EVEN during the ‘glorious sixties’, there was something about the years 1964 and ’65. They saw the release of Laxmikant–Pyarelal’s Dosti, Roshan’s Chitralekha, Shankar– Jaikishan’s Sangam, O.P. Nayyar’s Kashmir Ki Kali, Naushad’s Leader, Khayyam’s Shagoon, Kishore Kumar’s Door Gagan Ki Chhaon Mein, Chitragupta’s Ganga Ki Lehrein, Ramlal’s Geet Gaya Pattharon Ne and Hemant Kumar’s Kohra.
Then there was Madan Mohan. His astonishing albums Woh Kaun Thi?, Haqeeqat, Ghazal, Aap Ki Parchhaiyyan, Suhagan, Sharabi, Pooja Ke Phool and Jahan Ara boast incredible consistency of superlative melody in all the tracks across these films.
It is almost tragic that Madan Mohan’s passion and genius did not always translate into commercial success for the projects he composed for. Regardless, he gave his 100 per cent to every bar of his compositions. ‘True. The year 1964 was a dream year. None of the films did well except Woh Kaun Thi?. But musically all of those are remembered to this date,’ says Madan Mohan’s son, Sanjeev Kohli.
Haqeeqat was Chetan Anand’s first collaboration with Madan Mohan. According to Sanjeev Kohli, ‘Chetan sahib wanted to start two movies at the same time – Aakhri Khat and Haqeeqat. Madan Mohan suggested that Aakhri Khat be given to Khayyam who was a good friend.’
The story for Haqeeqat had begun to take shape in director Chetan Anand’s mind soon after the India–China war. ‘The self-esteem of the nation was at an all-time low after having been crushed by the Chinese. The nation and its leaders were looking for any kind of hand to hold on to that could bail them out of this feeling of powerlessness,’ says Mahesh Bhatt in an interview with the authors.
While the backdrop of the film was the Sino-Indian war, Haqeeqat was more about how men, separated from their loved ones, cope with stress. It is a story of rugged men with soft hearts, and their love interests. The tale of Ram Singh is one such story. Ram Singh’s (Sudhir) pining for that one letter with but a scribble from his lady love (Chand Usmani) becomes an opportunity for one of his comrades to place a bet. The postman empties the bag of letters but there is nothing for Ram Singh. His comrade yelps excitedly at having won the wager. Stricken with disappointment, the soldier turns away and walks off across Ladakh’s barren landscape. And introspects … with a nazm.
The nazm starts off with a drawn-out, pathos-filled solo violin by Pyarelal Sharma. ‘It was originally designed to be a flute piece by Sumant Raj. It had also been rehearsed twice. Then Madan Mohan changed his mind and asked his assistant Sonik to arrange it on the violin. That’s when I came in,’ says Pyarelal, forty-five years later. Pyarelal had been selected to play the lead among the eight fiddlers – Gonsalves, Jerry Fernandes, Harishchandra Narvekar, Oscar and Dorado, and three others – who were playing during the song. Choosing Pyarelal, in spite of there being other fiddlers, clearly indicated that Madan Mohan had faith in his talent.
The violin solo is followed by Mohd Rafi’s soft humming, which is again followed by another violin solo before the song actually begins. The violin solos play the dual role of obbligato as well as the fillers between lines of the nazm. While the main melody tows the feel of Raga Piloo, the violin solo sounds like the Aeolian scale with the tonic shifted to the fifth, which resembles Raga Piloo. The staggering of notes between the human voice and the violin creates a duet of indefinable poignancy, a three-and-a-half-minute musical soliloquy. In the absence of a rhythm instrument, the song is also free of any clutter. Robert Corea’s piano acts almost as a strike instrument, creating a soft dadra pattern which accompanies the song.
The song does not have an asthayi or antara. Each line, eleven of them, are spread over twelve matras. And no line of the song – except the last – repeats itself. Kaifi’s words are a paean to the hope. Ram Singh looks back over his shoulder in the faint hope that his betrothed would not let him go. And every step signifies the fleeting hope that Ram feels as he walks away from her.
During the song ‘Aayee abki saal Diwali’, hope is rekindled in Ram Singh’s fiancée’s heart. She is seen writing a letter, her face expressing regret and anxiety, not knowing that Ram Singh had died on the battlefield and would never return. Chetan Anand uses ‘Main yeh sochkar’ again during shots showing Ram Singh’s frozen face, his vacant eyes gazing out into the distance.
Interestingly, the nazm was not written for the film at all. According to Chetan Anand’s son Ketan Anand, these verses were the poet’s pensive sketches after a difference of opinion he’d once had with his wife, Shaukat Azmi. ‘Chetan sahab told Madan sahab to take the nazm and put a tune to it, rather than the other way around. And the character of Ram Singh was created to fit in this Nazm,’ says Ketan Anand.
Charting out a romantic saga for an inconspicuous pair of actors without much star value couldn’t have been easy for Madan Mohan and Kaifi Azmi. Chand Usmani had debuted with Shammi Kapoor in Jeevan Jyoti (1953) and in spite of films like Baap Re Baap (1955), in which she starred opposite Kishore Kumar, her career was going nowhere. Sudhir, a product of Bombay English theatre, had acted in plays like A View from the Bridge and Macbeth. He debuted with Aspi Irani’s Barood (1960) and was not a romantic star.
And though Rafi’s dulcet voice had never sounded better, one cannot help but wonder how ‘Main yeh sochkar’ would have sounded in Talat’s voice. The mood of the song echoes Talat’s immortal gems, ‘Sham-e-gham ki kasam’ (Footpath, 1953), ‘Phir wohi shaam’ (Jahan Ara, 1964) or ‘Aansoo samajh ke kyon mujhe’ (Chhayya, 1961) – reflective, thoughtful, deep and sensitive.
Haqeeqat is one of the best albums ever in the annals of Hindi film music. Apart from the deeply touching ‘Aayee abki saal Diwali’, the hopeful Yaman beauty ‘Zara si aahat hoti hai’ and the dramatic ‘Khelo na mere dil se’, where Madan Mohan uses Teevra Madhyam as the first note of the song, thus creating a near hypnotic feel, it features the great four-male-voice geet ‘Hokay majboor mujhe’ with Manna Dey, Talat Mehmood, Rafi and the debutant actor-singer Bhupendra. And then there was the peppy Rafi solo, ‘Masti mein chhed ke tarana koi dil ka’, which, if things would have gone according to plan, was to be featured on Madan Mohan, the ex-army man, playing the role of Major Pratap Singh. The most popular song was the title track ‘Kar chale hum fida’, used at the end of the film and triggered by the death of the lead stars Dharmendra and Vera Singh (rechristened Priya Rajvansh by Chetan Anand) in the battlefield.