Guest article by Subodh Agrawal
(Subodh Agrawal’s second article in this series has been a long time in coming. I am responsible for part of the delay as it came when I had scheduled my post on the Best songs of 1955. But when you read it you would agree it has been well worth the wait. Subodh bears his scholarship lightly, and writes in a style as lucid and fluent as the Raga Yaman itself. Here is his piece on one of the most popular ragas which would delight both connoisseurs as well as lay listeners. – AK)
I have never understood why Yaman is the first raga to be taught to students. Yes, it does have a simple structure – in the sense that it has no komal svaras, but its simplicity is deceptive. Creating beauty in Yaman requires a high level of skill and sensitivity. It sounds bland and pedestrian in the hands of a novice or an artist of average capability. There is, however, no limit to the heights it can attain in the hands of a master. No wonder it is one of the favourite ragas of our film industry’s composers, some of whom – Roshan for example – have given their best in this raga.
I am delighted to present a survey of the best songs of 1955 and invite the readers to an interactive discussion to choose the best songs, singers and music director. For this post I have to thank the readers AM and KR Vaishampayan who suggested while discussing the music of Mughal-e-Azam (which failed to win the Filmfare award for 1960 films!) that I do a year wise survey of music of films of 1953-45 in reverse order and place it for in-depth analysis, comments and suggestions by the readers. They suggested 1953 as the year because the first Filmfare awards were given in 1954.
Sardar Malik was not counted among the top five composers, which place was occupied by Naushad, Shankar Jaikishan, C Ramchandra, OP Nayyar and SD Burman. He would not be counted among the top dozen, some people might have difficulty in including his name even in the top twenty music directors of the Golden Era. Google search of his name intriguingly takes you to the Wikipedia page of his son Anu Malik, who we all know, has been the most dominant composer of the 1990’s. He has been winner of several Filmfare awards (Sardar Malik won none), judge at reality music shows and quite a prominent figure in the show-biz. I am not sure how many of Anu Malik’s songs would survive a few years from now, but I am sure Saranga teri yaad mein, Ae gham-e-dil kya karun and several more of Sardar Malik’s compositions would remain immortal.
Every married man encounters this experience quite often – you are all dressed up to go to a wedding, you go out to take out your car. The dear wife should have by then locked the house and come to the driveway. But you wait and wait, yet there is no sign of her. You go in to find out what the matter is. She is crouching on the floor and searching desperately for something under the carpet, cushions, in nooks and crevices. Some tiny attachment, a screw or a latch, which lets the earrings or danglers hold on to the ear, has slipped off. You barely suppress your smile, when she flares up, what is so funny about it, don’t you think you should help me in finding the damn thing? As a dutiful husband you also go down on all the fours to join her in the search.
A tribute on his birth anniversary February 24
When 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?
A tribute on her death anniversary January 31
Aside 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.
A tribute on his death anniversary January 18
If 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.
Double tribute on their birth anniversaries
Mohammad 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.
My tribute on his birthday December 11
I had no plans of doing this post as it is not even a week since I did my last one. I need about two weeks to organise my thoughts and squeeze bits of time to write a piece. Secondly, my focus is on songs, their themes, singers and music directors, and not so much actors. The only time I have titled a piece on an actor – Raj Kapoor – was about several playback singers, other than the known ones Mukesh and Manna Dey, who sang for him – some of whom were quite a surprise discovery.
A friend of mine is a Storehouse of Information (SoI) on music of 1950s and 60s. He has an endearing way of posing teasers. One day he asked me if I had heard of Shailesh (Mukherji), the music director. I had not. Then came a helpful one, have you heard the song Nadiya ke pani o re nadiya ke pani. I jumped at it. To think that I did not know the music director of this my great favourite song! I immediately went to Youtube to check up on him. Then it was my turn to pose a teaser to SoI if he had heard Chhupa chhupi o chhupi aagad baagad aye re. He was thrilled to reconnect with the song. So you have two immortal songs from an unknown music director Shailesh Mukherji, that too from the same film Savera.
