JAVED AKHTAR CALLING
AND RECALLING WE GO
Chhoote naa rang aesi rang de chunariyaa
Dhobaniya dhoye chaahe saari umariyaa
Ho mann ko rang degaa saanwariya
Chhoote naa rang aesi rang de chunariyaa, ji
Rang de chunariyaa
Dhobaniya dhoye chaahe saari umariyaa
Mohe bhaaye naa harjaaii, mohe bhaaye naa
Mohe bhaaye naa harjaaii
Rang chhalke sunaa de zaraa baansuri
Holi aayi re Kanhaaii
Rang chhalke sunaa de zaraa baansuri
Holi aayi re Kanhaaii, rang chhalke sunaa de zaraa baansuri
Holi aayi re aayi re Holi aayi re …1
AS HE SPOKE UP ON HOLI AAYI RE KANHAAII HOLI AAYI RE (FROM Mother India, 1957), writer-poet Javed Akhtar – like his writer-poet-director confrère Gulzar – sounded no great admirer of Naushad and his music. Yet, long before Javed Akhtar’s time, the unique unification that Naushad achieved, in exquisitely blending Words and Music – 1948 MGM style – was unmatched. As early as the July of 1944, the entire score of Naushad’s Rattan was so dholak formatted as to carry film music one folksy step beyond Master Ghulam Haider. It was done with such a pastoral verve and swerve, in terms of orchestrating finesse, as to bring viewers to their tap-tapping feet! There was fusion; there was vision at work here It sounded like Naushad was already eyeing the tunescape beyond Rattan and 1944.
It was but a passing appearance by me in the 8 March 2012 movie-based An Affair to Remember programme of the Headlines Today TV channel. On that Holi Day, I tuned in by sheer chance and beheld two clips. One clip had me enlarging upon how the first screen presentation of Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘rural vision of the nation’ was truly executed by Mehboob Khan – a full 10 years after Independence – via Mother India. In this context was carried my comment on Holi aayi re Kanhaaii Holi aayi re from the same Mother India. The second clip had me presenting my views on how Naushad felt at home in tuning Mohe panghat pe Nandlal chhed gayo re, on Madhubala in Mughal-e-Azam (1960), seeing how big an event Janmashtami was in his native Uttar Pradesh. Five minutes after the programme was over, I received a call out of the blue, saying: ‘This is Javed Akhtar speaking!’
I knew Javed Akhtar, of course, and, after the initial pleasantries, that ‘copyrighteous’ poet let himself go. ‘You just said,’ Javed pointed out, ‘that all credit for the number, Holi aayi re Kanhaaii Holi aayi re, goes to Naushad. You even argued that, as one from Lucknow, Naushad knew how to re-create Holi musically upon the Hindustani screen. Just as he knew how to re-create, musically, the Janmashtami scene in Mughal-e-Azam through Mohe panghat pe Nandlal chhed gayo re. Sorry to disagree, but a music scholar of your standing should have given all credit to the poet, Shakeel Badayuni, not to the composer, Naushad, for Holi aayi re Kanhaaii Holi aayi re.’ Eloquently went on Javed in that strain, ending with: ‘Naushad did just nothing here; it was all Shakeel from western UP, not Naushad from eastern UP.’
‘But it was Naushad who got Shakeel to write exactly the way he wanted,’ I insisted. ‘Naushad had handpicked Shakeel and they worked together on 22 films in a row through 22 years. Naushad actually began teaming with Shakeel [in terms of writing all songs in a film] with Abdul Rashid Kardar’s Dard coming in the latter half of 1947.’ Javed’s response: ‘That is as may be, who can beat you in film music and its history. Yet I maintain – what’s Holi aayi re Kanhaaii without Shakeel being there to create the word imagery reflecting the spirit of Holi? Naushad, I say, just went along with Shakeel here.’
‘No, it’s Shakeel who went along with Naushad!’ I persisted. ‘You would’ve known this, Javed, if you’d seen the two, Naushad and Shakeel, working together. It’s Naushad, no novice in Urdu poetry, who decided everything: his view prevailed after the customary nok-jhonk [give and take]. How I wish you had been there to experience it first-hand. You now say Javed: “Take away the Shakeel sentiment from Holi aayi re Kanhaaii Holi aayi re and all that we are left with is these music directors doing their usual sa re ga ma.” You go on to assert: “Minus the words, what’s Holi aayi re Kanhaaii Holi aayi re?” To that my response would be: “The moment you hum Shamshad Begum as Holi aayi re Kanhaaii Holi aayi re, it’s through the toning of the tuning – by Naushad – that you go to Shakeel’s word picture. Only in the case of folk from the North like you, Javed, do the poetry and the music instantly coalesce in the mind’s eye. In large parts of India, to this day, it’s through the dhun that the common people tune with the words.”’
So the argument raged, lasting a good 20 minutes on the phone, before we spent a further 15 minutes in friendly banter. I asked Javed if he ever beheld his father Jan Nisar Akhtar working with C. Ramchandra upon Yasmin (March 1955). ‘You mean to tell me that you saw my dad working with C. Ramchandra?’ queried Javed, sounding astonished. I recounted to Javed how pleased Jan Nisar had felt upon finding C. Ramchandra to be insisting upon that poet writing the song first. ‘That,’ I said, ‘is how Lata’s Mujh pe ilzaam-e-bewafaaii hai came to be written by Jan Nisar Akhtar as the first of nine songs penned by him for C. Ramchandra in A. R. Kardar’s Yasmin.’
From there, I went into details of having viewed other poets and composers teaming – of seeing Shanker (of the then reigning SJ team) never allowing Shailendra to write the words first. Agreeably surprised at hearing this, Javed audibly mellowed, though at no stage in our dialogue, I have to acknowledge, did that telegenic writer-poet get to be anything more than passionate. Throughout, to my embarrassment, Javed kept referring to me as ‘sir’, ending with the request: ‘I’ve just heard you on the phone, sir, holding forth upon our cinesangeet and I must say that I’m amazed at your grip upon our music for one from the South. You say that we last met at a party during which Shabana [Azmi]2 interacted with you. But that meeting was all too brief. We must again meet in person and meet soon. I have but one request before that. Your next book, it must be on poets and their role in films!’
It was an enriching exchange in which neither yielded ground. It was upon the tip of my tongue to tell Javed – as we chatted on – that it is one thing to write for a 1990s no-Urdu phenomenon like Alla Rakha Rahman, another to write for Naushad. I did put the point to Javed without naming names. Thereupon Javed laughed out loud to say: ‘You have me there, Raju sir! Today’s music makers, what is it they are doing if not committing hara-kiri?’
To put it in perspective, Javed Akhtar was my first genuine interface with a poet of the later order, if you exempt Gulzar. Where I felt Javed Akhtar to be exceeding the bounds of reasoned analysis was in his suggesting that Naushad had no role at all to play in the success of either Holi aayi re Kanhaaii Holi aayi re or Mohe panghat pe Nandlal chhed gayo re. Javed was adamant that it was Shakeel all the way. This is like reasoning that, in 1942 – A Love Story (as it unravelled during 1994), there was no Pancham – no Rahul Dev Burman – in Kuchch na kaho kuchch bhi na kaho, that, in fact, there was only Javed Akhtar.
I could have added that Holi aayi re Kanhaaii and Mohe panghat pe are both in Khadi Boli (a Western Hindi dialect) of North India. But what sense would that have made to readers from the east, the west or the south of India? Writing on Hindustani cinesangeet is about your tuning with the Shakeel words through the Naushad tune. It was here that the essential difference between Naushad and Madan Mohan lay. It lay in the ear-caressing fact that the Naushad tune just took you through – even if you only broadly followed the Urdu wording accompanying it. Envision Shakeel’s Yeh dil ki lagi kam kyaa hogi. As this Lata ‘breathholder’ – just streaming along – unspooled on the 1960 Mughal-e-Azam screen in the vendetta blazing persona of Nigar Sultana, you just went with the flow. Not all of you could have possibly followed the Shakeel wording right through – you could not if you were not familiar with the nuances of the Urdu language. Yet such was the melisma of Lata, so fluid was the Naushad instrumental integration going with it, so mind sweeping were the orchestral flourishes coming through, that you just coasted along.
That is to say, you understood the Shakeel–Naushad music better if you grasped the shades of the Urdu language. Even if you did not grasp them, you were just humming along in an Urdu language of your own literary fashioning! This is where Naushad scored over every other composer. He was the only music director with the intrinsic ability to reach out to the masses as he took quality Urdu poetry from the podium to the auditorium and beyond. His musical effervescence left you stunned. You heard him out in pindrop silence even when the song was being played via a grating gramophone needle. Madhubala was your gramophone needling Dulari all the way as she came through in a 1949 Lata vein of Aankhon mein aa jaa dil mein samaa jaa. You felt transported to your teenage fantasy years as Dulari Madhubala, in her screen persona, epitomized the recipe for eternal youth. You verily turned into a lip reader of this your Dulari performer as Madhubala came over as Taqdeer jagaa kar aayi hoon taqdeer jagaa kar aayi hoon. Here was ‘Music by Naushad’ at once ageless and timeless – his songs tuneful milestones imprinted in the highway of your imagination.
The effect is no different – if contextually not so ready for recall – in the case of another Naushad movie: Son of India (releasing in November 1962). Admittedly, in that Mehboob Khan swan song, we were initially put off by the persistence with which the Commercial Services of Radio Ceylon foisted the tuneless vocals of that typical All India Radio artiste, Shanti Mathur, upon us hapless cine buffs. Cine buffs having, at that point in time, no airwaves competing alternative listening post for their edification. So much so that we got around to hearing the dulcet Lata–Rafi Son of India duet, Dil tod ne waale tujhe dil dhoondh rahaa hai, only after that Mehboob film had gained a release. In other words, before Dil tod ne waale unfolded on the silver screen, we had neither imagined nor imaged any visuals as supporting it. Only as we got around to viewing the film did we come to know that Dil tod ne waale started upon Kumkum (as Kamla), before turning upon the visage of a total unknown in Kamaljeet (playing Kishore). A Kamaljeet then in no way identifiable as Shashi Rekhi, Waheeda Rehman’s husband-to-be. Yet, unaided here by any sort of pre-pictured visuals, Dil tod ne waale held us spellbound the moment Rafi joined Lata with Ae dil ke sahaare (upon Kamaljeet). Here the words are Shakeel’s, no doubt. Yet, surely, it is Naushad’s exposition of Everyman’s Pahadi that does the ‘hit’ trick?
At least Naushad always treated Shakeel Badayuni with a certain fellow feeling. By way of a contrast – as I now took Javed into confidence – you should have heard the way Shanker told off even a Shailendra. In the process, almost commanding Shailendra to write to the exact literary strand that Shanker wanted. ‘Shaili’ did not mind; the two were, after all, long-time pals swearing wildly at each other. In such a trade-off, ‘Shaili’ was a native match to Shanker’s Hyderabadi artistry. We well know that the language that Javed Akhtar employed was never anything less than lyrical as he sat down with the music director to discuss, say, Rekha–Amitabh’s vibing-wording. The wording – that is – of a song to be framed to conceptualize the July 1981 Silsila of that twosome’s togetherness: as Amit and Chandni.
Shiv-Hari, debuting as music directors in Silsila, jelled joyously with Javed Akhtar, in the film, via the Raag Pahadi-oriented Dekhaa eik khwab to yeh silsile huue. I had often seen santoor wizard Shiv Kumar Sharma as an A-grade part of the orchestra. Shiv Kumar came through as something apart in the crowd there. So did super flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia display a playing charisma going beyond the everyday orchestra. The two played and you just sat and watched, entranced. This in the face of the orchestrated language to be heard in our male-centric recording studios carrying a tang all its own, except when a disciplinarian like Naushad was conducting the proceedings. I wonder how the sparks would have flown if either Javed Akhtar or Gulzar had carried out a sitting with Naushad for a tune. Neither of them, possibly, could have displayed the patience and the comprehension that Shakeel Badayuni habitually did. As, for instance, when there was an unforeseen delay in Naushad calling upon Shakeel to begin writing Eik shahenshah ne banvaa ke haseen Taj Mahal for Leader (set to be released in March 1964). Shakeel came in late, very late, on this one. Yet hear how the Eik shahenshah ne banvaa ke haseen Taj Mahal duet unwinds. It is now Shakeel, now Naushad. Now Lata, now Rafi. Now history, now fantasy.
You do not need to know that it is in Raag Lalit that you are imbibing the measured tones in which Eik shahenshah ne unwinds upon a Vyjayanthimala having had her salwaar-kameez shades, in the serene scene, fastidiously handpicked by connoisseur Leader Dilip Kumar. By the 1960s Leader juncture you well know what exactly to expect from Naushad when the lead pair is so attention riveting as Vyjayanthimala and Dilip Kumar. You here also get to know that Naushad’s grip upon Raag Yaman remains as piquantly pithy as ever – this via Vyjayanthimala and Dilip Kumar enacting the other Leader duet. Enacting it eye catchingly enough for Lata-Rafi not to sound at royalty odds at all, as the two wistfully tune on Tere husn ki kyaa taareef karun. These two Lata–Rafi Leader duets to prize, Eik shahenshah ne and Tere husn ki – that we providentially got upon one N54357 record – were renditions carried out late in 1962.
Those two duets, remember, were among the last Lata–Rafi recordings done in 1962. For, following Rafi refusing to tiptoe her line in insisting upon two-and-a-half per cent royalty, Lata had proceeded to ring up Naushad – as Rafi’s ‘evil genius’ in the matter – and tell him, sharply, that she would no longer be singing with his pet male performer. As Lata and Rafi thus ceased to be on crooning dueting terms by the end of 1962, somehow Vyjayanthimala and Dilip Kumar too – some 15 weeks after that – were not talking to each other. This by the time we got to hear those two Leader duets so harmoniously unwrapping (in the March of 1964) as Eik shahenshah ne banvaa ke haseen Taj Mahal and Tere husn ki kyaa taareef karun.
But forget Leader Dilip Kumar confronting, off the sets, Raj Kapoor as the Sangam harbinger – with Vyjayanthimala (in the role of Radha) as the apple of discord. Our theme song centres upon Naushad still composing as engrossingly in Leader (1964) as in Andaz (1949). How did it all begin – how did thoroughbred Naushad always manage to remain a full head in front of every other well-hoofed rival in the field? Naushad shrewdly picked up the palpably ‘Punjabi’ Khazanchi (1941) flavour, allied to Arabic rhythm, that Master Ghulam Haider had brought to cinesangeet. This always was the Naushad way. His technique was sophisticatedly to follow up on a trend and so streamline it as for the pathfinder himself, ultimately, to be left admiring Naushad’s percipience in taking it beyond its base. Not one composer, then, was quite able to match our Movie Midas in his specialist sphere of imparting orchestral sweeps. C. Ramchandra, here, was the one who came to spearhead the brigade bent upon debunking Naushad. Only for CR to end up seriously underestimating Naushad as the ‘tune polisher’ without peer. Yes, the entire music of Rattan (mid-July 1944) was about Naushad carrying forward his honing to a point where, orchestrally, the pupil all but excelled the Ghulam Master. All but excelled Ghulam Haider in the rejuvenated dholak motif brought to the Rattan unspooling via the instrumental artistry of Ghulam Mohammad, as the percussionist robustly performing here, while functioning, side by side, as Naushad’s chief assistant!
Was music an art or a craft in Naushad custody? One moment it was a simplistic craft; the next moment it was a transparent art as, in Anokhi Ada (1948), you heard Shamshad Begum and Surendra dueting in a vein of Kyun unhen dil diyaa haay yeh kyaa kiyaa. It is, if you notice, a Shakeel–Naushad bullock ‘cart blanche’ to Naseem here. A Naseem having you looking for ‘an angel in a haystack’ – through that cartload of dry grass! If Naseem comes through as elegantly mufflered, Surendra is in tweeds, letting his convertible vintage car be languidly towed by her conventional cart – so as to able, faithfully, to ‘follow’ his haystack love! Via Kyun unhen dil diyaa haay yeh kyaa kiyaa does Surendra thus invite Naseem to make ‘hay’ while the moon shines – even while sounding no 1952 Baiju Bawra Tansen yet. This as Surendra rounds it off as: Paas reh kar sadaa, hai woh hum se judaa/Qismat ne yeh din bhi dikhlaa diyaa. It is as the two exchange O O O Os, after that, that Shamshad materializes upon ‘Kamini’ Naseem with Kaun bhulaa huua, aaj yaad aa gayaa/Yeh kis ne phir dil ko tadpaa diyaa. Here you just do not come to know where the Surendra-as-Professor Nath car backup ends and where the Shamshad-on-Naseem hayride begins. It is Shamshad all the winsome way from this enticing point onwards. How masterfully has Naushad got Shamshad to go ‘soft’ on a Surendra able to sing, in a low tone, only in his set languishing-from-love style. Given all that, Surendra makes his ‘Naseemulaqaat’ an encounter to remember by ‘steering’ his way into Kamini’s heart as her ‘tourer’ suitor!
Tantalizingly deftly delayed vocally, thus, was the ‘arrival’ of the orotund Shamshad in one Naushad duet after another. This is what marked out Shamshad as the resonator of resonators, free to bring home, to viewers, how flush her vocals sat upon Naseem. How to top a tune is something that you got to absorb from the way in which Shamshad-Naushad intertwined. Anokhi Ada, in the result, had our maestro turning film music into an art format as early as the 17th of September 1948. So what if Naushad was no pathfinder in the sense that he took a ready bandish (musical arrangement) and refined it into his own tune? It is the finished product – complete with the dream orchestration – that matters here. And Kaun bhulaa huua, aaj yaad aa gayaa – as we ‘expectantly’ wait to see it Shamshadized vis-à-vis Naseem on the Anokhi Ada screen – touches the gut as the ultimate in vivifying film music. Hear any tune of Naushad, digitally, from any era. You would be finding the immediate sound effect upon you to be standing apart compared to anything else you get to hear from any other composer.
For all that, there has to be a rational explanation for the exceptional way in which Naushad broke through with Rattan in mid-July 1944. What our tuning ace had accomplished – via 12 films scored by him before Rattan happened – merely suggested that Naushad was doing okay – like at least half a dozen other composers working alongside. But no clue, at that juncture, was forthcoming about Naushad heading towards being numero uno. Oh yes, the leading man of Rattan was one Karan Dewan. ‘Lucky’ was a tag whose five letters were as synonymous with the five letters of Karan as with the five letters of Dewan. Lucky doubly, now, did Karan Dewan turn out to be for Naushad – as the auspicious hero of Rattan. From that 1944 Rattan point, Naushad never looked back. Not for nothing, as Naushad was to discover, did even Muslim distributors of the time insist upon Karan Dewan’s name being put down first – all others in the cast and crew to come after.
Where our maestro scored was in the folksy vitality that he brought to the remarkably advanced orchestration, for its time, of his tunes for Rattan. The Zohrabai Ambalewali triad of Rumjhum barse baadarva mast hawaaen aayi (in typical Pahadi), Akhiyaan milaa ke jiyaa bharamaa ke chale nahein jaana and Aayi Deewali aayi Deewali deepak sang naache patanga are catchy folk tunes any composer of standing could have thought up at the time. But just absorb the way Naushad integrates an Amirbai Karnataki Rattan tune like Mil ke bichhad gayi akhiyaan haay Raama mil ke bichhad gayi akhiyaan with a calibre of orchestration way ahead of each one of his 1944 contemporaries. View Rattan as a film, afresh, and you would be instinctively sensing how this instrumental harmonization made all the difference in Naushad just sweeping through. Zohra and Shyam Kumar’s O jaane waale baalamva from Rattan, likewise, enthralls viewer-listeners through Naushad’s synchronized synthesis of orchestra and tune.
This, five years down the line, was to be the secret of the extraordinary impact made by the Shanker-Jaikishan team, too, starting with Raj Kapoor’s Barsaat (1949). That strikingly breakaway duo’s orchestration was to sound like nothing that we had heard before. So in the July of 1944 was Naushad’s orchestration something unheard of in its time. Maybe our maestro sensed that Rattan hero Karan Dewan would carry his proverbial luck into song. Naushad let Karan Dewan sing, alongside Zohra, that refreshingly folksy Rattan duet (going upon this supremely lucky hero and Swarnalata) as Saawan ke badaalon unse yeh jaa kaho. Next, Naushad had Karan Dewan rendering Jab tum hi chale pardes lagaa kar thes o preetam pyaara – as a solo. Maybe, hearing our hero going solo, Naushad surmised that Karan Dewan’s wife Manju (acting in Rattan with him) must have been the one to bring him all the luck in the world. So side heroine Manju, likewise, was offered a double Rattan treat in her simplistic voice – Angdaaii teri hai bahaana and Jhuuthe hai sab sapne suhane.
Dina Nath Madhok’s limpid lyrics in Rattan are so intertwoven with his own story and screenplay that his ditties here sound penned to hum. In such a setting, it might be worth while – at this takeoff point in the career of the two – to zero in upon the number of hits that D. N. Madhok wrote for Naushad before Rattan. Let us put them on Columbia/HMV record here. Dina Nath Madhok it was who wrote the very first song that Naushad composed for films, even if this one came to be put out only after that team’s debut film, Prem Nagar (1940), hit the screen. Indeed that maiden collaboration of Naushad with Dina Nath Madhok had seen this fresher rebelling and walking out. So that this solo turned out to be Naushad’s solitary contribution to Chitra Productions’ Kanchan (1941). It came to be rendered by and picturized upon Leela Chitnis – the illustrious Bombay Talkies singing star residing in the Dadar building under whose stairs Naushad had habitually slept during those nights a little too rainy! That Naushad composition for Leela Chitnis came over as Bataa do koee kaun galee more Shyam Madho Madan Murari. This HMV Kanchan record did come into the market (as N25755), if after Naushad had quit the film. Some start that to the Naushad–Madhok collaboration! But look up the other side of the duo’s record. Just try and recall how many of the following Naushad–Madhok hits of that era you are able to ‘place’ at this distance in time. I am referring to hits of the World War II period, during which I was so busy either playing or watching cricket that I had neither the time nor the inclination to play music or to watch films. But vaguely, even upon a chance filmgoer like me, those Madhok–Naushad hits had so registered as to be now listed as:
Kyun naina bhar aaye baawre kyun naina bhar aaye (Parul Ghosh brooding in Vijay Bhatt’s Mala, 1941). Following that, since our spotlight is upon the Naushad–Madhok tuning, all hits from hereon are from films of Kardar Productions. From Sharda (1942), for instance, how possibly could we forget, upon heroine Mehtab, Suraiya’s Panchhi jaa. From the same Sharda we have Ghir aayi badariyaa ghar aao kuchh keh jaao kuchh sun jaao and Tum nahin aate ho nahin aao yaad se keh do woh bhi na aaye (both of them solos by known classical performer Nirmala Devi on whom Naushad mysteriously gave up after 17 numbers – no fewer than 14 of them solos – that she rendered for him).
Next, from Namaste (1943), we have Aaye bhi woh gaye bhi woh khatam fasaana ho gayaa (Parul Ghosh) and Aan milo more Shyam saanwre saanwre (Parul Ghosh and G. M. Durrani). On to Sanjog (1943) and, from it, lilt Koee chutki si mere dil mein liye jaaye, Aa more saanwre saiyyan moraa jiyaa laharaaye and Mori gali more raja mori qasam aa jaa (all three by Suraiya). Just have a feel of how the sheer simplicity of the song-lyric gets to you here. Indeed, by this 1943 stage, does a song’s perennial popularity know any Kanoon? A law unto himself is Naushad as he sets the tune pattern to come with Ek tuu ho ek main hoon aur nadi ka kinaara ho (Suraiya) and Saiyyan khade more duaar mein kaa karun kaa karun (Nirmala Devi).
In the case of Jeewan (1944), the hit picks are two Nirmala Devi lovelies: Akhiyaan milaa ke bhaagna naa tere binaa chaeen kahaan paaongi and Aaye ho abhi baitho to sahi do pyaar ki baaten ho jaayen. Then come Jaavo ji jaavo dekhenge kahaan jaavoge and Chaand khila taare muskaaye meri hansi udaaye (again both by Nirmala Devi – this time from K Productions’ Geet, 1944). Next, it is Shyam Kumar saying Pahele Aap (in the 1944 Kardar film of the same name) while making way for Mohammed Rafi as his co-singer debuting for Naushad via Hindostan ke hum hain Hindostan hamaara. From the same Pahele Aap, remember Chale gaye chale gaye dil mein aag lagaane waale (Zohra)?
Don’t remember? Don’t worry; just make a mental note of the fact that this Zohra topper from Pahele Aap makes it eighteen hits from nine films by the Madhok–Naushad team in a four-year span – before they come to Rattan. Yet two-three hits – in film after film – other composers of the time, too, were giving, so what was Naushadian here? That is why Rattan – as each song a hit and as a film going on to celebrate a diamond jubilee – becomes the touchstone by which you ‘watermark’ Naushad’s career curve. At 25, a composer of a rare pedigree is what Naushad emerges from Rattan. Could you therefore really bring yourself to believe that, for all their musical bonding, Naushad was wearying of Dina Nath Madhok calling the tune by playing it upon his 555 State Express cigarette tin – Ghulam Haider style. It took rare courage, at such a point in time, to break away from a talent-spotting, career-building songwriter like D. N. Madhok.
At the back of Naushad’s mind, at such a delicate stage in his career, was the fact of his having shot through – minus the penmanship of D. N. Madhok – via his first silver jubilee hit: Vijay’s Bhatt’s Station Master (1942). A jubilee distinguished by such hits as Kaaya ki rel nirali kar jaayegi teshan khaali (as written by Pandit Indra for G. M. Durrani and chorus) and Saajan ghar aaye aaye ri aalee mann hi mann muskaaye (as written by Pyare Lal Santoshi for Suraiya, Rajkumari and chorus). Suraiya by that 1942 point, incidentally, had already debuted under Naushad (as a teeny-weeny playback singer) with Boot karun main paalish babu in the A. R. Kardar-directed Nai Duniya (1942), made under the Circo Productions’ banner.
Naushad, to his despair, now saw that half the credit for the runaway success of Rattan (1944) had gone to his mentor, Dina Nath Madhok, as that movie’s writer and songwriter! This while Naushad sincerely believed that it was his style of tuning that had really worked things for D. N. Madhok in Rattan. Otherwise, why had the two not been equally successful before Rattan while pairing through as many as 10 films? Naushad also found Minoo Katrak, as his recordist in Rattan, making a difference. Yet Naushad’s pet recordist was Kaushik. Offered the choice by director M. Sadiq, Naushad was to pick Kaushik as his recordist for Shabab (1954).
Of course, at K Productions, the recordist had to be Ishanchandra Ghosh and was he a master of his craft! Naushad’s Kardar recordings are among his lifetime best. In sum, shall we say that individualist Naushad’s quest for a Shakeel Badayuni (writing songs to his specification) had already begun, following the high-flying success of Rattan? Thus did Naushad prove to be his own master, in the Rattan afterglow, via a swift switch to Pandit Budhichandra Agrawal ‘Madhur’ with his immediate film, Kardar’s Sanyasi (1945), to follow such a diamond jubilee hit as Rattan (1944). The experiment was not an immediate success, true. Still there were four fair hits forthcoming from this neo team: Saanjh bhayi ghar aaya panchhi bhor bhaye ud jaana hai (Shyam Kumar); Suno ji pyaari koyaliya bole mast jawanee dole (Zohra with actor Amar); Peepal ki chhaon tale main bhi milun tuu bhi mile (again Zohra-Amar); plus Tooti huuii kishti ka bane kaun sahara (solo by Amar).
Having said that, let it be written in indelible ink that the D. N. Madhok–Naushad attuning must go down in song history as showing the way to poets and composers alike. The two formed a breakaway team from which Naushad had to further break away – soonest. That is, if he was to establish his own distinct identity as a music director beyond compare in the song syllabus of Indian cinema. Naushad – feeling freer to innovate at Jamuna Productions outside the Kardar fold – took time by the forelock with Rattan. So much so that I make bold to say that Rattan was a case of Naushad ‘revisiting’ his entire lyrical mode of harmonizing his music with D. N. Madhok’s lucidity of wording. It is this that proved to be clinching in Rattan. Clinching in terms of a certain style brought to neo-orchestrating the entire Rattan score. This while our more traditional harmonium composers – with no grip upon Western staff notation and therefore stuck in a gramophone groove – mindlessly stayed with their set style to be swept away by the 1944 Rattan wave.
Their no-notating plight became more and more pitiable as India moved, inexorably, towards the 15th of August 1947 and Partition. Alongside Partition arrived – at least in the cinema of India – the era of freelancing, even freebooting. This was to open out the field as never before, so much so that wanton Westernizing became the norm. It was now an open field in which C. Ramchandra dared Naushad to perform – not just conform – as he evolved, in association with Pyare Lal Santoshi, a sound track all his own. The N26963 Meri jaan meri jaan Sunday ke Sunday aana pathfinder – as finetuned by CR and as rendered by him (as Chitalkar) with Meena Kapur and Shamshad Begum for Filmistan’s Shehnai (1947) – signalled that film music would never be the same again. Thus was C. Ramchandra, as the Westernizer nonpareil all set to suck, into the whirligig of Time, even someone so ground breaking as Naushad, Naushad, chaalis karor mein ek hi Naushad!
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1 From Mehboob Khan’s Mother India (1957). Music by Naushad. Song-lyric by Shakeel Badayuni. Rendered by Shamshad Begum and chorus.
2 Javed Akhtar’s actor-wife.