A tribute on his 98th birth anniversary (3 August 1918 – 6 January 1987)
Quite a while ago Mumbaikar8 wrote to me, in a somewhat stern tone, that Jaidev has been sidelined on Songs of Yore. I tried to explain to her that the absence of an artiste does not amount to his or her deliberate exclusion, but she was not willing to reduce the charge of pre-meditated homicide to a lesser offence. But to be fair, she sent me links of the songs of Kinare Kinare, some of which were new to me. She also offered an explanation why he might have been ‘sidelined’: SoY has room for the famous music directors on one hand, and the ‘Forgotten’ ones on the other, but Jaidev was neither a remembered composer nor a forgotten one. I have been somewhat late in making amends, what with the crowded Year of Naushad and C Ramchandra in 2015, followed by Shankar Jaikishan in the current year, but I was always conscious of the charge hanging on my head. Here is my tribute to this great talent on his 98th birth anniversary, which was about a week ago, with thanks to Mumbaikar8 for the title of this post.