAUSHAD COULD REVEL IN REVEALING, WITH A CHUCKLE, something like this? That the above song gem of his – a heart-touching piece that we have hugged and hummed for a full 47 years now – was, in truth, not worded that way at all. The unusual circumstances in which the Shakeel line of thought changed track are ‘toned’ tunefully here. Alongside, as the 1961–70 decade drew to a close, Naushad found his career to be under an eclipse. By end-1968, for the first time in his screen life and times, his setbacks came to far outnumber his successes. Such a loss of sheen it was for Naushad, now, to have to reach the painful conclusion that the K Productions’ wonted motto of ‘High, Higher and Still Higher’ was but a Dil Diya Dard Liya mirage in his eyes. How, not so fascinatingly, fortunes fluctuate in this vicious world of make-believe is brought into focus here. Naushad journeys a long way, as he looks back upon a composing life full of incident. He details in vivid hues the pulls and pressures that build up in a catchpenny industry knowing no values and upholding none.
In the Raag Maand, how fair would it be to ask you music buffs to make a choice from between Ghulam Mohammad’s 1972 Pakeezah zenith-themed Thaare rahiyo o baanke yaar re and Naushad’s 1966 Dil Diya Dard Liya heart wrencher: Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya? Sounds like a Hobson’s choice between Meena Kumari as Sahibjaan and Waheeda Rehman as Roopa, does it not? Well, here is something fair enough. What if there had been no such ‘pick of the crop’ as Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi, at all, to put up on Lata offer? For that is the plain truth – that there was no such Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi Lata saga to go upon Waheeda as Roopa. The Raag Maand Lata solo to be recorded one morning (for Dil Diya Dard Liya) was penned by Shakeel as Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya raaton ko akele royenge. Sing that in tune with Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya and you will find that it sits melodically mooded on your languorous lips!
Is that fresh proof that Naushad did get Shakeel Badayuni to write the same line differently? ‘No way!’ retorted Naushad. ‘But first tell me about how Girija and you came to learn that the original Shakeel line, here, was, not Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya, but Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya raaton ko akele royenge? I did not spot Girija and you at this song recording for you two to have found out?’
‘I made it my journalistic job to find out, Naushad Saab,’ was my riposte.
Naushad smiled, discerning that, first, we would be getting out of him how Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya became Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi, before we got around to disclosing the name of the communicant that he sought.
‘Okay, have it your way, you two,’ relented Naushad. ‘I asked because Shakeel himself would never be the one to let on in such a matter. Yes, it is a fact that the opening line, as written by Shakeel earlier, was not Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya, but Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya raaton ko akele royenge. I loved that piece of poetry, so that I readily okayed it. Whereupon Shakeel sheepishly showed me something written earlier that he would have bothered to put up, for my consideration, only if the Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya stream of versing failed to be accepted. That Shakeel sentiment, now, came through as Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya. Finally, after finding the one mode of versifying to be as good as the other, fine-tuning myself, I chose, not Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi, but Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya. Yet another story is there to relate from thereon. Before I detail that, at least now tell me, you two, as to from whom did you get to know about our having amended it, at the last possible minute, to Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi from Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya?’
Never ever indulge in the chimera of thinking that you have prevailed over Naushad in a passage of arms. He will be throwing the ball back for you to catch when you least expect it. ‘Okay,’ I conceded, ‘it was from your very dear recordist Kaushik that we came to know.’ Seeing light, Naushad pointed to what a supremely satisfying recording Kaushik had carried out on Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi.
‘Here then is what really came to pass during that recording morning,’ recounted Naushad, taking up the tale. ‘There was so much chop and change during the making of Dil Diya Dard Liya that I thought it wise, now, to keep an alternative song lyric on tap. Thus had I rehearsed Lata for both song lyrics in my custody. Those days there was this thing called a trial take just before the actual recording. That is to say, a trial take during which the recordist’s spool tape would not be running. We had here finally chosen the verse beginning as Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya raaton ko akele royenge. So now I asked for a trial take.
‘Even as Lata began singing it as Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya, “Cut, cut!” exclaimed recordist Kaushik. The Kaushik by whose side I had just come to be seated, upon my return from the orchestra sector. “But we have barely got started; I am still in the act of putting on my earphones; what in Allah’s name is the matter now?”
‘Maybe I said that a bit sharply to one like Kaushik, bearing in mind the fact that I never lost my cool at a recording. But Dil Diya Dard Liya was one film that had me on tenterhooks; we had faced so many unforeseen hurdles during its making. To his credit, Kaushik, soft-spoken as ever, clarified: “Lata is just not coming through in her usual manner, it sounds as if she has got a cold!” Whereupon Lata blushingly confessed that she was just beginning a cold. “Heavens!” I said to myself. “Have we not had enough problems on Dil Diya Dard Liya without Lata catching a cold now?”
‘But I was not one to give up that easily,’ asserted Naushad. ‘Lata was but beginning a cold and that – I knew from long recording experience – could work to our benefit, given a change in our pattern of thinking. “Go ahead, Lata, let us have another trial take. I have already rehearsed you for it via that substitute song-lyric? Here is the revised song-lyric sheet, now go on to sing it, not as Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya, but as Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi.”
‘As Lata, the fresh song-lyric in hand, indicated that she was ready, I asked for a trial take on this one. As she mellifluently moulded it as Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya, Lata came through divinely – I thought – as I turned to Kaushik, who was already giving the thumbs-up. Thus could the clearance for a proper recording be given. As, in hopeful anticipation now, I said, “One-two-three-four – take!”, once again did Lata’s voice come through sharp and clear. For me, the first take is the best take – so “Okay, pack up!” it was. That is how it finally came across to you as Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya,’ divulged Naushad, adding: ‘Kaushik expressed amazement at the wondrous way in which Lata’s voice opened out, once that line, initially going as Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya, became Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi. So we kept it that way – as Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya.
‘As to how this miracle came about,’ Naushad went on to enlighten us, ‘I had heard, before, things turning around, where there was but the suggestion of a cold. Just one try and the nose opens out. That one try here – before the nose cleared – was Lata first singing it as Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya. Very likely, given a second shot, it would have seen Lata’s voice opening out via Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya itself. But, by that stage, I had grown quite superstitious in the case of Dil Diya Dard Liya, a film on which nothing had gone right. So I chose to keep it as Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya – as a take already gone through without any hassles. Girija and you should have been there at the recording to be able to gauge the calibre of my tune on the spot. It was difficult indeed to decide if the composition or the rendition sounded better. But do remember one thing. This is that you heard it – in the film as on the record – only as Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi phir teraa fasaana yaad aaya, not as Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya raaton ko akele royenge. So you just could not tell how matchingly beautiful it would have sounded as Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya raaton ko akele royenge,’ concluded our thinker-composer.
That is Naushad for you, making you wonder all the time. He had all but planted the optional idea of Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya, too, in our minds by then. Both Girija and I went home humming it, in the car, as Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya raaton ko akele royenge. Arguing spiritedly about the right accenting and the correct intoning. Only to awaken to the lucid fact that it sat so smack that there was nothing to distinguish this Naushad Maand from that Naushad Maand – as between Phir teri kahaani yaad aayi and Hum tujh se bichhad ke saanwariya!
What Naushad, artfully, was doing, in effect, was getting us to hark back to Lata upon ‘Ragini’ Nutan in Shabab (May 1954). And then asking us to single out the better Raag Maand from between Jo main jaanati bisrat hai saiyyan and Mar gaye hum jeete ji maalik tere sansaar mein. In the same Lata–Nutan Shabab, who but Naushad could have felt so vicariously vindicated by creating, for us, a choosing dilemma? The dilemma of viewing the same ‘Ragini’ Nutan, in the same Shabab, in the same Brindabani Sarang – in a raag applying to the two Lata solos figuring on our sensitive heroine in that film! Thus did Naushad invite us, either to take it as Jogan ban jaaungi, or to leave it as Jogan ban aayi hoon …
Some 12 years after Shabab (a film coming in the May of 1954), how immaculately did Naushad compose for Dil Diya Dard Liya. A 1966 biggie in which he had to run the gauntlet of Lata Mangeshkar refusing, any longer, to duet with Mohammed Rafi. This in the aftermath of Rafi (‘If you are number one, I am also number one!’) having spurned Lata on the singers’ royalty demand issue. Mind you, Naushad still (in 1965) preferred Suman Kalyanpur to Asha Bhosle as the dulcet dueting foil to Mohammed Rafi. But our composing ace, now, went along with Asha Bhosle on the Saawan aaye ya na aaye duet with Rafi in Kardar’s Dil Diya Dard Liya. Naushad is just Naushad here, yet again coming to us in Raag Brindabani Sarang.
In the same Dil Diya Dard Liya, Naushad also has Asha Bhosle going solo twice – both times upon danseuse Rani as Tarabai. First with Dil haar ne waale aur bhi hai. In terms of vocal mannerisms, Naushad – startlingly – here lets Asha Bhosle be. Be in her O. P. Nayyarized element on Dil haar ne waale aur bhi hai, as Rani dances out this one before Dilip Kumar, Shyama and Waheeda Rehman. Next, Naushad tellingly tests Asha Bhosle in her Raag Pilu O. P. Nayyar grounding2 – via Haay haay rasiyaa tuu badaa bedardi. You find the Asha–OP harkatein – the twosome’s set vocal movements – to be near inevitably creeping into Haay haay rasiyaa tuu badaa bedardi, as Rani performs before Pran (playing Thakur Ramesh). Do not forget that Asha, by this April 1966 juncture, was as much the ‘on’ voice as was Lata. Still a composing precisian like Naushad would have noticed that Asha Bhosle had not been able – even after a full 17 years in mainstream cinema – to iron out certain vocal mannerisms. Vocal mannerisms that had impelled our composing virtuoso to draw away from her, following the métier in which she had recorded for him, in Mehboob’s Amar (October 1954), Eik baat kahun mere piyaa sun le agar tuu (on ‘Sonya’ Nimmi). Asha Bhosle then had just begun vocally imbibing those harkatein under the sensuous influence of O. P. Nayyar, as she proceeded to record – for that stormy petrel of mainline cine music – such ‘hot’ numbers as Man more gaa jhoom ke (going on Sheila Ramani in Mangu, December 1954).
As for Mohammed Rafi going solo upon Dilip Kumar enacting Shankar/Raja Sahab, what more could you ask for from Naushad, in Dil Liya Dard Liya, than Dilrubaa maine tere pyaar mein kyaa-kyaa na kiya (Raag Yaman); Guzre hai aaj ishq mein hum (Raag Darbari); and Koee saaghar dil ko behlaata nahein (Raag Kalavati)? Lata and Rafi alike are in fine voice here; no less is Asha, if you are taking into account her vocal timbre alone. Yet Dil Diya Dard Liya sent Naushad plummeting in the charts. It is a superb score: how do you blame Naushad if Dilip Kumar is beginning to face audience rejection? I never saw Dilip Kumar to be so out of his depth as when he projected himself to be Shankar/Raja Sahab in Dil Diya Dard Liya.
Unless you argue that the traumas through which Dilip Kumar was to pass as Rajesh/Raja Sahab, some 22 months later (in the January of 1968), were even deadlier in Aadmi. This film took so long to mount the screen that its producer, P. S. Veerappa, just did not know which way to face the press at the Colaba (South Bombay) Blaze preview theatre. Here in Aadmi, Dilip Kumar, enacting Rajesh, looked astoundingly undecided about his approach to essaying a role performed with such empathy by Sivaji Ganesan in the Tamil Aalayamani – given the cozy 1962 company of B. Saroja Devi and Devika. But now, in this highly expensive mainstream cinema edition called Aadmi, Waheeda Rehman too, as Meena, came through as appearing to be none too certain opposite Dilip Kumar as Rajesh. So much so that it looked as if Waheeda Rehman had already rehearsed – in the April 1966 Dil Diya Dard Liya itself – to look as bewildered on the screen, opposite Dilip Kumar, as she now did in the January 1968 Aadmi!
Naushad’s Aadmi music outcome naturally suffered in the process but it was still well honed to the theme. Lata’s Kal ke sapne aaj bhi aana had Waheeda looking bright, for a change, in Aadmi. No less pleasing to the ear was Kaari badariyaa maare lahariyaa upon the same Waheeda. Here it was Rafi who lost out for no vocal fault of his, as Dilip Kumar sent the already perplexed audience into a further fit of depression through those two numbers going upon him playing Rajesh: Main tooti huui ek naiyaa hoon and Na aadmi ka koee bharosa. As for Rafi’s third Aadmi solo upon Dilip Kumar, Aaj puraani raahon se koee mujhe awaaz na de, there is a delicate development here to narrate.
Naushad had sent for Girija and me to bring to us teaser-trailer snatches of his Aadmi music as the new year of 1968 got going. Its start had been winsome with those two Lata numbers already spelt out as vivifying Waheeda. After some descriptive musical mulling by our composer doubling as commentator while we absorbed the other Aadmi numbers, Naushad played Aaj puraani raahon se. Played it last in fact. As he did so, Girija and I could only stare at each other in amazement. This as the song took that turn we knew so well from the 1960 Khoyaa khoyaa chaand khulaa aasmaan Sachin Dev Burman Kala Bazar solo by Mohammed Rafi upon Dev Anand. Our ace’s eyes were pinpoints of attention as he beheld the two of us to be so feeling outraged. It turned out that Naushad, shrewdly, had been watching out for just such a reaction! He suavely paused the Aaj puraani raahon se Rafi number, walked up to us and requested to be seated between the two of us. Nothing unusual there; he had customarily occupied such a central perch.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘I really scolded my assistants for this. For failing to point out to me that my Aaj puraani raahon se carried a Khoyaa khoyaa chaand orchestral tang. That as Rafi tapered off with Gham ka sisaktaa saaz na de in the second line of the mukhda [the opening stanza]. But any oversight here, in the end, was my own. At times, something like Mohammed Rafi–S. D. Burman’s Khoyaa khoyaa chaand khulaa aasmaan registers in the imagination and, unwittingly, manifests itself, if purely marginally, in your own tuning. I am stating now what is no more than a conceptualizing composing reality. The second I came to know about such a sad state of affairs – remember that Aaj puraani raahon se was the last song to be recorded for Aadmi – I sought a fresh take. But producer P. S. Veerappa had totally run out of funds by then.
‘Pleading helplessness, he said that any re-recording, now, would have to be done on my own initiative. That, of course, was not something easily undertaken, so that I let Aaj puraani raahon se go as it stood. I am not proud of it, but there it is. I cannot blame P. S. Veerappa either. Already the man – do remember – had been subjected to a dual recording burden. That upon our re-doing – in the voice of Mahendra Kapoor – those lines sung by Talat Mahmood in the duet with Mohammed Rafi from the same Aadmi movie: Kaisi haseen aaj bahaaron ki raat hai. Manoj Kumar [as the one playing Dr Shekhar in Aadmi] – following feelers that he first sent out to me – had now importuned the producer himself to go in for a re-recording. Earlier Raaj Kumar – who could be whimsical but had mercifully said nothing in this matter – was the one who was to be playing Manoj Kumar’s role. All in all, producer P. S. Veerappa had gone through enough by then [see also Chapter 10], so that I left him to his devices.
‘It is a tribute to Dada Burman as a composer that a tune of his so sat in my subconscious that I, without really realizing it, came to reflect an orchestral flash from it in my Aaj puraani raahon se. I spoke to Dada Burman about it, explaining everything. Dada Burman, being himself a composer, said that it had so transpired, once, with him too. One composer intuitively comprehends the other’s dilemma in such a context. What Dada Burman said about it was most interesting, it went something like this. “I had been,” recalled Dada Burman, “dragged to a Sion-located variety entertainment programme, taking place not too far from my home in the Matunga surroundings [of South Central Bombay]. A variety entertainment show featuring songs from the South it obviously had to be. In it I now saw – on the makeshift screen put up there – Waheeda Rehman dancing out a song from a Tamil film. As a variety entertainment follow-up, that song, next, was play-acted, on the stage, by some other young lady. As I came away and prepared to retire for the day, that Waheeda Rehman dance-song, somehow, rang in my ears. I was then working upon the music of Raj Khosla’s Bambai Ka Babu [1960]. There was an Asha Bhosle and chorus song number due to be recorded in four-five days for that movie. Somehow that Waheeda dance-song movement crept into my tuning and I finally recorded it as Dekhne mein bholaa hai dil ka salona/Bambai se aaya hai babu chinnanna. Only later did I fathom that, without intending to do so, I had imported tinges of that Tamil tune into my Hindi song.”’
The Tamil tune that S. D. Burman was referring to as going upon Waheeda Rehman is Yaeru pootti povayae annae sinnannae. Written by Muhavai Rajamanickam, it was set to music by Master Venu. Jikki – the one whom we from the South know as P. G. Krishnaveni – sang it out, upon the nubile Waheeda Rehman, as Yaeru pootti povayae annae sinnannae in the Tamil film Kaalam Maaripochu (1956). Waheeda Rehman actually danced out this one on the Tamil screen even before she surfaced in our mainstream cinema with Guru Dutt’s Raj Khosla-directed C.I.D. (August 1956). That Tamil dance-tune picturized upon Waheeda Rehman was to prove a raging hit. It must have sat pat on S. D. Burman’s mindscape – for him to duplicate it as Dekhne mein bholaa hai dil ka salona. This 1960 song number (rendered by Asha Bhosle and chorus) came to be picturized upon Suchitra Sen & co. With Bambai Ka Babu Dev Anand, too, very much there in the picture frame.
As Naushad now put it: ‘Having heard out Dada Burman, the fact remains that we music directors go before the public in the final analysis. So that I take full onus for Aaj puraani raahon se. The public judges us by what they hear, not by how things progressed behind the scenes. But let us just forget Aadmi – we insiders are viewing that long held-up film as a lost cause. You two I called over mainly to clear things on the Aaj puraani raahon se Rafi solo going upon Dilip Kumar in Aadmi. Just you wait for my music in Sunghursh. Soon I will be calling you two to hear it.’
Such a call never came. Reason: H. S. Rawail’s Sunghursh (releasing in October 1968) went through a passage no less tortured than had P. S. Veerappa’s Aadmi. This as a follow-up to Vyjayanthimala and Dilip Kumar not seeing glad eye to glad eye. But what performances by both, especially by Dilip Kumar. What a fascinating cinematic experience, in the result, did H. S. Rawail’s Sunghursh shape into for viewers, as set in the Benaras of the nineteenth century. As set in Varanasi, to be precise. My, what music by Naushad in Sunghursh. As our maestro himself now put it: ‘First, just hear Asha Bhosle through as Tasveer-e-mohabbat thhi jis mein. Savour, alongside, Lata Mangeshkar as Agar yeh husn meraa pyaar ke sholon mein dhal jaaye. Both are setting songs piquantly picturized upon a Vyjayanthimala looking bewitching. Vocally, the younger sister is sounding much better now in competition, I genuinely feel.’
‘But Lata still has the Vyjayanthimala drop on Asha in Sunghursh, Naushad Saab,’ I maintained. ‘Lata still has Chhedo na dil ki baat abhi tum nashe mein ho. Not to speak of the Raag Bhairavi edge that Lata enjoys via Mere paas aao nazar to milaao, again on Vyjayanthimala.’
‘Lata giving song expression to Naushad’s Bhairavi – that, as particularized by you, is a different deal altogether, is it not?’ rejoiced our sangeet savant.
Thus did Lata and Asha vivaciousy Vyjayanthi-vie for vocal laurels in Sunghursh, their live rivalry, as the year 1968 drew to a close, engrossing listeners. Truth to tell, on Dilip Kumar in Sunghursh, Mohammed Rafi too was to be heard at his very best via Ishq diwaana husn bhi ghayal and Jab dil se dil takraata hai. Actually, Rafi vocalized Haay mere pairon mein ghunghroo bandhaa de to phir meri chaal dekh le, too, with panache. That Dilip Kumar looked too advanced in years, here, to be able to ‘do a Nain lad jaihain’ – 1961 Gunga Jumna style – was no fault of either Rafi or Naushad.
A near quarter century in films (as 1968 drew to a close) had not treated thespian Dilip Kumar too kindly by way of his looking well preserved. Yet his performance in Sunghursh was master class. That such an explosive film stood extinguished at the box office was just Naushad’s 1968 luck. It was a year in which little went right for our staunch stalwart. Yet, in the face of two such major blows as Aadmi and Sunghursh inside nine months, Naushad was still full of hope. Full of hope about Saathi – due some three weeks after Sunghursh – as a show flourishing Rajendra Kumar opposite Vyjayanthimala. Here Naushad even took timely cognizance of the critical consensus by modernizing his music. By bringing in a new arranger via Kersi Lord – getting away from Mohammad Shafi this once. But what you get to read – at every other site on the Internet – about Naushad being compelled to re-record two Saathi songs at a faster pace is arrant nonsense. Factually speaking, Naushad and his arranger Kersi Lord, after mutual discussion before the recording, agreed upon a slightly faster delivery pace on Suman–Mukesh’s Meraa pyaar bhi tuu hai (happy edition), as on Lata’s Mere jeevan saathi.
‘I found Naushad to be in full command on the musical side,’ mod-arranger Kersi Lord told me. ‘That methodical composer gave such pinpoint answers to each question that I raised before him. Of course Naushad had worked extensively with my father Cawas Lord but, for my part, I had never met such a Hindustani music director who planned his score in such detail. Other composers, they just left things, after a while, to me – as the arranger. But Naushad, oh no – he simply had to be there with me during each stage of the music that I arranged for him in the exact way in which he wanted it. What amazed me was the totally scientific outlook for one who at 48 – I had been told – was steeped in the old order. If anything, Naushad was more clued, in terms of updated knowledge, than most others. I enjoyed arranging the Saathi music in close coordination with this musically erudite personality.’
That Naushad in Saathi failed to tune with Mukesh was not Kersi Lord’s area of concern. Majrooh Sultanpuri, here, was back with Naushad, à la Andaz (1949). But Naushad now, logically, did not appear to be allowing for the fact that Mukesh’s voice, with its inbuilt limitations, was a couple of decades older by 1968. From the instant in which Mukesh struggled on Naushad’s Bhairavi in Husn-e-jaanan idhar aa, you felt that it was not going to be smooth sailing. Next, the high notes in Bhool jaa bhool jaa were such that Mahendra Kapoor had to be sent for to ‘take’ the opening line – as it came to be recorded (see also Chapter 12). After that, Mukesh, rather resignedly, sang the rest of Bhool jaa bhool jaa. The mood in the music room was just not right during that first morning of Saathi recording.
Fortunately, the other Saathi songs were viewed as ‘taken’ in pleasanter surroundings. Naushad was back on his set Raag Pilu trip as Mukesh and Suman Kalyanpur collaborated, perceptively, upon Meraa pyaar bhi tuu hai. Suman sang both duet editions (happy and sad) with poise. In such good voice was she on Meraa pyaar bhi tuu hai that I just do not know how you would be reacting to being told that Suman was on playback duty, here, only because Lata was away abroad! Lata returned to bring her own stamp to Naushad’s Raag Bhairavi classic: Main to pyaar se tere piyaa maang sajaaungi. Lata was in super voice as she lent vocal wings to Mere jeevan saathi kali thi main to pyaasi in Raag Tilang. So much so that Kersi Lord remarked that he felt rewarded, in the instance of Mere jeevan saathi, by the meticulous way in which Naushad wanted the violin, the flute and the accordion to be in fusion.
Into the Bhilawal thhaat, next, sailed Naushad with Lata on Yeh kaun aaya roshan ho gayi mehfil kis ke naam se. This one sounded gung-ho to us as Naushad played it in his music room. Why it failed to come off as picturized upon Simi on the Saathi screen is a mystery. I pointedly asked Kersi Lord if he had snide instructions from Naushad to modernize the Saathi music. ‘But it stood modernized – if that is the word – from the moment in which this bawaaji of yours came into the picture!’ observed Kersi Lord. That cheery Parsi bawaaji, so spry at the age of 77, added that he conducted the Saathi music in the punctilious way that Naushad had ordained. ‘Any perceived modernizing that you Hindustani music-oriented people get to hear, here in Saathi, is the handiwork of Naushad himself – I have merely executed what he wrote out. He gave it to me notated too; that made my job doubly easy.’
Come to think of it, from Gunga Jumna down – as the 1961–70 decade got into stride – there had been nothing intrinsically wrong with the value base of any Naushad musical score. Maybe Hemant Kumar’s still rich vocals sounded to be wasted upon Insaaf ki dagar pe bachchon dikhaao chal ke in that spectacular dacoit drama hitting the screen in November 1961. Next, as it was old-gold villain Anwar Hussain inveigling ‘rolled-gold’ Helen, Naushad really had Asha Bhosle shedding nothing vocally novel via her Raag Khamaj interpretation of Toraa mann badaa paapi saanwariya re.
Yet, the way in which Dilip Kumar as Gunga nursed his saucy scenes with Vyjayanthimala as Dhanno, Lata was bound to come through in her supplest tones here. Both Dhoondho dhoondho re saajana in Raag Pilu and Do hanson ka jodaa bichhad gayo re in Raag Bhairavi, as contrastingly tinted, held the ear. No less euphoniously envisioned upon the provocatively rangy Vyjayanthi were those Naushadian Pilu notes of Na maanoon na maanoon na maanoon re. Well articulated by Lata was this catchily instrumentalized number. Naushad’s musical ambit may have been limited in such a bandit-centric theme as Gunga Jumna. Yet he made his presence felt all through, his background score being stunning.
In fact, right up to Saathi in November 1968, I say – overlooking the ill-thought-out if well-tuned-up Saaz Aur Awaz intrusion of February 1966 – Naushad did not fail with his music. What failed him was the spin of the box-office coin. It is interesting to introspect upon the course that Naushad’s after-1968 music would have taken if those modernized notes that he so heartwarmingly struck, in Saathi, had caught public fancy. Had caught public fancy in a film more successful with the audience than Saathi ended up as being. For super sleek-moving were Naushad’s tunes felt to be here. The numbing failure of Saathi, given the charisma of Rajendra Kumar at the time, sent Naushad into a shell. A shell from which our composing wizard was to come out so scarred, by the 1970 cross, as to sound almost a Ganwaar in making music. In a later chapter, we shall be touching upon how one-time Naushad advocate Khayyam went without a film for a full six years. Now Naushad himself was to go without a film for three years (1976–78).
His admirers fast turning his detractors would respond by averring that Naushad deserved such banishment after having perpetrated – through the 1970–75 span – five films so musically culture shocking as Ganwaar, Tangewala, My Friend, Aaina and Sunehra Sansar. Elsewhere, Naushad has attributed such a precipitously disturbing fall in his tuning standards to song recordings being hastened mindlessly. He has dwelt upon established singers (barring Rafi in his care) insisting upon telescoping the crucial rehearsal part of a song into the recording morning itself. This – validly is it reasoned – left Naushad with little scope to ‘round’ the tune to go with the voice. That privilege of a vintage music director he has identified, plausibly enough, as the secret of his exceptional musical success through 25 years (1942–67). From the maiden jubilee success of his Station Master (early in 1942) down to the film recapturing the 25 weeks’ magic in his career: Ram Aur Shyam (July 1967).
Naushad – by way of further amplification in this direction – has cited how his experience with one of K. Asif’s assistants was the reverse of his equation with that movie Mughal. ‘These people had been with K. Asif for so long, yet they had soaked up little from his vision of cinema as either an art or a craft,’ regretted Naushad. ‘No wonder that my interaction was not a happy one at the swing of the 1980s, as I did Dharam Kanta with Sultan Ahmed. Sultan enjoyed the great advantage of having seen me working, absolutely committed, upon the music of Mughal-e-Azam through five years. Yet he would not allow me, now, the mental space to image the music of his Dharam Kanta [1982]. On top of that, there had been a fresh set of problems with Lata Mangeshkar, following Chambal Ki Rani [1979]. I will spare you the details by drawing notice to how, now, it was Asha Bhosle, all the way, upon Reena Roy, as upon Sulakshana Pandit – so keen to render herself the songs going upon her – in Dharam Kanta.
‘Long before Dharam Kanta came in 1982, Asha had begun to close the vocal gap between Lata and her,’ Naushad conceded for what it was worth now. ‘For me, Asha Bhosle rendered, in Dharam Kanta, two solos and two duets with Mohammed Rafi – before that singing Trojan so sadly passed away [on 31 July 1980]. Of those four Asha Bhosle numbers, the Ke ghunghroo toot gaye-punchlined solo and the Ke teraa naam liyaa dil thham liyaa-motif duet came to be picturized upon Sulakshana Pandit in the film. How much I had wanted to try out Sulakshana Pandit’s vocals upon herself in Dharam Kanta. I had even recorded her for the film, though the girl tended to be distracted and, therefore, had lapses in concentration. But, in both the solo and the duet going upon Sulakshana in Dharam Kanta, Sultan Ahmed just would not hear tell of letting that singing artiste’s vocals be. Reluctantly had I to settle for Asha upon Sulakshana in both those songs.
‘At the end of it all, I felt that Asha and I were capable of doing a much better musical job. Here is where K. Asif understood my musical temper. It did seem to be a pity that Lata had again stopped singing for me by the 1982 Dharam Kanta hour. If only because this was the 1982 career turning during which I would have liked to test out how Lata’s vocals fared. So as to be able to compare them, on the dot, with the vocals of Asha. By the time Lata got back to me – a full decade later – for Teri Payal Mere Geet [1992], her voice was as good as gone. Lata, by that 1992 juncture, was but a vocal hangover of her true self in those two Hasan Kamaal-written solos picturized upon such an accomplished dancer as Meenakshi Seshadri as Duniya ke mele mein aa ke duniya waale kho gaye and Kyaa kahen aaj kyaa ho gayaa.
‘Chorus accompanied Lata next was in the Hasan Kamaal-penned Mohabbat ka ek devtaa-sa milaa,’ added Naushad. ‘How Lata failed to come to grips with my Raag Kirvani notes here! If I checked Lata at one end, she went off-key at the other. If I corrected her there, she went out of tune here. It was disillusioning, I tell you. I well know that vibration creeping into the voice is a fate that befalls the best of singers with age. Yet that it should have happened to Lata … I asked her to come again for a passage that had gone woefully wrong. But she would not come. She would not come because she could not come and do it any longer.’
In other words, Naushad, on Teri Payal Mere Geet, felt shattered upon detecting that Lata Mangeshkar was no longer steady enough to tackle the higher notes. This was the one trait that, all along, had made Lata stand out from the rest. Naushad had rationally expected that, following 45 years of seasoning, Lata’s technique would be encountering no difficulty in negotiating the murkis – the vocal bends – in those three 1992 Teri Payal Mere Geet compositions of his varying from the playful to the wistful to the yearnful – Kyaa kahen aaj kyaa ho gayaa; Mohabbat ka ek devtaa-sa milaa and Jab raat aayi tum yaad aaye. As he so had her switching from Raag Darbari to Raag Kirvani to Raag Pilu, Naushad sensed Lata to be vocally battling with herself as never before.
In such a scenario, I reiterate what, specifically, Naushad had said as far back as the October of 1994, as quoted then, to her chagrin, in my Lata Mangeshkar: A Biography: ‘The difference between Lata then and Lata now is that vibration, for the first time, has crept into her voice. Lata’s voice, consequently, has lost that rare gift of being thehrao, so that she is no longer able to “hold a note”. This “holding a note” was the distinctive quality that made her a matchless asset to us in her heyday. Now I find that I have to lower Lata an octave or two to make her sing.’
Where Lata stood out as the high-notes specialist, Asha had always been steadier in the lower octaves. This is something that Khayyam adroitly spotted and exploited in Asha’s vocalizing of the 1981 Umrao Jaan theme upon the coquettish Rekha. What came as a revelation was the kudos that Naushad now handed out to the ‘Kishore Kumar of the South’. Observed Naushad: ‘How pleasant an exposure was it, recording with someone like S. P. Balasubrahmanyam [accompanied by a chorus] in the film’s theme song going as Teri payal mere geet tuu sargam hai main sangeet – picturized upon Govinda vis-à-vis Meenakshi Seshadri. I had heard all about Bala being a replica of Kishore Kumar. A Kishore Kumar whom I had at last tried out in the Hello hello kyaa haal hai duet with Asha in Sunehra Sansar [1975]. I had found Kishore to be musically intelligent and sharp. I noticed that he kept some kind of a notation upon the fingers of his hands. For all that, Kishore’s lack of schooling in music still showed.
‘Bala was different. He too had problems in terms of a proper foundation but he had taken the trouble to pick up the basics of singing with scrupulous care. Now the song, Teri payal mere geet geet tuu sargam hai main sangeet, on the screen, was a nine-minute dance number. It was to be picturized upon a true-blue dancer in Meenakshi Seshadri – as a number lip-synched, in the film, by the nritya-aware Govinda. It was in Raag Anandi. It was a tough take yet, during rehearsal, Bala had met each call that I made upon him. Bala thus came fully ready for the final recording. I did hint that nine minutes at a stretch could prove physically taxing. I therefore sought to break up the recording into two segments. “Shall we first try it at one go, Naushad Saab?” ventured Bala – to my astonishment. As I hesitantly gave the go-ahead, believe it or not, Bala proceeded to complete the nine-minute song in one sweep – in one incredible take.
‘That is what I call a true professional at work. How hard Bala had laboured upon making up for the areas in which he knew that he fell classically short. It was a joy working with such a punctilious performer. Indeed Bala brought to his singing a clinical fidelity that reminded me of the good old Rafi. As I commended him, Bala said: “Not everyone gets to sing for Naushad. When Naushad Saab dares me to deliver on a certain composition, the singer in me feels provoked. Thank you, Naushad Saab, Teri payal mere geet tuu sargam hai main sangeet is an event in my career that I shall never forget.”
‘So will I not forget S. P. Balasubrahmanyam for his Atlas-like effort yielding such splendid results,’ observed Naushad. ‘Bala had been quite good in the carefree Bhairavi solo that I had composed for the same [1992] Teri Payal Mere Geet show, Baat sub se karo pyaar hum se karo, going upon Govinda. Hasan Kamaal, who wrote this one and Teri payal mere geet tuu sargam hai main sangeet, came to be no less impressed by Bala. I later tried out Kumar Sanu, too, in Guddu [1995], but found him to be way behind Bala. In fact, Devki Pandit, who sang for me in the same Guddu, sounded a better proposition.
‘A genuine contender for singing acclaim had been Anuradha Paudwal in my Awaaz De Kahan Hai [1990],’ added Naushad. ‘The only problem with Anuradha was that she was not inclined to put in the slog needed for addressing certain areas of shortfall that I had pointed out to her. Anuradha was full of potential, she never quite realized it. She just got lost in a maze of her own. Challenging the Mangeshkars is one thing, keeping up your own vocal levels is quite another. It calls for a certain sweat; Anuradha failed to put in that hard work.
‘That way the most complete of the new singers that I heard is Vani Jairam,’3 rounded off Naushad. ‘Very well trained, Vani did not have much of an opportunity to interact with me on Pakeezah [in mid-1971], as she sang but a slice for me there in Moraa saajan sautan ghar jaaye. But I got a true feel of her vocal insights as she put over her part of the Kaho to aaj bol doon composition, for me, in K. Balachander’s Aaina [1974]. Asha took up from where Vani left off here and she did create some problems during that Aaina recording, let me tell you. Clearly Asha Bhosle did not like Vani Jairam. That, to me, was a signal that Asha did not welcome Vani as competition. Vani certainly had the makings. It is a pity that she went away to Madras, instead of staying back to take on the Mangeshkars. Vani had the vocal equipment to give the sisters a run. For a Southerner, her Hindi was excellent; she had clearly learnt the language well, speaking and writing it fluently. She was pretty sharp in picking up the sharper shades of the Urdu language too. I would have liked to get Vani to render a ghazal for me – as the ultimate test of a singer.’
After warbling a songlet going with the background music scored by Naushad for Pakeezah, Vani Jairam – sighting no further prospects in Bombay – had shifted to Madras. To pose, with sustained success there, a threat to ‘the Lata of the South’: P. Susheela. For P. Susheela and Vani Jairam, some super Tamil songs were created by that tuning phenom, M. S. Viswanathan (of the Viswanathan-Ramamurthy 1956 Naya Aadmi team). Maybe it wasn’t cricket – the spectacle of ace rivals Vani Jairam and P. Susheela indulging in such eyeball-to-eyeball Madras confrontation. Yet it was as enticing to watch Vani Jairam and P. Susheela vocally duelling, out there in Madras, as it was exciting to view Lata and Asha ‘third eye’ each other, here in Bombay, for the traffic-snarl signal to remain ‘Forever Amber’.
The traffic leading up to our recording studios did ease with Vani Jairam driven to Madras. It was no idle boast of Vani that, with her Bole re papihara in 1971, it was she who had been the one to crack, wide open, the till then full-of-pitfalls playback path. For Kavita Krishnamurthy and Alka Yagnik to be able to make, self-effacingly, their Mangeshkar-demarcated mark as playback performers of zeal and aptitude. Neither Kavita nor Alka ever made the fundamental mistake of uttering a word, in public, against the Mangeshkars. Not even when Anuradha Paudwal ran her shrilly short-lived T-Series-backed 1991 campaign against Lata and Asha. Alka and Kavita never ever fell foul of either sister. Such delicious docility paid off big time as R. D. Burman came around to recording the female edition of Kuchh na kaho kuchh bhi na kaho in the voice of Kavita Krishnamurthy for Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 1942 – A Love Story. Before Pancham’s untimely death on 4 January 1994 was that prestige Kavita recording carried out. Come 15 July 1994 and Kavita got to view, with all of us, 1942 – A Love Story. Got to view it with this difference that we tuneful watchers agonized at the way Lata (as ‘voiced over’ upon Manisha Koirala) played such vocal havoc with Kuchh na kaho kuchh bhi na kaho. We lay watchers then did not know anything about it. Kavita, in fact, was the only 15 July 1994 viewer with first-hand knowledge of the fact that it was she who had first recorded, for R. D. Burman, Kuchh na kaho kuchh bhi na kaho. Any Kuchh na kaho wonder that Lata ‘dubbed’ Kavita a good singer? Any Kuchh na kaho wonder, either, that Naushad, in the same year of 1994, anguished that the voice of Lata Mangeshkar had lost the prize gift of being thehrao – of being able to ‘hold a note’?
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1 From Kay Productions’ Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966), directed by A. R. Kardar. Music by Naushad. Song-lyric by Shakeel Badayuni. Rendered by Lata Mangeshkar.
2 O. P. Nayyar had composed, in Raag Pilu, each one of his 11 songs (Piyaa piyaa na laage moraa jiyaa, in two visually separated parts, making it 12) for the July 1958 Bibhuti Mitra film: Phagun. Wonder of wonders: Asha Bhosle had figured in each one of those songs. ‘That man OP, he knows only Pilu!’ quipped Anil Biswas. O. P. Nayyar’s response: ‘Such a composing great as Anil Biswas concedes that I know at least Pilu – the rest I will learn from him!’ Years later, Anil Biswas and O. P. Nayyar composed their differences so as to be able to appear together on television – in an effort to neutralize the enduring Urdu aura of Naushad in that medium!
3 Vani Jairam’s Bole re papihara – written by Gulzar, tuned by Vasant Desai and picturized upon Jaya Bhaduri playing Guddi in the 1971 Hrishikesh Mukherjee film of that name – had made both Jaya and Vani famous overnight. Bole re papihara (coincidentally set, for Guddi, in Raag Mian Ki Malhar) even won the Mian Tansen Award, from the highly regarded Sur-Singar Samsad, for Vani Jairam – as the Best Classical Film Song of the Year 1971. That Vani Jairam won it in competition with Lata Mangeshkar’s Raag Charukesi Madan Mohan classic, Baiyyaan na dharo o balmaa (picturized on Rehana Sultan in Dastak), made the award all the more coveted.