SoY heralds 2014 as the Year of Anil Biswas with guest article by Shikha Biswas Vohra
(Anil Biswas is described as the ‘Bhishm Pitamah’ of Hindi film music, though he used to describe RC Boral as the Father, and himself, somewhat jocularly, as the Uncle (Chacha) of film music. Yet, did he get his due, and does the country remember his legacy adequately? In one of the most hyped programmes on our cinema’s centenary last year, ‘Bollywood@100’, presented by Karan Johar on the venerable History channel, in the episode on the best music directors, Anil Biswas’s name was missing in the list of about two dozen composers! This was blasphemy, and I decided that I would recompense for it adequately on Songs of Yore in his Centenary Year, 2014 (b. 7 July 1914, d. 31 May 2003). Fortuitously, around that time Mrs Shikha Biswas Vohra came across SoY for the first time, and posted a very generous comment on one of my articles. I was familiar with her name having seen her in a TV programme. She very kindly agreed to write the Inaugural Article in the series – we cannot have a better placed person than his daughter, who has seen him as father, as a maestro, and has also seen the industry as an insider, to do the honour. I am delighted to wish the readers a Very Happy Centenary Year of Anil Biswas with this lyrical tribute by Shikhaji to the great man. – AK)
ANIL BISWAS….The Maestro
Many years ago, when Indian cinema was in a nascent stage, there came into its stream a clutch of fine dedicated men. They came to shape its history and define its metaphors. These men were dreamers and seekers, who had run the gamut of struggle, the looking at hunger in the face, the sleeping on pavements. They sought to contribute their knowledge and skills to shape this new exciting medium to an established art form. Each contributed a style distinctive and individualistic. They gave freely of their time, inspiration and talent without expectation of rewards and returns. They worked with honesty, principles and earnestness, a reflection of their time.
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And the rest is history. A worn-out cliché, but nothing describes Anil Biswas’s role in the emergence of Mukesh better. Mukesh was a struggling singer-actor in the period 1941-1945, when his brother-in-law, Motilal, took him to his close friend, Anil Biswas, and requested him to try out the young boy. Impressed with Mukesh’s singing, Anil Biswas suggested that in Motilal’s forthcoming film, Pahli Nazar, the boy could be given a chance. The producer of the film, Mazhar Khan, was furious at the prospect of his film being ruined by this new singer. So, Motilal said, that in that case, ‘I would sing my songs’. Anil Biswas, who was familiar with Motilal’s singing for him earlier, told him in his inimical style, ‘Tu rahne de, ye gana main khud gaaunga’.
