My favourite songs

Mukesh and his romance with ‘Dil’

A tribute on his death anniversary August 27

MukeshEveryone is born with a heart, but that does not make everyone a romantic. There was something special about Mukesh and ‘dil’, not only his romantic heart but his romancing the heart.

Mukesh started his journey with ‘dil’. As a young lad, while singing at his sister’s wedding in Delhi, he was noticed by his relative Motilal, who had become a well known personality in the film world by then. Motilal brought him to Bombay where he got a break in Nirdosh (1941), with Dil hi bujha hua ho to fasle bahar kya. The next song which caused a sensation and made Mukesh, the Mukesh was Dil jalta hai to jalne de. Further, you let your mind wander the Mukesh landscape and what do you get? Kabhi dil dil se takrata to hoga, Toote na dil toote na, Hum aaj kahin dil kho baithe, Teri duniya mein dil lagta nahi, Mere toote hue dil se koi to aaj ye poochhe… You go on and on and you get dil songs of incredible beauty. No one did it better that Mukesh, and it is no wonder he won the hearts of millions with his sweet and melodious voice.

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Best songs of Rafi by Roshan

Double tribute to two geniuses

Rafi with RoshanWho composed the best songs for Mohammad Rafi cannot be conclusively answered. But there is no doubt that Roshan would figure in the top four or five for this honour. That is significant considering that Roshan did not have the advantage of a big banner nor big stars like Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Shammi Kapoor or Rajendra Kumar. Moreover, interestingly, Rafi seems to be a very late entrant in Roshan’s work. After creating waves with Mukesh in 1950 (Bawre Nain) and Talat Mahmood in 1952 (Anhonee), he had long association with them, and regardless of how his films fared, he gave songs for them which are undisputed landmarks. In contrast, with Rafi he had some insignificant songs from time to time, till he hit big time with him in 1960 with Babar and Barsat Ki Raat. A decade’s lag means his songs for Rafi would be far outnumbered by Naushad, Shankar Jaikishan, OP Naiyar, SD Burman, Ravi and Chitragupta. Later entrants Laxmikant Pyarelal, of course outnumbered every one, and naturally Roshan too by a huge margin. Yet the fact that some of the most memorable Rafi songs are composed by Roshan is a testimony to the latter’s enormous talent.

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Duets of Talat Mahmood: Breaking the image trap

A tribute on his birth anniversary February 24

Talat MahmoodWhen you think of Talat Mahmood you think of his iconic soft, sentimental melodies like Meri yaad mein tum na aansoo bahana, Jalte hain jiske liye, Humse aya na gaya tumse bulaya na gaya, Ae dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal jahan koi na ho, Zindagi denewale sun, Jayen to jayen kahan etc. These are all solos obviously, as would be the case if you have to choose the best songs of any great singer. Then why I am doing my first Talat Mahmood post on his duets?

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Suraiya: The Last Singing Star

A tribute on her death anniversary January 31

SuraiyaAside from Lata Mangeshkar Suraiya is among my top favourite female singers. She debuted as a child artiste in 1942 (film Sharda). Within three years she rose to become one of the top singing stars acting opposite the greatest legend KL Saigal in 3 films. Within the next three years her beauty, singing and romantic pairing with Dev Anand both on-screen and off-screen became a national craze.

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Best non-film songs of KL Saigal

A tribute on his death anniversary January 18

KL SaigalIf you grew up in the radio era and had an ear for music, Saigal-song-a day was a daily ritual – Radio Ceylon would end their programme of old film songs with a Saigal song every morning at 7.57 AM. So by the time I reached college I had fully soaked in Saigal magic. Later when I came across my first Saigal LP, all its iconic songs from films like Devdas, Street Singer, Chandidas, President etc I knew by heart. Yet the song which kept me spellbound and moved me like never before was a non-film song Jhulna jhulao ri. Soon after a friend lent me a whole cassette of his non-film songs. Its anchor song Main baithi thi in two parts mesmerised me. One after the other a whole new world of non-film songs of Saigal opened before me, some of which sounded quite like his film-songs, some others were very different, but they seemed to reach where his film songs could not.

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Naushad’s best songs for Mohammad Rafi

 

Double tribute on their birth anniversaries

Naushad-RafiMohammad Rafi’s birth anniversary falls on December 24 (b 1924) and Naushad’s on December 25 (b 1919). This close proximity also extended to their music. Rafi was to playback singing what Naushad was to music composing – both at the commanding heights of their profession for over two decades. Their collaboration produced some of the best and most memorable music of the Golden Era.

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Kishore Kumar – The best mad, crazy, comic songs

A tribute on his death anniversary October 13

Kishore KumarMJ Akbar in his obituary to Shammi Kapoor wrote in India Today that one reason for Shammi Kapoor craze was that he was mad.  But who was the maddest of them all?  The great superstar Amitabh Bachchan could do a mad act with straight face.  You can think of his job interview with Ranjit in Namak Halal where he shows his English speaking proficiency.  But Kishore Kumar did not need to do an act.  He was mad.  He was crazy, he was wild.  He would sing – in Hindi, in English, in Bengali, in Gibberish; he would dance, he would squat, he would jump, he would roll, he would sleep – all in the same song of 3 minutes.  There was no logic to his madness.  No one chased his girl more relentlessly; no one teased her more irritatingly. Some of his girls were good sports; they would play along with the fun.  Some others were prim, proper and well brought up.  They were exasperated, they would scream, they would do their darndest to ward him off.  But he won them all in the end.  And they were the biggest of their time – Nutan, Vyjayantimala and Madhubala.

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My favourite Lata Mangeshkar songs by C Ramchandra

Birthday greetings to Lata Mangeshkar on September 28

C Ramchandra-Lata MangeshkarPresenting my favourite Lata Mangeshkar songs composed by C Ramchandra, as my birthday greetings to her on September 28, is not a very diplomatic thing to do, given the history of their relationship. As her biographical accounts go, Lata Mangeshkar was more than a muse to C Ramchandra, and central to his music. But when the relationship turned sour, its repudiation (by her) was ruthless and complete. When she gave her famed public performance of Ae mere watan ke logo at Lal Quila on the Republic Day 1963, which brought tears to Nehru’s eyes, its lyricist Pradeep was acknowledged, but its composer C Ramchandra was not. (Note: Please also see comments 49, 51, 52, 54). When in 1967 Lata Mangeshkar selected her best 10 songs for HMV, she did not include any song by C Ramchandra, but her by then favourite boys Laxmikant Pyarelal’s – made it to the list!

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Mukesh’s best happy duets

Mukesh duetsHaving recently done a list of happy songs of Mukesh, I had no intention of doing another Mukesh post anytime soon. But dustedoff, AP Joshi and Subodh Agrawal in their comments entered into an earnest discussion on ‘happy’ duets of Mukesh and requested I do a list of my favourite such duets. This opened the floodgates of my memory and several beautiful duets came streaming in my mind. About the same time another amazing coincidence happened. I heard on radio, after at least four decades, a most fabulous Mukesh-Lata duet lying in deep recesses of my memory. This post is an outcome of all these happenings.

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My favourite ‘special’ Asha Bhosle songs

My greetings on her birthday September 8

Asha BhosleKnowing that Asha Bhosle has a huge fan following and there are people more passionate about her than Lata Mangeshkar, I have to carefully choose my words to describe my relationship with her. If I am asked to choose only 20 singers from the 1930s to 60s for company on a remote island, Asha Bhosle probably won’t figure in my list. There are zillion themes swirling in my head for my blog, but doing OP Nayyar-Asha Bhosle is not one of them, much less RD Burman-Asha Bhosle. Yet there is a very special Asha Bhosle, very unique, incredibly sweet and out of this world. Here are my favourite ten ‘special’ Asha Bhosle songs as my greetings to her on her 78th birthday. (Warning: If you are looking for the ‘best’ songs of Asha Bhosle, you need not proceed further – you will not find Aaiye meherbaan or Jaaiye aap kahaan jayenge here).

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