Dilip Dholakia? D. Dilip? Dilip Rai? – A Singer or A Music Director or A Music Arranger?
A tribute to Dilip Dholakia on his 6th death anniversary (15 October 1921 – 2 January 2011) by guest author Ashok M Vaishnav
(Hindi film music attracted talents from different regional languages and musical traditions. Some, especially from Bengal, achieved great success and, in fact, became known as founding fathers of Hindi film music, such as RC Boral, Pankaj Mullick, Anil Biswas and, later, SD Burman, Hemant Kumar and Salil Chaudhary. Stalwarts from some other regional languages, such as Gujarati, could not achieve the same success. Dilip Dholakia is one such doyen from Gujarat who in Hindi film music is primarily known as assistant to Chitragupta. Ashok Vaishnav introduces us to many unknown aspects of this multi-faceted talent. Earlier, he had written an excellent article on another doyen from Gujarat, Avinash Vyas. This is an important addition in the series on Forgotten Composers Unforgottable Melodies. Thank you Ashokji for this enlightening article as a tribute on the 6th death anniversary of Dilip Dholakia which was a few days ago. – AK)
Those who are familiar with any aspect of Dilip Dholakia’s world of music probably may know of him by any one of these names that he used for his different music career roles. For Hindi Film’s mundane history, Dilip Dholakia (Born: 15 October 1921 / Death: 2 January 2011) was probably noticed more as an assistant to Chitragupta or S N Tripathi or to the music-duo Laxmikant Pyarelal. And yet, Dilip Dholakia remained all of singer, music director, music arranger and at times even lyricist and an actor, during his active career. Probably that is the reason the lady luck did for not favour him with great worldly success in any one field!