Mukesh’s Non-film Hindi Geets and Ghazals

A tribute to Mukesh on his 45^th Remembrance Day (b. July 22, 1923 – d. August 27, 1976) by guest author Ashok M Vaishnav

(Mukesh is among the mainstream playback singers who sang some truly outstanding non-film songs (NFS). Therefore, for any lover of Mukesh, a post on his famous geets and gazals would be most welcome.

Ashok M Vaishnav is a well-known name for SOY regulars. He has written over 20 guest articles for SOY. We know him as a thorough researcher which comes from his engineering and management background.  He has written a comprehensive article on Mukesh’s non-film songs as a tribute on his 45th Remembrance Day. We lost him this day in 1976 of heart attack in Detroit, USA where he had gone for a public performance. Thank you Ashokji for this timely article. – AK)

The saga of performed songs in India is an age-old tradition. The knowledge transfer in the ancient times used to happen by word of mouth. Many lessons were encapsulated into the form of songs, which were rendered in the singing form to make them more interesting and easier to remember.

Ancient saint poets created devotional songs that were easily moulded into singing pattern. On the other hand, social events like festivals or births, deaths, marriages also provided ideal platforms for songs as means to share joy or sorrow. The advent of theatre created another genre of songs – songs that were essential part of the story of the play. These used to be romantic songs or dance songs or songs of national spirit and such varieties. It was not uncommon for a song to be played for the whole night as it would keep getting incessant ‘once more’s.

In a parallel development, for the ease of presentation on a shorter time scale, the classical oral singing schools also created semi-classical forms of pure raags to render traditional folk poetries as easy-to-appreciate songs.

As such, it was no surprise that when films went ‘talky’, songs constituted an essential element of a film recipe. The recording companies saw a big commercial potential for their business and actively started encouraging music directors to create songs beyond the use in films. Advent of radio also provided impetus to a rich crop of music directors and singers to create songs in ‘light-classical’ format. Most of the big names of film singing of the vintage era earned their passage into the films via these non-film songs. As a result, non-film songs, as a genre, developed its own roots, traditions, and styles.

By the end of decade of ‘40s, a new crop of music directors was on the path to carve out a different composition style, wherein an increasing ensemble of music instruments provided the core of a film song. The preludes and interludes started gaining nearly equal importance to the lyrics and went on to gain the status of music director’s own identity. The taste of generation of Hindi film listeners born during forties and fifties was ingrained with this instrumental music that dominated the film songs. When we regularly started listening to radio for whetting the appetite of film songs, we had devised a simple test – if a song had ‘fair’ amount of orchestration, it was a film song; otherwise, it was a non-film song. As it so happened, there were large number of such non-film songs to listen to in the voices of likes of Talat Mahmood, Hemant Kumar, Mukesh etc.

My own taste of listening to film songs started maturing more when I graduated to the purchasing the records after I started earning in early 70s. I did collect quite a few records of NFS. Most of my purchases of Mukesh songs used to be in the form of a record for all the songs of a film. Of course, I did purchase a stand-alone record of Mukesh’s Gujarati NFS.

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The songs of Mukesh opened up in a very fresh light when I received the new, 2020 edition of Mukesh Geet Kosh from Shri Harish Raghuvanshi. The Geet Kosh is interestingly designed, making searching for different aspects of Mukesh’s songs a pleasure hunt. The more one studies the Geet Kosh, the more one can find hitherto hidden nuances of Mukesh’s songs. One such genre of Mukesh songs that caught my attention was Mukesh’s non-film songs.

The opening note of Mukesh Geet Kosh for the Hindi non-film songs of Mukesh states that Mukesh commenced his singing career by recording two non-film songs at Delhi in July August 1940 on record no. N16396. These were

– Gokul nagari jaana….. sanwariya sang nahi man ko hai bahalana
– Meri andheri kutiya mein woh aye ujala hi hoga

Overall, 78 (known) non-film songs of Mukesh have been listed in the Geet Kosh. Of which we have selected here today a few of his known or less known geets and ghazals only. For the sake of convenience, I have retained the sequence in which the songs appear in the Geet Kosh and I have limited the selection to just one song for a particular lyricist-music director combination. I have also retained the record number of the song as given in the Geet Kosh, but I have turned onto the highly resourceful YouTube for a digital link to the song for the purpose of listening the song.

1. Ashaar mere yun to zamane ke liye hai – Lyrics: Jan Nissar Akhtar – Music: Khayyam [Record no. ECSD 2723]

From among Hindi film music directors, Khayyam is one music director who had very professionally taken up recording non-film songs during the early 60s. This was probably because, Khayyam could find the medium of NFS to present music that could be presented in his natural style, in the period when the trend of fast-paced easy-to-sing film songs had started emerging.

2. Aankhon mein bas ke dil mein sama kar chale gaye – Lyrics: Jigar Muradabadi – Music: Murli Manohar Swaroop [Record No. N 88324]

It was quite customary those days for amateur music directors to select Hindustani/Urdu poetry, which was highly amenable to singing, of known, or even not-so-known poets for the records sponsored by the music company.

3. Aaj gagan se chanda utara aa gaya meri bahon mein – Lyrics: Madhukar Rajasthani – Music: J P Kaushik [Record No. N 88375]

Even as a smaller number of musical instruments characterised the composition of NFS, the innovative music directors did not hesitate to use different types of instruments as well as using the same instruments for the obligato support of the song.

4. Aaj bhi unki mohabbat ka tasavvur hai wohi – Lyrics: Jan Nisar Akhtar – Music: Vipin Mehra [Record No. N 88323]

Jan Nisar Akhtar is not an unknown name as lyricist in Hindi films. But not many listeners of his film songs would have read his poetry. Here, one of his poems is presented so sweetly.

5. Aabaad raho mere dil ko jalanewale – Lyrics: Madhukar Rajasthani – Music: V Balsara [Record No. N 35740]

During his stint of working with music company, V Balsara has created some of the finest NFS. His NFS had his distinct touch. However, for a lay listener like me that aspect would be beyond recognition while listening to the song in its normal course. It was the in-depth pursuit of Mukesh Geet Kosh now that I specifically chose to listen to these songs and start enjoying the nuances of lyrics, composition and orchestration, as is the case here with use of piano or deep tone of Mukesh’s voice.

6. Kyun pheri nazar kyun pheri nazar dekho to idhar – Lyrics: Anjum Pilibhiti – Music: Naushad [Record No. N 88034]

The song was originally recorded for Anokhi Ada (1948). But when it was not finally included, it is now classified as NFS. However, the song would simply stand out as a film song when the test of use of number of music instruments is applied. From that point of view, the song is a typical film song, even if the song belongs to a period when the use of number of music instruments was rather limited!

7. Kisi ko deke dil koi nawa sanj-e-fughan kyun ho – with Talat Mahmood – Mirza Ghalib + Daag Dehlvi – Murli Manohar Swaroop [Record No. N 88300]

Here is the case of a very interesting experiment, wherein Talat Mahmood sings the parts of Ghalib ghazal and Mukesh sings that of Daag Dehlavi (e.g., Jo dil ho qabu mein to koi ruswa-e-jahan kyun ho).

We find a couple of more such Talat-Mukesh duets in the Geet Kosh. Each one is composed by Murli Manohar Swaroop but bears different record number. This could probably be interpreted as one successful experiment being repeated in subsequent records as well.

8. Jiyenge magar muskara na sakenge – Lyrics: Kaif Irfani – Music: Mukesh [Record No. N 88042]

This is one of the very well-known non-film songs of Mukesh. However, I came to know that it was a Mukesh’s own composition only because of Mukesh Geet Kosh.

The other song – Do zulmi naina ham pe zulm kare – on the second side of this record is also an equally well-known one.

9. Zehaal-e-miskin makun taghaful duraye naina banaye batiyan – with Sudha Malhotra – Lyrics: Amir Khushro – Music: Murli Manohar Swaroop [Record No. LP: S/3AEX 13004]

Murli Manohar Swaroop experiments a male-female duet for an NFS.

The present song is essentially a Sufi poetry, which normally are the compositions of prayers for which the classical form is qawwali. Several other singers have rendered it in that form.

10. Tere labon ke muqabil gulab kya hoga – Lyrics: Shiv Kumar ‘Saroj’ – Music: Kishor Desai [Record No. ECP 2468]

Shiv Kumar ‘Saroj’ was a well-known announcer to my generation of Radio Ceylon listeners. However, not many would have known that he was a very good poet too. Few of his poems have been recorded as well. One of the famous songs is Khamosh zinadagi ko kyon awaz de rahe ho (Naag Mandir, 1966; singer- Mohammad Rafi; Music: Laxmikant Pyarelal).

Kishore Desai is better known as sarod and mandolin player. YT has several video clips on his performances. One of the famous examples of his virtuoso performance is extensive mandolin piece in Tum bin jaun kahan (Pyar Ka Mausam (1969); Singer – Mohammad Rafi; Music: R D Burman)

11. Na hui gar mere marane se tasalli na sahi – Lyrics: Mirza Ghalib – Music: Khayyam [Record No. N 88362]

One noticeable feature of NFS is presentation of the many different shades of a singer’s tonal variations.

12. Main chakori tum gagan ke chandrama – with unknown female singer –Lyrics: ? – Kalyanji-Anandji [Record No.: ?]

The song is supposed to have been recorded for a proposed film Purnima, but not included finally.

The song is a validation of classification of a NFS on the basis of level of orchestration!

We end the present episode with a very interesting NFS – an ad jingle.

13. Cigaretton mein sabse aala, public jane kala pakitwala – Lyrics: ? – Muisc: ? [Record No. QC1550 (Matrix No. – QJE 13689TI)

Just look at the amount of effort that has gone into composition of this jingle!

By the way, Mukesh Geet Kosh notes that the composition of this jingle is based on Raag Bahar! Wow!

We will look at Mukesh’s film songs from other different angles, with the help of Mukesh Geet Kosh, on some future occasions. Till then, may the knowledgeable readers of SOY enrich this space by other NFS of Mukesh.

Acknowledgement and disclaimer:
1. Mukesh Geet Kosh, 2020 edition – Harish Raghuvanshi: For the basic information of the songs selected herein the present article.
2. The song links have been embedded from the YouTube only for the listening pleasure of the music lovers. This blog claims no copyright over these songs which vests with the respective owners.

Tagged as: Non-film songs