CABARET originated in a bar known as ‘Cabaret Artistique’ when it opened in Montmartre, Paris, in November 1881. The bar was later renamed Le Chat Noir (Black Cat). Owned by Louis Rodolphe Salis, Le Chat Noir is known as the first ever cabaret joint. As per poet and author Jerry Pinto, cabaret was originally ‘more than a bunch of ladies showing off their frilly pantalettes or lack thereof’. It featured variety entertainment like singing, dancing and burlesque shows for an adult audience. Sometimes, there were fire-eaters and magicians too. For reasons not entirely known, cabaret came to be mistakenly assumed to be synonymous with striptease and soon became popular as a variety show across continents.
Given Hindi cinema’s propensity to adapt all new fads in the West, cabaret found a ready taker here. And true to form, Hindi movies developed a new hybrid version of the cabaret with choreographers bringing a whole range of dance forms – cha-cha-cha, fox-trot, belle dancing, can-can, leg shows, etc – under one umbrella known as cabaret.
One of the first instances of a well-known Hindi film song being billed as cabaret was ‘Jeene do aur jeeo’, sung by Asha Bhonsle in the film Taxi Driver (1954). Today, the song is more memorable than the on-screen dancer, Sheila Ramani. Veteran actress Cuckoo Moray was one of the first performers of party songs in Hindi cinema. Sometimes, Minoo Mumtaz, comedian and film-maker and actor Mahmood’s sister, would also be contracted for dance numbers. One of her numbers, ‘Na dar sanam laga bhi le’, from the film Aakhri Dao (1958), could also be classified as cabaret. Cabaret sequences in Hindi films were mostly shot in expensive hotels or nightclubs, with the location often depicted as a front for criminal activity.
Helen played the role of an extra in a dance number in the movie Shabistan (1951), but by the early 1960s, she was the undisputed queen of club/cabaret in Hindi films. One such film was Teesri Manzil (1966). Helen’s acting prowess (in addition to that of dancing in ‘O haseena zulfonwali’) was critical to the success of Teesri Manzil.
There were many cabaret dancers in later Hindi films: Bindu, Padma Khanna, Leena Das, Kalpana Iyer, et al. Then there were icons of traditional dance forms in Hindi cinema: Vyjantimala, Hema Malini, Waheeda Rehman, Asha Parekh, and Jaya Prada, among others. The ‘T’ sisters – Jayshree and Meena – as well as Sandhya Shantaram also became famous for their dancing prowess. But they were not Helen. Helen personified cabaret. In an interview in the late 1980s, Asha Bhonsle said that she owed much of her success to Helen and, one might add, to Pancham.
Despite her contribution to the huge success of Teesri Manzil (it is said to have been deliberately pulled out of the theatres in Bombay in the twenty-fourth week by Nasir Husain as Vijay Anand, the director, was hogging the limelight), the only reason she may not have found a role in the next two Nasir Husain films – Baharon Ke Sapne (1967) and Pyar Ka Mausam (1969) – was, perhaps, because the storylines were non-urban and also because she had been stereotyped as the woman who performed cabaret numbers in bars.
Then we had Caravan. A rich heiress, running away from imminent captivity after discovering that her husband is conspiring to kill her, takes refuge in a club. That evening, there happen to be only two women without partners. One is Sunita (Asha Parekh), the hunted. The other is Monica, the woman in a short red and black dress with a mane of golden hair, slumped on the bar counter. And then there is the song. A cabaret of course.
Being the first of its kind, the song mandates deconstruction. It starts off on a slow metre with the mysterious notes of tenor sax, bass guitar, vibraphone and keyboards. The piano keys mimic the sound of a clock that has just struck twelve. At the ninth strike, the piano makes way for the return of the thick bass riff. The trumpet notes seem to make an announcement while strings take over. With the rhythm guitar strumming, Asha Bhonsle rolls out, ‘Piya tu ab toh aajaa.’
When R.D. Burman calls out ‘Monicaaa!’ in the background, the track has truly commenced. Monica is jolted out of her tipsiness, chest heaving in anticipation, eyes darting around in desperation, her arms outstretched. Asha Bhonsle’s erotic huffing and grunting meshes with Pancham’s call for ‘Monica’, giving the track its lift-off velocity amid a crescendo of drums, heavy brass and group violins. This speed-shift had already become a Pancham signature style in his, by then, ten-year career as a composer.
But Pancham was not finished with the score yet. He brought in a new percussion – the huffing. It is used where one would normally expect the leather-based percussions to work overtime. With the facilities at Film Center studio being limited to mono recording in those days, the layering of sound for an ensemble of over fifty musicians was remarkable. It is not known widely that Pancham would be seen on the console during recordings by Jaidev and S.D. Burman in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. This helped him develop an understanding of the mechanics of frequencies and, more importantly, the need for clarity in composition.
‘Piya tu ab toh aaja’ was arguably the most famous cabaret of its time. The sands of time have erased the adverb ‘arguably’. In the informal surveys conducted in the research for this book, there seemed to be no other cabaret score even close to this one that featured so vividly in living memory. Also quite remarkable are the words, particularly considering we are talking about the early-1970s. Majrooh’s lyrics are a no-holds-barred expression of sultry, carnal longing.
Like Helen, Pancham bore the ‘curse of the Western tag’ – despite been born in Calcutta and having roots in Tripura. He familiarized himself with rock ’n’ roll and R&B at an early age, and used to travel to Bombay during his summer vacations. He would spend time at Kersi Lord’s place. Dave Brubeck’s shows in Bombay in April 1958 served as his initiation into the world of jazz. These combined with his foundation in folk, tutelage in sarod and tabla, and an inborn gift of rhythm. The outcome was a brand of music that horrified purists. Composer Jaikishan had predicted that, when Pancham’s time came, he would flick everyone off the table like crumbs of bread. Nasir Husain’s Caravan was one such meaty loaf by R.D. Burman.
Would the album Caravan have been the same resounding success without ‘Piya tu ab toh aaja’? The answer is ‘yes’. Look at the variety on offer: Between ‘Daiyya yeh mai kahan aa phasi’, which straddles a few scales, the honky-tonk Kishore solo ‘Hum toh hain rahi dil ke’, the festive and folksy ‘Goriya kahan tera des re’, the joie de vivre of ‘Chadhti jawani’, the frothy ‘Ab jo mile hain’, the night-of-nomads ‘Dilbar dil se pyare’, and the conventional 1960s-style ‘Kitna pyara vada’, Pancham had covered a number of genres. And to think that Pancham almost missed the caravan. Nasir Husain had been advised by his ‘well-wishers’ to shift to a new set of composers as both his previous films Baharon ke Sapne and Pyar Ka Mausam were far from blockbusters. Nasir stuck to his intuition and Pancham went about Caravan as if there would be no second chance for him. Every note was smeared with passion and innovation.
And this was the same man who was simultaneously rolling out Amar Prem.