Shalan Lal

In the Musical Memory of Meena Kapoor

Guest article by Shalan Lal as Part II of the Remembrance Tribute to Meena Kapoor (c. 1930 – 23 November 2017)

(Shalan Lal wrote a comprehensive post on Meena Kapoor on her first death anniversary 23 November 2018. I didn’t know that she was planning to write a second part too. She sent me the Part II of her Remembrance Tribute a few days before 23 November 2019, but by that time I was committed to post some date-specific articles in the calendar year 2019. As such, this has spilled over in the new calendar year. But Shalan Lal has been very understanding, her only request was that I do not use the editor’s guillotine liberally.  In deference to her hard work and deep research, I have retained the entire article as it is, which gives the readers a lot of information about the films, their star cast and other related facts. She also gives a very good idea about Baburao Patel and his celebrated journal ‘Filmindia’. Thanks a lot Shalan for your exhaustive post. – AK)

“Here’s, looking at you, my listeners, from the heaven above!”

Meena Kapoor’s playback singing appeared in about eighty Hindi films. Then again, more films are discovered by the film buffs and connoisseurs as the time passes by. My efforts here are to cover them annually with ten films each year.

On 23 November 2018, i.e. her first death anniversary I wrote a tribute Part I covering the first ten films in which Meena Kapoor sang as a playback singer, films up to 1947 although I used her film song in the film Pardesi (1957) to point out that she had equal talent that Lata had during fifties and before.

In the second part I cover her ten more films until the end of the decade of the forties of the Bollywood. In this part I touch the Indian filmy culture, aka mahaul, giving information about the greatest Indian film magazine called Filmindia which created information and entertainment as the part of the Indian film-world along with some interesting information about Suraiya who was a singing actor and contemporary of Meena Kapoor.

The numbers attached to the films are the continuation of the films from the previous tribute.

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‘Would there ever be another Lata Mangeshkar?’

Wishing Lata Mangeshkar a very happy 90th birth anniversary (b. 28 September 1929) with a guest article by Shalan Lal

(Lata Mangeshkar turns 90 today. This momentous occasion demanded something special befitting the milestone. However, in the year of the Ravi celebration on SoY, most readers almost took it for granted that today I would write on her songs by Ravi. As the readers are aware, in this series the spotlight has been on his main female playback singer, Asha Bhosle, to whom Hans Jakhar has paid a handsome tribute on her birth anniversary earlier this month. Lata Mangeshkar being Ravi’s ‘other’ singer, was placed in an unfavourable situation. This dilemma resolved itself when Shalan Lal sent me her comprehensive treatise on her, analysing the ‘conditions’ that made the Lata Mangeshkar phenomenon. The rhetorical question in the title implies that there would never be another one like her. While emphasising the theory of ‘conditions’, Shalan also acknowledges that her voice had a divine quality, and there was something beyond her training, upbringing, hard work, and other conditions, that was transcendental and beyond any physical explanation.

The original article Shalan sent me was too long for this blog, and I have severely reduced it, without losing the essence of what she is trying to say. I am happy that she has allowed me editorial freedom in this regard. Let us join her in wishing a very happy 90th anniversary to the legend, Lata Mangeshkar. And thank you Shalan for your significant article for this special occasion.

As the SoY regulars are by now familiar with her style, Shalan never writes a piece without saying something highly provocative and controversial. I have added my own comments on some of her observations at the end of the article.

Shalan Lal is a UK-based academic having wide interest in art, culture and literature. – AK)

The top question creates the following forbearance:

“Que será, sera. Whatever will be, will be? The future’s not ours to see
Que será, sera”

Yes, Indeed!

Today on 28 September 2019 Lata Mangeshkar completes her 90 years and there will be celebrations on the filmy planet and in the Indian social and political world. She has already won numerous awards including the highest Indian civilian award ‘Bharat Ratna’. She is known as “The Queen of Melody, The Voice of the Nation, The Voice of the Millennium and The Nightingale of India etc etc.”

Mine is a rhetorical question. Some will think it as a pompous question; others may think that it is melodramatic. I do not see any harm in raising it.

The answer from the audience surely will be instantaneous and a unanimous emphatic “No, no and never”!

This I venture to say is an expression of sheer love for the icon Lata! There is a need for deeper examination of the ‘conditions’ that made Lata Mangeshkar. I had my Eureka moment to examine her on this basis when I watched a BBC series titled ‘The Planets’, presented by Brain Cox, a renowned expert on Space Science and the Solar System.

In one of his lectures, titled ‘Godfather Planet Jupiter’, Professor Cox explained that when the Big Bang happened billions of earth-years ago, and the sun and solar system came into existence to cool down to present time, it was Jupiter which is hundreds of times bigger than our earth, kept on guard and destroyed most of the asteroids or gobbled them up which were on the loose and going around destroying other planets, or whatever coming in their way, behaving like the wild west cowboys.

Jupiter helped to create an atmosphere on the earth and did not allow the water to dry up so life could be born and sustained. It was also instrumental in the occurrence of the orbit around the sun and also the larger orbit called the Solar System. Hence there are seasons on the earth, and human beings could eventually evolve and come up to what they are now. Unless what Jupiter had done occurs elsewhere in the space, it is unlikely that another earth can happen. Mere water is not enough to have a living world. Many planets have water in frozen conditions. But Jupiter took billions of earth-years to do what it did.

These are called the ‘conditions’ and did not occur anywhere else according to the present knowledge.

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Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 3

Guest article by Shalan Lal (After the earlier two articles covering the 1930s and 1940s, Shalan Lal concludes her three-part thesis on chorus songs with the Golden Decade of the 1950s. As we have come to expect from her, these articles do not merely present the representative songs of the period, but also take usREAD THE FULL ARTICLE

Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 2

Guest article by Shalan Lal

(In the first part of her three-part dissertation on chorus songs in the films of yore, Shalan Lal covered the first decade of the 1930s, dominated by three major studios: The New Theatres of Calcutta, Bombay Talkies of Bombay and Prabhat Film Company of Poona.  This was published on 2 May 2019. The second part, dealing with  the second decade of the 1940s, and chorus songs from this era, gives a good insight into the main trends during this period and style of music. I compliment Shalan Lal on another well-researched article and thank her on behalf of the readers for her painstaking work. Shalan Lal is a UK-based academic. – AK)

Three Decades of Chorus Songs
Introduction and the Second Decade 1941-50

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Now into the tuneful forties.

In this section we discuss how the choruses and musical accompaniment in the films already established by the studio-based film companies had been used by the other companies to further the art of songs and chorus songs to their advantage.

The three film companies, New Theatres, Prabhat, and Bombay Talkies, mentioned in the first part of this series, developed internal institutional troubles and towards the end of the forties they were going to be dissolved or go limping to vanish; so more or less individual music directors became independent and allowed themselves to be hired by the film companies and the individual entrepreneurs to do contracted piece-work and free to do work for other companies on contracts. The reason for this was that the studios themselves would go on renting their space and facilities to other companies as well. Music directors would hire outside halls to rehearse their songs. As playback became gradually became the norm, the recording studios would need their studios booked in advanced.

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Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 1

Guest article by Shalan Lal (Readers are aware, when Shalan Lal  writes on a topic she writes a research paper as if  for an academic seminar, even if it is for a blog like ‘Songs of Yore’. She does a similar comprehensive work to discuss the chorus songs of the films of yore. This isREAD THE FULL ARTICLE

In the Musical Memory of Meena Kapoor

Guest article by Shalan Lal as a tribute to Meena Kapoor (c. 1930 – 23 November 2017) on her first death anniversary (Meena Kapoor has not been acknowledged enough on SoY. Mumbaikar8 has drawn pointed attention to this omission, and was sore that I credited the songs of ‘Anokha Pyar’ (1948) like ‘Yaad rakhan chaandREAD THE FULL ARTICLE

The Faint Echoes of the October Revolution: A Centenary of the Capricious Philosophy in the Socio-political life!

Guest article by Shalan Lal

(No event in history has caused as much impact on the world of politics and ideas as the Russian Revolution of October 1917. And no revolution has strayed as much from its path, turning into a totalitarian regime and causing untold miseries on its people. The political edifice collapsed under its own weight, but it did have a romanticised sway on art, culture and literature for a long time.

The topic of this post is way beyond the scope of this blog, but Shalan Lal has a way of weaving many threads and transcending boundaries in her articles. She shared her first draft long ago, in time for the centenary of the revolution, but I had a lot of comments on her content and presentation. Anyone else would have given up, but she persisted and has redone the article substantially. After the politics, she quickly comes to the echoes of the October Revolution in our films and songs. This would stimulate and provoke, which she encourages liberally. I am happy to present Shalan Lal’s guest article commemorating the completion of a century and one year of  the October Revolution. – AK)    

Communist starThe October Revolution occurred ‘One hundred and one’ years ago on 24 October 1917 in Russia, in Petrograd, renamed later on as Leningrad, and then renamed again, after the Soviet Project was dissolved like an air bubble in 1994, as St Petersburg or Petrograd. (And some say why the changes of Bombay to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai and Calcutta to Kolkata, Poona to Pune, etc. – ironically they all are the echoes of the Red Revolution!)

This seemed to be a practice in politics of many parts of the world. In  Tripura, a Lenin’s statue was knocked down by the jubilant BJP party workers after their victory in the last state election. Here is the picture of the Lenin’s statue being knocked down in the city of Belonia. After knocking down the statue the severed head of the statue was wickedly kicked about. A kind of anger expressed by supposedly civilized BJP members in the style of the knocking down of the statue of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after the fall of Iraq. Also the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha!

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Hundreds of shades of Pyaar

Wishing the readers a very happy Valentine’s Day with guest article by Shalan Lal

(Today on Valentine’s Day, love is in the air everywhere. Love of mushy messages; of roses and chocolates; of romance and togetherness. ‘Genre’-theorists hold that the concept of genre is not relevant for Indian films, as all our films are essentially musical romances. Thus, right from the beginning of the talkies we had love songs aplenty in our films. On Songs of Yore, I have explored some variants of love: New Theatres’ Prem’ which was deeply spiritual; the intelligent woman’s romance for the dunce etc. Its converse is the attraction women have for the ‘zulmi’ or ‘bedardi’.

The ‘bedardi balma’s in our songs are naughty and playful, but not mean or vicious. However, taking off from Subodh’s query as to why the women in our films find men with such negative qualities attractive, Shalan Lal explores the darker side of love based on domination by men over women in literature, arts and films. Her thesis may jolt you and you may find the narration discordant to the occasion, but her selection of songs is quite benign depicting love with many shades. Her research is as usual very exhaustive. I wish the readers a very happy Valentine’s Day with this befitting piece by Shalan Lal. Thank you Shalan. – AK)

Pyar hua iqaraar huaThe Hindi word “Pyaar” evolved out of the Sanskrit word “Prem”, so says the “Hindi Shabd Saagar”, the mammoth Hindi word dictionary in many volumes, published by the Nagari Prachaarini Sabha of Varanasi in 1933. It has had many reprints, and revised editions. AK has written a wonderful post on “Prem” and called it New Theatres’ romance with Prem. And he has interpreted the songs of love by the New Theatres’ composers, lyricists, singers and actors who presented them as he said, “The New Theatres took love to entirely unexpected heights. It was not merely a matter of semantics that pyar, mohabbat, ishq, for them was Prem or Preet. It also denoted for them something deeply spiritual, other-worldly and supremely blissful.”

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Dekho Dosto Chhed Ka Maza!

Guest article by Shalan Lal [The title is adapted from Hasrat Jaipuri’s lyrics in the film ‘Shararat’ (1959)]

(From Krishna teasing the gopis to Kishore Kumar, Shammi Kapoor and other heroes teasing heroines in the films, chhed chhad has been an integral part of our culture.  You would expect from the title that the post would contain a brief write up and some chhed chhad songs.  But as the readers have seen Shalan Lal in her Aviary of Songs, she infuses even the most commonplace subject with deep knowledge of literature, arts and music. In her second guest article for SoY, she similarly explores the origin of teasing and myths related to the pastime of harmless leg-pulling across cultures, and also presents some of the best Hindi film songs in the genre. Thank you, Shalan. – AK)

PadosanThe SoY posts bring attentions to certain aspects of music, songs, themes and music makers etc. So I laboured to see if there was any mileage in the genre called Chhed chhad songs in the SoY. I found that it was yet an uncovered territory and I could add some interesting material about it.

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An aviary of Songs

Bird-watch in the Songs of Yore

Wishing Happy New Year to all the readers with guest article by Shalan Lal

(Once upon a time there were birds around us and they were a part of our lives, songs, mtyths and legends. When the crow cawed we knew it was advance intimation of a guest coming; when the koel cooed in the monsoon rains it pierced the heart of the lonely lady pining for her lover who was away; when the papiha sang far away the lovers knew the night was only half left; when Shakaracharya heard a parrot uttering deeply metaphysical aphorisms like स्वतः प्रमाणं परतः प्रमाणम्‌ he knew he had reached the house of Pandit Mandan Mishra; and when Valmiki heard the heart-rending cry of a crane whose partner was killed by a hunter’s arrow during mating, from his grief-stricken heart came out the first verse of the mankind that made him the आदि कवि.

If you think about it, the once familiar birds are becoming rarer. Songs of Yore heralds the New Year remembering these birds with this guest article by Shalan Lal. Shalan has discovered SoY late, but has since become its avid follower. Besides the very learned comments she posts on the blog, she often sends me long comments as she catches up with the old posts when she feels these may appear outdated on the blog. Our interaction has led to several interesting ideas that can develop into articles. While we were discussing some other topics, I was pleasantly surprised to get this beautifully written piece in mail.

Shalan is based in London where she works with women’s issues. She is widely travelled, she has had academic association with the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and some other universities. Her interests range from politics to literature to religion. This article bears out her wide-ranging inetersts and international outlook.

Thank you Shalan for this article and welcome to SoY as a guest author. – AK)

BirdThis is a bird’s eye view of the Songs of Yore over the Hindi films. In the English culture often the word Bird was used for a young girl by the male youths in the sixties and seventies. I was young then. There were other words for the young girls used in those days as well for example “a doll”, a babe and the vulgar term “a crumpet” as well. There could be more.

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