Guest article by DP Rangan as a tribute to Naseem Banu on her 104th birth anniversary (4 July 1916 – 18 June 2002)
(Naseem Banu was arguably the most bewitching beauty of her time. When Saira Banu burst on the screen in the 1960s, she was immediately hailed as a Beauty Queen, and the media coverage was replete with references to her mother, Naseem Banu, who was regarded as even more mesmerising than her daughter. She achieved great fame as the lead actress of Sohrab Modi’s historical magnum opus, Pukaar (1939). And in keeping with the times she also sang many songs for films, but gradually let regular playback singers sing for her. She deserves to be remembered on Songs of Yore in a befitting manner, and DP Rangan is ever ready for doing the honours.
As the regulars of SoY are aware, Mr Rangan is a unique person. Though not familiar with the language, he has nevertheless written over twenty guest articles on various themes relating to old Hindi film songs, including on stars like Meena Kumari, Suraiya and Madhubala. He does an equally competent job, typical of him, for Naseem Banu. Thank you Mr Rangan for this tribute to Naseem Banu. – AK)
The Industrial Revolution from the mid-nineteenth century ushered in an era of prosperity for a few and misery for the majority. Entertainment avenues also underwent a radical change. Introduction of cinematography was one such event and people crowded theatres to enjoy silent movies. Advent of talkies in 1927 was a fillip to boost people’s interest and India had its first talkie in 1931. Cinema viewing was a new rage among the populace and film actors commanded a huge following. The time was ripe for the arrival of a maiden of beauty and the miracle did happen.
Guest article by Ashwin Bhandarkar
(The regular readers of SoY are aware that Ashwin Bhandarkar is a BITS Pilani and IIM Calcutta alumnus and is an IT professional based in Pune. What makes him exceptional is that he has had over ten years of formal training in Hindustani classical music. This (Pun)dit (Pun)-e-kar, in a befitting यथा नाम तथा गुण, is also blessed with incorrigible punny bones which we have seen in plenty in his previous posts.
Ashwin continues his penchant for combining the profound with the light with the Title of this post, which is a cleverly crafted convoluted conundrum, which you can crack only if you are a cruciverbalist. Oh no, this is not how I write! This post must have infected me with a bug which you encounter in the very first sentence, and which permeates the entire article. You don’t have to specially look for it, you can’t miss it as it comes. But make no mistakes; Ashwin’s matter is never mundane, his mastery over music is magnificent, and the melody is always absolutely mellifluous.
Lastly, a little information about Ashwin’s perseverance with this post. He first appeared as a guest author on this blog over three years ago, and this post is also as old, because right then he had placed his handkerchief to reserve this topic for himself. After reading it, I can imagine why it has taken him so long. Now the hanky goes back to its holder until he or another guest author puts it to reserve a seat for another topic. Thanks a lot Ashwin for another superb post. – AK)
I’m sure that cryptic crossword buffs amongst SoY readers would have cracked the crossword clue that is the title of this post. Let me solve it for the others:
‘Dams’ is a synonym of ‘embankments’. In crosswords, ‘about’ is the cryptic clue for ‘Re’, the short form for the reference line in formal letters. ‘Breaching’ between ‘about’ and ‘embankments’ indicates that the solution is an anagram of ‘Re Dams’. Now, what is a 6-letter anagram of ‘Re Dams’ that means ‘fanciful ideas’? ‘Dreams’, of course! And, songs about dreams are what this article is about.
A tribute to Hemant Kumar on his Birth Centenary (16 June 1920 – 26 September 1989) by guest author N Venkataraman
(Lata Mangeshkar once said in an interview about Hemant Kumar, “Listening to Hemant Da, I feel as though a sadhu sitting in a temple is singing a bhajan.” But a more endearing observation was made by Salil Chowdhury: If God had to sing, he would do it in the voice of Hemant Kumar. After you read this article, you would say, if Hemant Kumar wanted someone to write a tribute on his Centenary, he would have N Venkataraman do the honours.
Venkataramanji needs no introduction to the regular readers of SoY. He is a management professional based in Kolkata, but on SoY we know him for his scholarship and breadth of knowledge. Truly a Renaissance Man from Bengal. I am grateful that he has agreed to write a superb tribute to Hemant Kumar on his Centenary in two parts. In the first part he covers Hemant Kumar’s career up to 1960, giving us a broad panorama of his family roots, his early life to his emergence as a singer and composer of great repute in both Hindi and Bengali, including films and non-film songs. This article also gives a summary of his output in other regional languages. Thank you Venkataramanji for your great effort. – AK)
Section-1: 1920 – 1940
The Mathurapur- Laksmikantapur railway tracks pass through South 24 Parganas, leaving in its trail many old-world, sleepy stations. One such station is BAHARU. BAHARU, one of the many janapadas, that grew up along the old Bhagirathi offshoot from the ancient times, finds a mention in Bipradas Pipilai’s Manasavijaya, composed in 1495; BAHARU, the place where the Dewan of the East India Company, Nandakumar Bose, in the beginning of the 19th century, built a temple for Shyamsundar, acquiring stones from Chunar and requisitioning architects from Jaipur, to recreate Mathura-Vrindaban for his aged mother; BAHARU, the origin of Joynagarer Mua, a sweet well-known all over Bengal, made of Kanakchur, a sweet-smelling variety of rice (popped or puffed) grown in this region, mixed with good quality of liquid palm jaggery and desi ghee; BAHARU, the place where the famous singer and music director Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay spent eight years of his childhood and the village his ancestors originated from.
When I started blogging a new buzzword had just come into vogue: Vision 2020. We all – whether in public, private or non-profit sectors – were rushing in and out of seminars, workshops and breakout rooms, to prepare a Vision 2020 document for our organisations in nice spiral-bound volumes containing Mission Statement, Vision Statement, Objectives, Tasks, Values, Weights and Weighted Scores. All this was Greek and Latin to me, I still don’t know whether Mission Statement came first or Vision Statement, and why. I was equally clueless about blogging, least of all how long it would last and what shape it would take. SoY completes ten years today and, coincidentally, we are in the year 2020. Even if I had attempted a Vision 2020 document for SoY, letting my imagination soar as in those documents, writing the most grandiose goals, I would not have been able to visualise what the blog is today.
Guest article by DP Rangan
(The prolific guest writer DP Rangan now writes on the twins in Hindi films, some generic tropes of these films, and gives a selection of songs from some twin films. The highlight of this post is some great songs of the vintage era. This post too has been with me for quite some time. Mr Rangan has been quite understanding of the unavoidable delay in scheduling it. Thank you Mr Rangan for yet another nice post from your pen. – AK)
Four billion years after the formation of the Solar System, the first elementary form of life emerged. Over the next five billion years, life underwent steady transformation and became more and more complex and advanced. Survival of the fittest was the key element in ensuring continuation of species. Apotheosis was emergence of Human beings (Phylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia) as the last to arrive at the scene. There was no longer any need to have large broods of young ones for species continuation among human beings. Single birth was the norm and over a number of years, a human couple, male and female, brought forth several children, and despite partial infant mortality perpetuation of the race was ensured. Still there were odd instances of giving birth to twins, identical or fraternal. Identical were either male or female, while fraternal could be a male and female child. For this post we are concerned only with identical twins.
Now we come to the end of the year-wise review going backwards. It was progressively going into more unknown territory. Out of approximately 670 songs from 74 films in 1945, nothing is known about the singers of about 300 songs, i.e 45% of the total. However, a striking feature of this year is the significantly lower number of films produced, and consequently number of songs, compared to the preceding and succeeding years.
When Peter Drucker wrote in 1986 that the world economy is not changing, it has already changed, “We are living in a changed world” became a fashionable jargon. His assertion was open to question, but Corona has changed the world in a very fundamental way. Someone said that in the human history whenever mankind faced a major crisis, it came together to save itself, but today is a crisis when we have to stay apart to save the world. We are into Lockdown 3.0; even after it is lifted, would it be really back to the normal? It is already being said that we have to brace for a ‘New Normal’, and we can feel it within ourselves. Would I feel confident in going to my neighbourhood salon for a haircut? We always knew that there was a risk of infection, but didn’t give much thought to it. Or to a mall, a restaurant, a multiplex, or a wedding reception indoors?
A tribute on Manna Dey’s 101st birth anniversary (1 May 1919 – 24 October 2013)
Manna Dey was one of the great playback singers of the Golden Era. I missed to acknowledge him on his birth centenary last year. This omission is symptomatic of his relative place in the film music. He was the most rigorously trained singer in classical music among his peers. He is outnumbered only by two male playback singers, Rafi and Kishore Kumar. He sang about 50% more Hindi film songs than Mukesh, three times as many songs of Talat Mahmood and five times of Hemant Kumar, yet there are possibly more passionate fans of the last three singers than him. I remember someone wrote an article titled ‘An Enigma Called Manna Dey’. He mentioned the word ‘enigma’ in a somewhat similar sense.
From time to time the importance of music instruments in our film songs have come in for some serious discussion on SoY. Some years ago, a reader Rohit Kumar (who seems to have gone off-radar) mentioned the strong association of some music directors with specific instruments, such as Roshan and flute, OP Nayyar and sarangi, SD Burman and folk instruments and so on, and suggested if I could write a series on this theme. Independently, Subodh sent me a mail discussing those songs where vocal and instrumental parts are engaged in a kind of jugalbandi, and he specifically mentioned Naache man mora magan dhikna dhik dhik as an example of the unforgettable tabla with voice. Later, in the comments on another post some earnest discussion took place about the flute and ektara. Around the same time Ashok Vaishnavji sent me a link of an article on Shankar Jaikishan’s romance with the piano accordion. More recently piano came in for intense discussion on the Open House and I was commanded by the readers to write on it. I am musically illiterate – my knowledge is limited to recognising some musical instruments when I see them 🙂 , but in deference to the readers’ request I thought of writing a few posts on some instruments I love visually in the films. The result was my first article on the piano in the series, which the erudite readers very indulgently appreciated despite coming from a lay person. Harmonium is another instrument I find very interesting and appealing in a film.
Book Review
Guide, The Film: Perspectives
Lata Jagtiani & Other Writers
Blue Pencil, New Delhi, 2019
ISBN: 978-81-939555-2-9
An unintended blessing of Corona-enforced lockdown, I thought, was that I would be able to finish some half-read books and watch and rewatch some of my favourite films. With this thought I resumed ‘Guide, The Film: Perspectives’ which had been sitting on my desk for a while. My desire appeared to be facing a serious setback as Doordarshan decided to take us back to their golden era by carpet-bombing DD National and DD Bharati with their classic serials, Ramayan, Mahabharat, Buniyad, Dekh Bhai Dekh and NFDC films etc. I didn’t want to miss the nostalgia, but by then I was quite engrossed in the book and I had to finish it by rationing my time between different pulls.
The Industrial Revolution from the mid-nineteenth century ushered in an era of prosperity for a few and misery for the majority. Entertainment avenues also underwent a radical change. Introduction of cinematography was one such event and people crowded theatres to enjoy silent movies. Advent of talkies in 1927 was a fillip to boost people’s interest and India had its first talkie in 1931. Cinema viewing was a new rage among the populace and film actors commanded a huge following. The time was ripe for the arrival of a maiden of beauty and the miracle did happen.
