A tribute to old Hindi film music. Songs of the 30s through the 60s.
Hemant Kumar in his voice brought the beauty of Bengal and melody of Rabindra Sangeet. When he joined with Lata Mangeshkar the effect was magical. Easily the best duets of Hindi films are of Hemant-Lata. One can also safely say no song of Hemant Kumar was pedestrian. With his deep resonant voice he could be nothing but melody personified. As for Lata, she surpasses any superlative. Here is my selection of their best duets.
Suman Kalyanur had to remain in the shadows of Lata Mangeshkar because of her uncanny similarity to Lata’s voice. Many of her songs are indistinguishable from Lata’s style, either because she was subconsciously imitating her style or the music directors were viewing her essentially as Lata’s replacement. Yet there are several songs which bear her special imprint. There is one particular song in which she seems to have clearly overshadowed Lata. I am referring to Haal-e-dil unko sunana tha sunaya na gaya from the film Fariyad (1964).
The beautiful lyric by Kedar Sharma is worth reproducing in full:
Noorjehan’s migration to Pakistan in 1947 left behind the enduring question – if she had stayed back in India, would Lata still have reached the commanding heights as she did in the following three decades? As Lata’s early songs had a distinct Noorjehan tinge, the suggestion is that Noorjehan’s absence from the scene in a way helped Lata’s rise; with her around Lata might have perhaps remained a copy of the original.
This is the Golden Jubilee year of Mughal-e-Azam (1960), and the media, both print and electronic, is rightly full of the movie. Everything about the film was superlative – its lavish production, awesome battle scenes with thousands of camels, horses and soldiers (there were no computer generated imaging those days), great acting by all the lead players Prithviraj Kapur (Akbar), Dilip Kumar (Salim) and Madhubala (Anarkali), grand ornate dialogues, and above all its timeless music composed by Naushad. But all the stories in the media have missed what Sherlock Holmes would have called the most significant thing about the film – that is, the Filmfare award for the best music director which Naushad did not win. The composers who beat him to it were the duo Shankar Jaikishan for Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayee.
When I try to compile the most melodious, the most beautiful songs of Lata Mangeshkar, the following songs invariably come to my mind:
| Song | Film |
| Kare kare badra ja re ja re badra | Bhabhi (1957) |
| Na to dard gaya na dawa hi mili | Kali Topi Lal Rumal (1960) |
| Sajna sajna kahe bhul gaye re pukar ke | Chand Mere Aa Ja (1960) |
| Rang dil ki dhadkan bhi lati to hogi | Patang (1960) |
| Main hun gori nagin dekhungi rasiya | Nache Nagin Baje Been (1960) |
| Balma mane na | Opera House (1961) |
| Kajra na dekhe gajra na dekhe | Suhag Sindur (1961) |
| Aaj ki raat naya chand leke ayi hai | Shadi (1962) |
| Dil ka diya jala ke gaya | Akashdeep (1965) |
| Uthegi tumhari nazar dheere dheere | Ek Raaz (1969) |
Correction: Main hun gori nagin dekhugi rasiya in the above table is a Rafi-Lata duet
All these songs are composed by Chitragupta and they should figure in any list of Lata’s best.
We all remember the following evergreen songs:
| Song | Singer | Film | Music director |
| Ae mere dil kahin aur chal | Talat Mahmood | Daag (1952) | Shankar Jaikishan |
| Dil matwala lakh sambhala | Talat Mahmood | Bewafa (1952) | AR Qureshi |
| Chali Radhe rani | Manna Dey | Parineeta (1953) | Arun Kumar Mukherji |
| Mera qaraar le ja | Talat Mahmood | Ashiana (1952) | Madan Mohan |
| Na ye chand hoga | Hemant Kumar | Shart (1954) | Hemant Kumar |
| Jayen to jayen kahan | Talat Mahmood | Taxi Driver (1954) | SD Burman |
| Kaise koi jiye | Hemant Kumar | Badbaan (1954) | Timir Baran SK Pal |
| Ae gham-e-dil kya karun | Talat Mahmood | Thokar (1954) | Sardar Mallik |
Your relationship with songs that moved you, that brought tears to your eyes the first time you heard them and every time you hear them, is deeply personal. How can others relate to your experience? And no matter how well you write it would be less than what you felt.
Nida Fazli famously said:
Yun to har ghazal mukammal hoti hai
Par kalam se kaghaz par utarti hai to kuch kami rah jati hai.
You would be hard put to recall a mainstream film whose hero bore the name Salim, Javed or Asghar – unless it was a ‘Muslim’ film. You might think of the student-poet Anwar (Rajendra Kumar in Mere Mehboob, 1963) plaintively singing Mere mehboob tujhe meri mohabbat ki kasam in the college farewell function, which was actually addressed to the mysterious beauty whom he had accidentally bumped into, and caught only a fleeting glimpse of, clad as she was in burqa. He could not forget that suhana manzar, and ever since he had been looking for her in har raah har mehfil with all consuming yearning to have her deedar once again in life. Lest you miss the point, the campus would be Aligarh Muslim University. Regulation Johnny Walker could be there to provide comic relief to the brooding hero and help resolve the mystery at crucial moments.