R D Burman and His Orchestration Improvisations – Rhythm Instruments

25 April 2025

Being born to parents – Sachin Dev Burman and Meera Burman – it was natural that R D Burman had natural flair for music. As a very young boy he had penchant for the note Pa. As such, Ashok Kumar used to call him ‘Pancham’. Very soon, father S D Burman, recognising the musical inclination of the son, also rechristened Pancham as his nick name, from the earlier name Tablu as the parents used to call him. R D Burman used his nick name as his signature musical identity.

S D Burman had used R D’s tune for Aye meri topi palat ke aa (Funtoosh, 1956). S D Burman also used R D’s tune for Sar jo tera chakraye (Pyasa, 1957). R D used to attend music sessions at his father’s recordings, soon to join him as his assistant. All these experiences helped R D Burman to lend breadth and depth to his music and build a network of highly innovative musicians. The core of R D Burman’s music team was built on the foundation of triumvirate of his assistants, each one an ace instrumentalist: Basu Chakraborty) a cello player, Manohari Singh – a saxophone player and Maruti Rao Keer – rhythm specialist. It was this team that helped R D Burman to establish his unique identity by creating the music style that blended the essence classical, folk, regional and western music.

 

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OP Nayyar’s transition from Shamshad Begum, Geeta Dutt to Asha Bhosle

14 April 2025

Guest article by Ravindra Kelkar launching OP Nayyar’s Centenary Celebrations with a tribute to Shamshad Begum on her 106th birth anniversary, and also wising a very Happy Baisakhi, Bihu, Vishu and similar festivals across India

(Ravindra Kelkar is another once-an-SOY-regular who has woken up after a deep slumber. This time it came as a bigger surprise. Mr Kelkar had written a series of six articles on OP Nayyar starting from his 10th death anniversary on 28.1.2017. The old-timers remember him as an OP-expert. Perhaps he had an epiphany when he saw the centenary celebrations of Rafi on SOY. As OP Nayyar’s centenary falls on 16 January 2026, Mr Kelkar approached me to celebrate his centenary likewise, and also offered to write a number of guest articles on him culminating on his Centenary Day.

OP Nayyar’s earliest superhit song was in the voice of Shamshad Begum, ‘Kabhi aar kabhi paar laaga teere-e-nazar’. Her contribution to OP Nayyar was immense – when he was facing boycott, she stood by him and gave one superhit after another. Yet, after giving some great songs with Geeta Dutt and Shamshad Begum, OP Nayyar gradually shifted wholesale to Asha Bhosle, with Rafi remaining a constant. The story is well-known but Mr Kelkar gives some critical insights. Though an unabashed fan of OP Nayyar, Mr Kelkar does not mince words when discussing his personality flaws. Similarly, in this provocative write-up there is no trace of malice when he concludes that finally it was a complete takeover by Asha Bhosle leading to his sharp downfall as he could not maintain the boundary between the professional and the personal.

Music is a matter of personal choice and you may disagree with Mr Kelkar with many of his observations. But according to me, this is a worthy article to launch OP Nayyar’s centenary celebrations. Shamshad Begum maintained a dignified silence all this while. This article coincides with her birthday (14 April 1919 – 23 April 2013), so it is befitting to pay our tributes to her. This day is also a joyous occasion in many parts of the country – Baisakhi (Punjab), Bihu (Assam), Vishu (Kerala), Gudi Parwa (Maharashtra) and so on. Wishing the readers the very best on this happy day.

Mr Kelkar is a post-graduate in Statistics and Computer Science and was an IT professional. He has since retired and is based out of Pune. Thank you Mr Kelkar for returning with an excellent article on OP Nayyar, who despite some personality flaws, gave us joyous music. I am happy to launch his centenary celebrations on a joyous occasion. – AK)

After reading the title, the question that comes to the mind is, was there really a transition to Asha or a takeover by Asha Bhosle? In my view, it was both, transition as well as a takeover. Was it the first time that a composer shifted from singer A to singer B? Of course not! When Lata Mangeshkar, who had debuted a few years earlier, created a storm in 1949-50, within no time there was a complete takeover by her. The reason was obvious. The sheer quality of Lata’s pure, melodious and sweet voice, so completely different from the then prevalent voices, along with her inborn musical intelligence and flawless rendering made it a virtual walk over. All the major composers en masse shifted to Lata. Nothing like this happened in Asha Bhosle’s case. OP Nayyar’s first film was Aasmaan (1952), in which Geeta Dutt sang for the first time; and Asha Bhosle and Shamshad Begum sang for the first time in OP Nayyar’s second film Chham Chhama Chham (1952), So, by the end of first two films itself, OP had used all the three singers.

 

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Book Review: Forgotten Artists of Early Cinema and The Same Name Confusion Book 3

2 April 2025

Forgotten Artists of Early Cinema and The Same Name Confusion Book 3
Author: Arunkumar Deshmukh
Publisher: Professor toofaani publishers, East Lansing, MI, USA
Price (Pothi.com): ₹590 plus shipping (Paperback)
Copyright: © Arunkumar Deshmukh
Pages: 161

No one can be a hero to his friend. We all know Arunkumar Deshmukh well, I also happen to have met him a couple of times. Yet I have been his admirer for many reasons. One, his archival knowledge of forgotten artists of early era and his ability to recall which is due to his excellent organisation of his data. Two, his zest for life and his desire to give back to the society his knowledge. He is into his mid-eighties and it is amazing that he learnt word-processing, and first handled a computer well past retirement when he was about 70.

I often remarked that he had many books in him. I am happy that of late he has published several of his books. Book 3 is in continuation of Book 1 and 2 of “Forgotten Artists of Early Cinema and The Same Name Confusion”, both of which I have already reviewed on this blog.

He has befittingly dedicated the book: “To all the forgotten artists”. Its PART ONE comprises brief profiles of over 50 artists, some of whom acquired long-lasting fame, such as Geeta Bali, Durga Khote, SN Tripathi, Pankaj Mullick, Kanan Devi, RC Boral; some familiar to those who have interest in old films and music; and some quite unknown, such as Vithaldas Panchotiya, Vanmala, Mirza Musharraf etc. The book cover has pics of (from top left corner): Hansa Wadkar, Dada Salvi, Zahoor Raja and Sulochana (Ruby Myers). There are profiles on all of them, the last mentioned, in the section on same name confusion.

Arunji has kind of launched a campaign on blogosphere to clear confusion about the same names. He has carried the messianic zeal in this Book 3 too. The PART TWO of the book deals with eight sets of same names. PART THREE and PART FOUR of the book have some articles of general interest and some interesting trivia.

The book befittingly starts with a tribute to Ardeshir Irani, the First Man of Talkies cinema – He was the maker of Alam Ara (1931), which has the credit of being the first talkies of Indian cinema. Before that our films were silent and Irani was an important personality in that era too. Any new technology disrupts an industry. There was scepticism about the switchover from silent to talkies all over the world. Many stars of silent era were phased out, as limitations of their dialogue delivery was exposed. Most studios of the early 30s, carried on making silent films too; thus, both the technologies co-existed for some years, until talkies became a rage, and no doubts remained about their viability. Irani himself was a man of many talents – he was producer, director, distributor, actor and writer, and a shrewd businessman. He was aware through his sources in Calcutta that Madan Theatres was close on his heels for the credit of being the maker of the first talkies. Irani cut short the number of songs, and beat Madan by a few weeks to create history.

Rafiq Ghaznavi was another man of many talents – actor, writer, singer, music director. He had a reputation with ladies with his charming personality and dress. A well-read man, he is the voice behind Mehboob Khan’s logo voice-over, Muddai lakh chaahe kya hota hai, wohi hota hai jo manzoor-e-khuda hota hai.

Chandramohan was one of the earliest film stars of our films. He debuted in V Shantaram’s Amrit Manthan (1934). Prabhat used to make bilingual films – in Hindi and Marathi. Though a Kashmiri, Chandramohan subsequently acquired enough proficiency in Marathi to act in Prabhat’s later bilingual films in both Hindi and Marathi. With his powerful grey eyes and dialogue delivery, tall, handsome frame, Chandramohan cut a dashing figure. He played the role of Emperor Jehangir in Sohrab Modi’s Pukar (1939) and a negative character in Roti (1942). Mughal-e-Azam was in the making since 1944. Chandramohan-Nargis were to play the lead roles in the film, but his early death derailed the project, it was later continued with Dilip Kumar-Madhubala-Prithviraj Kumar to turn into a magnum opus in 1960 we all know. Chandramohan’s is sadly a riches to rags story. He died in penury on 2nd April 1949.

Moving to the other extreme of an unknown name, Vithaldas Panchotiya was a producer, director, story writer, dialogue writer, screenplay writer, lyricist, singer and music director. Born in Gujarat, he was a staunch Gandhian and was associated with a drama company. Arunji has been able to compile his filmography which consists of 11 silent and 25 talkie films as actor, one film as a writer, 9 films as a director, two films as a lyricist, 2 films as music director. He sang 37 songs in 8 films. Compiling this data shows some perseverance.

Towards the end of PART ONE, there are interesting overview articles on other contributors, such as those from Germany: the legendary Franz Osten who directed several landmark films of the Bombay Talkies, including Achhut Kanya; their cinematographer Joseph Wirsching; Germans outside the Bombay Talkies, such as Paul Zils, the music scholar and composer Walter Kauffman, credited with composin the signature tune of the All India Radio; Marathi Artists; Bengali Artists, such as: Pankaj Mullick, Pahadi Sanyal, Kanan Devi, RC Boral, Nitin Bose, Debaki Bose; Stars from South, such as: SS Vasan, SV Ranga Rao, LV Prasad, P Bhanumathi, and so on.

PART TWO is about same name confusion, Arunji’s favourite topic. In this book he covers eight pairs. Two Sulochanas, separated by a generation. The elder Sulochana was of Jewish ancestry (born Ruby Myers) and she was a superstar of the silent era, smoothly transitioned in to the talkies, and in later films in mother’s role; Sulochana Chatterjee was not famous as a leading heroine, but she took to a mother’s role like a duck to water. Think of the film Sujata. Two Arun Kumars: the first, a cousin of Ashok Kumar and a famous composer and singer. His voice had an uncanny fit with Ashok Kumar. He sang many songs for hm, also many songs sung by Ashok Kumar on the screen were recorded in the voice of Arun Kumar. The other Arun Kumar (Ahuja) was an actor in early era. His venture into production was not successful. His wife Nirmala Devi who was also an actor and playback singer, had a successful career in classical music concerts. Their son Govinda achieved great commercial success, relieving his parents from financial distress.

PART THREE of the book, titled “Look what I found!” has some interesting trivia. One such is “Playback to Playback Singer” which shows Kishore Kumar’s 21 songs picturised on him were in the voice of other playback singers. The last PART FOUR of the book has two special articles: one on the impact of the Partition on the film industry on the two sides of the border; and the other on the fascination of the ‘C’ grade films for some film buffs.

Like Arunji’s other books and writings, this one, too, is packed with information about our early stars. One can weave a story about our industry as a whole. Some articles do give a story, others, the readers have to navigate through the story on their own. In that sense the book introduces us to many unknown facts and figures. It is a labour of love. But considering that the author is in his mid-80s, he deserves compliments for giving back to the society his knowledge and information.

 

 

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Songs of Alankars: Figures of Speech

20 March 2025

My last post was also on alankars; that was the jewellery women wear on different parts of their body. The language also needs alankars to beautify it. Without figures of speech a language would be quite bland. A British writer Nate White’s article, “Why do some British people not like Trump” went viral sometime back. It was not because of his xenophobic, bigoted, racist policies, nor his incoherent rantings, it was because he was crass in language, he didn’t show any wit, any wry humour, never said anything amusing or remotely funny – in short he was devoid of any figure of speech. They are integral to our everyday usage and we use many figures of speech without any conscious effort. In fact the two meanings of ‘alankar’ themselves constitute a figure of speech called ‘Yamak’ – that is, the same word is mentioned more than once in a text, each having a different meaning.

Off and on, a visitor to the blog posts a comment (in Hindi) sort of disapproving why a blog on Hindi film songs should be in English. I don’t have great fancy for any kind of vigilantism. I politely thank him for his love for our language and that I would be greatly pleased to interact with him on Hindi literature on mail. But that set me thinking, if we can discuss onomatopoeia, synecdoche and metonymy, why can’t we अनुप्रास, यमक, श्लेष, उत्प्रेक्षा, उपमा, रूपक etc.  

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Songs of Alankar: Women Obsessed With Jewellery?

8 March 2025

Commemorating International Women’s Day

Last year around the time I wrote about the subtleties of female bonding on the International Women’s Day, a momentous event called “Pre-Wedding” was taking place at Jamnagar. It filled me with pride, as I am sure it would have many Indians, that at the bash hosted by an Indian tycoon the world’s top multi-billionaires and celebrities were landing up in their private jets at the Jamnagar ‘International’ Airport and dancing to his tunes, dressing up for multifarious events as per the given chart, and serving food to the guests with beaming smiles displacing the liveried waiters. Mark Zuckerberg for the first time in his life gave up his trademark T – the style statement of a Silicon Valley nerd – and ‘dressed up’ for the occasion. We also knew that some ladies were wearing on their person the GDP of some middle-sized countries.  

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The evolution of Mohammad Rafi: PART ONE (1944-55)

25 February 2025

Guest article by Hans Jakhar extending the centenary celebrations of Rafi (b. 24 Dec 1924 – d. 31 July 1980)

(Hans Jakhar, an SOY regular, is an avid Rafi fan and a Master of Data. Therefore, when I decided to celebrate 2024 as Rafi’s centenary year, my thoughts first went to him whether he would like to write a couple of articles on him. When he was more active on SOY he had written some guest articles, some of which were predominantly on Rafi. But of late he has been busy. This article came to me late when I had tightly packed the last months of 2024. My concluding article in Rafi’s centenary celebrations was on his evolution over the years with his duets. To highlight his versatility I had taken one duet a year with the condition that no music director was to be repeated. Even with this restriction I could get 25 gems over 25 years, composed by 25 distinct music directors.

Hans focusses on solos without any filters of a song in a year and a distinct music director. Therefore, you may get gap years and more than one song by a music director. However, with all the data Hans takes you on an interesting journey, and you discover many gems from Rafi’s early career. Some more articles on Rafi came late and I was happy to extend the centenary celebrations to 2025. This is in continuation of the celebrations.

Hans is a retired government official. He spends his post-retired life with his family in Haryana. Thanks a lot Hans for this nice article. – AK)   

AK asked me in April last year whether I would like to write for Mohammad Rafi’s Centenary in 2024. Normally he would not have asked but I have been extremely irregular in the past one year. I had, always in mind, this topic about progression of Rafi’s career, his struggles and his evolving as a top singer. Since the start of 2024 I thought it was the right time for presenting my thoughts. So I suggested and he agreed. It would be in two parts, the first part covering the time upto 1955 and the second from then to 1970. The time limit is kept up to 1970, it being the span of SOY’s primary interest. Even if that has not been the case it would have been impossible to cover his whole career in two parts. It is hard to cover it in two parts, but we will have to adhere to some limit.  

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Some Less Heard Gems of Mohammad Rafi – The Sad Romantic Solos: 1940s through 50s

14 February 2025

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav wishing everyone a very Happy Valentine Day with Rafi’s sad romantic solos, extending his centenary celebrations

(Ashok M Vaishnav had sent this article for Rafi centenary celebrations in the calendar year 2024. But with series on Kalyanji-Anadnji and Usha Khanna added in, I could not squeeze this article in 2024. But Rafi’s oeuvre is limitless. Ashokji had earlier written a guest article in the Centenary Series titled Some Hidden Gems of Mohammad Rafi: The Romantic Solos. That was without any emphasis on their underlying mood. If you go over that article and hear those songs, their mood is neutral or happy. In the present article the emphasis is on ‘sad’ romantic solos. He further focuses on the 1940s and 1950s during which Ashokji located several hidden gems of Rafi that were sad romantic solos. Thus this is a companion article to his earlier article in the series. Ashokji was very understanding of my scheduling difficulties and agreed if it was published in 2025.

Valentine Day now has become a day of rejoicing. But romance is often very poignant, therefore, today seems to be the most befitting day for this article. Ashokji has gone great lengths to select less less heard songs for his post. In the process we are treated to some real hidden gems of Rafi. Wishing everyone a very melodious Valentine Day with this guest article by Ashokji.

A retired engineer, Ashokji is an avid fan of Rafi and a prolific guest writer on this blog. He is based out of Ahmedabad. Thank you Ashokji for another nice article from your pen. – AK)    

While working on Mohammad Rafi’s solo songs from the 1940s and 1950s, I was able to locate more sad songs from various music directors. In fact, by 1950, Mohammad Rafi had already recorded several universally popular romantic duets and solo sad songs, like Yahan badla wafa ka bewafai ke siva kya hai (Jugnu, 1947, with Noor Jehan – Music: Firoz Nizami), Ek dil ke tukade hazar hue (Pyar Ki Jeet, 1948 – Music: Husnlal Bhagatram) and Suhani raat dhal chuki na jaane tum kab aaoge (Dulari, 1949 – Music: Naushad). As can be expected in any typical normal distribution curve, there were both sad and happy romantic songs that could be considered “too obscure”. However, many songs have also been quite popular.  

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Book Review: “And The Music Lives On”

4 February 2025

And The Music Lives On
Author: Manek Premchand
Publisher: Norton Press, India, October 2024
ISBN (Paperback): 979-8-89588-290-0
Price (Amazon): ₹539 (Paperback); ₹269 (Kindle Edition)
Pages: 417

Manek Premchand is a well-known name to SOY readers as a writer of many books on old film music. I have reviewed his several books on this forum. When he sent me his latest book fresh from the mint, I was quite keen to go through it. On my last review of RD Burman’s biography by Anirudh Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal, a reader was initially surprised to see review of an old book. Here is a new book for most of the readers.

The book is a compendium of 75 short articles written by the author for various publications in the past, updated to current information. Each article’s original date of publication and the journal’s name is given – most of them were published in DNA, Jaipur. Since these articles were meant for general reading, they are quite accessible, interesting, and written in a lucid language. The titles of the articles are attractive, you are drawn to look into them. You may guess an article’s content and you may find it familiar, nevertheless, it is quite informative, and even for the knowledgeable there is interesting information and connections you may not have thought of. For example, Maan Gaye, Munshiji. Even if you guess this might be about Munshi Premchand and you are familiar with his writings, films and songs, would you be able to think of the cosmic connection between Premchand and Rafi? Talking about Pipra ke patwa sareekhe dole manwa ki jiyara mein uthat hilore, Manekji points out Rafi passed away on 31 July 1980 exactly 100 years after the writer was born on 31 July 1880. (And Manek Premchandji, is there a cosmic connection between you and the legendary writer, Premchand?)

It is obvious, Musically Vending would be about songs of street vendors in our films, but you get to know the difference between ‘busking’ and ‘vending’. Vending songs are quite common, and Manekji has listed a lot of them, but none of ‘busking’. ‘Busking’ songs are less common – I believe Patanga’s (1949) Duniya ko pyaare phool aur sitaare is a pure ‘busking’ song. SOY readers are more mathematically oriented and they can think of a continuum where a situation/song may be some proportion of ‘busking’ and some of ‘vending’. I would put Raj Kapoor’s act of selling dant manjan made of Pissa hua koyla and Chaupati ki khalis ret in Shree 420 (1955) as some mix of busking and vending.

The rest of the articles are in the same vein – some quite novel and informative; some commonplace. But even the ‘commonplace’ articles have interesting titles and their introduction has interesting details and history of the subject. In this category I would place: Would You Like Some Tea Your Majesty (about ‘chai’ songs), Triangle of a Different Kind (about ‘love triangle’ in our films), Let’s Tighten the Booze Noose (about prohibition, ills of drinking and ‘sharabi’ songs), The Unhurried Flautist (about Hariprasad Chaurasia and the film songs in which he played the flute), Mera Naam Hai Shabnam (about Bindu), Door Hai Kinara (about seashore, kinara songs), Conceived Immaculately? (about atmospheric/ surrogate songs). Some have vanilla titles, such as Ameen Sayani – Voice Extraordinaire!, Shyam – A Star Forgotten, RIP Qawwali?, Engagements with Shama, Daan Singh, Garam Dharam’s Musical Sizzlers, Wisdom In Swimwear, Happy New Year Ensemble etc. You know the subject and the contents broadly, but you would enjoy Manekji’s style of writing. There is another article with Ameen Sayani’s clarion call – Behno aur Bhaiyo! But its about Raksha Bandhan and raakhi songs.

Among very novel articles that give some interesting insight and history known only to experts of the subject and widely-read persons is The Irony of an Iron Building. Lumiere Brothers’ first films which were a series of moving images on screen was shown in Bombay in the then famous Watson’s Esplanade Hotel which was shown to a paying audience. An Indian businessman Jamshedji Tata, the founder of the Tata Group, was denied entry to the ‘whites only’ hotel. Feeling insulted, he built his own hotel a few minutes away from the Watson Hotel, now the iconic The Taj Mahal Hotel on the waterfront opposite the Gateway of India. In the 1920s Watson ceased to be a hotel, having been sold to a new party who also renamed it Mahendra Mansion. In the later years the oldest cast-iron building of India was in serious structural disrepair with its pieces crumbling. There is no sign anywhere that India’s film history started here. On the other hand 26/11 earned the Taj Mahal Hotel renewed respect for the valour and dedication to the service and dedication of its staff, 11 of whom lost their lives in trying to shield their guests and bringing them to safety. Today it finds mention among the best hotels of the world.

Another informative article is The FRS Factor, FRS standing for Famous Recording Studio located in Mumbai’s Tardeo area. Belonging to Seksaria family, they had acquired the Bombay Talkies after Himanshu Rai’s death in 1940, the Famous Cine Laboratory fell in their lap due to a court ruling; they subsequently went on to acquire Modern Studio at Andheri. Now the films could be shot at one place, the songs could be recorded at the recording studio nearby. The film then would be brought to the Cine Lab where sound would be synchronised, the film would be processed, edited etc. The positive would thus become the master print from which hundreds of prints would be made for exhibition in the cinema halls across the country. The importance of FRS lies in the fact that the songs of hundreds of films and thousands of all-time great songs were recorded here. From  1955 to 1984, out of 964 songs featured in Ameen Sayani’s Geetmala, 459 were recorded at FRS. This article while talking about the physical facility, also talks about its technicians and the sound recordist Minoo Kartak who also played a major role in creating songs like Aa ab laut chalein (Jis Desh Mein Ganga Bahti Hai, 1960) involving massive orchestra and dozes of chorus singers much larger than the physical facility could accommodate. The last article Once Bitten, Twice Shy lists a large number of artistes who were associated only once with some aspect of film making – directed only one film, lyricists who wrote just one song, singers who sang just one, appeared only once on the screen etc. Ataullah Khan, known more famously as the father of Madhubala, directed just one film Pathan (1962), which has a unique distinction. The film used 9 lyricists for 7 songs.

Music being a matter of subjective choice you may differ with the author on some lists and some assertions. In Lift Kara De, the author tries to pick one song from each decade which vitalise our spirits. Is such a list possible to make? Even if I take it as the author’s choice and agree with his best song for the 1930s, Duniya rang rangeeli baba (Dhartimata, 1938), sung by Pankaj Mullick (playbacking for KC Dey), Uma Shashi and KL Saigal, I was sceptical about Manekji’s assertion that it was the first trio song in Hindi films. While randomly browsing the Hindi Film Geet Kosh, I came across a song, Rani, Aao sunaun man nagri ki tumko ek kahani from the 1937 film, Toofani Toli (Gyan Dutt). This songs is available on the YouTube. Hindi Filmdom’s Dubious Distinction Songs talks about songs that stuck out as a dud from superhit musical films. Thus, this is converse of “Hans Akela”, the guest article by Mr Rahul Bhagwanrao Muli published on 1st January 2021. But many may be surprised by the author’s selection of the least popular songs, such as Hum haal-e-dil sunayenge kahiye ki na kahiye (Madhumati, 1958, Mubarak Begum), Haaye re haaye, ye mere haath mein tera haath (Kashmir Ki Kali, 1964, Asha Bhosle, Rafi), Tohe saanwariya, naahi khabarya (Milan, 1967, Lata Mangeshkar), Mera naam hai Shabnam (Kati Patang, 1970, Asha Bhosle and RD Burman). In Daan Singh, many would be surprised that the author fails to mention the quintessential Mukesh song, Gham-e-dil kisse kahun koi bhi ghamkhwar nahin from the unreleased film, Bhool Na Jana, though he does mention other popular songs of Mukesh, composed by Daan Singh.

The book is an excellent bedside reading, packed with songs, trivia and new information – you may or may not agree entirely with the author, but that is in the very nature of the subject matter of the book.

 

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Classical Songs of Mohammad Rafi, With Some Thoughts on Gara

25 January 2025

Guest article by Subodh C Agrawal

(My friend Subodh Agrawal is a great lover of music, he wields a fluent pen, and knows a good deal about classical music. Being among the earliest ones to be a part of SOY journey, he had accepted my request to write a series on film songs based on classical raags. It is difficult to believe that once upon a time he was an active contributor to the Songs Of Yore. For the last few years, he has been in hibernation, his only excuse being he was not feeling like writing anything. His last guest article for SOY was more than four years ago. I am happy that Rafi’s centenary has woken him up from his deep slumber.

For newcomers to the SOY, Subodh is from UP, worked in Punjab and Delhi, and after retirement, is settled at Chandigarh.

Subodh writes on a serious subject with a light touch which you see in his very first sentence. In fact the subject line in his mail mentioned, Kumbhkarn has woken up! The article was too late to be scheduled in the 2024, but it was too good to be left out. Some more Rafi-fans also had sent me their tributes somewhat late, hence I am pleased to extend the Rafi centenary celebrations. Thank you, Subodh for finally giving this pleasant surprise. – AK)

The birth centenary of Mohammad Rafi (December 24, 2024) has pulled me out of my Kumbhkarn like slumber. I don’t even remember when I contributed my last article to this platform. My apologies to those who expected more from me. Hopefully this article will make up for the delay.

When one thinks of classical songs by male singers in Hindi films, Manna Dey’s name automatically springs to mind – and rightly so. He has given us some of the greatest classical based songs: ‘Poochho na kaise maine rain bitaayee’, ‘Laga chunari mein daag’, ‘Jhanak jhanak tori baaje payaliya’ to name just a few. However, the classical songs of Rafi are no less. His name is not so easily identified with classical songs because of his amazingly wide range. The songs in the list below show that he was not lacking in the skill needed to do full justice to classical ragas.  

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Where is the mukhada gone, where is antara gone?

14 January 2025

Where is the mukhada gone, where is antara gone? For most of the history of Hindi film songs they did not go anywhere, they remained rooted where they were supposed to be. The classic structure of our songs was a mukhada with a catchy tune and refrain. This was followed by interlude music and two or three antaras with different tunes from the mukhada. Each antara would end with a connector line which would neatly segue into the mukhada/refrain.  

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