(Note: Dear Readers,
I believe some registered readers have not been getting email notifications about new posts on SOY. I request all the readers to register themselves again by entering their email in the bottom box captioned “Get mail updates”. You will get a notification from ‘Follow.it’ for confirmation. Please confirm the link, and you will start getting email notifications from future posts.
AK)
I understand most people on SOY know that Saraswati Devi was technically not the first female music director of Hindi film music. As per the current knowledge, two women preceded her – Ishrat Sultana (the singer Bibbo) was the first who composed music for the film Adal-e-Jahangir (1934) and the second was Jaddanbai who gave music for Talaash-e-Haque (1935) in which she also introduced her daughter, the famous Nargis, as a child artiste under the name Baby Rani. Saraswati Devi was really the third with her debut film Jawani Ki Hawa (1935) under the banner of the famed studio, the Bombay Talkies.
And the award for the best duet goes to?
There is something about duets which make them exceptional. If you take a re-look at my Overview Post, six out of the eight ‘Special Songs’ are duets. There are just so many varieties in them. For example, the titles of Bhojan ke nazaarein hain and Main to Agre se joota laya re are parodies of well-known songs of just a year or two earlier. Both the songs are medley parody songs which tests your knowledge or recall of vintage songs which became roaringly popular. There are some sung by music directors who were not quite known as singers. There were some others which were funky for different reasons: serious singers singing absurdly funny songs and so on.
Gods have been an important part of our lives and, therefore, our films. We do not set off on a journey without checking whether it was an auspicious moment or not. There is a Rahukaalam when everything comes to a standstill: No weddings, no new investment or purchase of car or home appliances, no taking of oath by the new CM, no moving to his earmarked bungalow. The inauspicious moments come for some short periods in a year. But in everyday life too there are obstacles, such as a cat crossing your car on the road; and the remedy for this bad omen is simple – stop for a moment, reverse the car and move on again. No meat on Tuesdays, no mangoes ever, not because of some allergy, but I had to sacrifice one favourite food item at the altar of some god.
Continuing the series on Vasant Desai, his best songs for Lata Mangeshkar as a tribute to her on her 93rd birthday (28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022)
Lata Mangeshkar would have been 93 today. This is her first birthday after she left this mortal world and this calls for a tribute to her. Coincidentally SOY is paying a series of tributes to Vasant Desai who was a class composer but was not counted among the top by the conventional pecking order. His songs for Lata Mangeshkar were exceptionally melodious. Vasant Desai Part 1 was devoted to his multifaceted talent in the vintage era (pre-50s) as an actor, singer and music director. The part 2 onwards are devoted to the post-50s era with which we are all more familiar. Vasant Desai Part 2 was devoted to his male singers in which I also included MF duets. Lata Mangeshkar is by far his most preferred female singer (no surprise there), and quite a good number are unforgettable. It became appropriate to post a tribute to her on her 93rd birthday with her best songs by the maestro in Vasant Desai Part 3. This would also include her duets with a female singer.
And the Award for the Best Female Solo singer goes to ?
If you browse through the Wrap Up 1 regarding the best solos of 1943, it was clearly a one-horse race with KL Saigal being the Pole Star. During Saigal-Noorjehan-era there was no female Saigal, or as I have said earlier a number of times, there was no Lata Mangeshkar before Lata Mangeshkar. But we should not draw an erroneous conclusion that female singing was devoid of talent. There were several exceptionally talented singers, and the total female solos outnumbered the male solos by a big margin. In fact my fascination for vintage singing is due to so many varieties of female voice.
Second part of my two-part tribute to Khayyam (18.2.1927–19.8.2019) on his third Remembrance Day
Once the omission of Khayyam was brought to my notice by a reader, I realised any tribute to him could not be limited to one part. One can divide his work by the period, or by the singers, both are sensible approaches. He created great music from 1950 to 1982. This is a long span, not many of his stalwart peers had such a long productive life. He was not among the top music directors by the conventional pecking order. But he remained at the top without compromising quality, without joining the rat-race, without caring for the current trend. He created his own trend, which was classical, elegant, soulful and deeply moving.
Hindi Cine Raag Encyclopaedia
(Reference Edition Raagwise: Vol. 3, 4 & 5)
Author: KL Pandey
Sangeet Shilp Prakashan, Lucknow
First edition 2022
Hardcover ₹4800 on Amazon
A passionate lover of Hindi film music, who has deep interest in classical music too, asks two different types of questions: One, which raag(s) this favourite song is based on; Two, which are the famous songs based on this particular raag? These are very different questions, and can be conveniently searched only if there are reliable sources compiled on the two different parameters. On the internet a respected site chandrakantha.com gives links for Index of Song Titles (and their underlying raags) and Index of Raags (and songs based on that raag).
A tribute to Khayyam (18.2.1927–19.8.2019) on his third Remembrance Day
A reader mentioned some time ago that Khayyam has not been covered on SOY. Then I realised that the only post I have included under his name in the side-roll is devoted to his wife, Jagjit Kaur who sang most of her songs under his baton. This is an obvious omission. Khayyam, though not in the race for top billing, always created top class music right through the Golden Era when hundred flowers bloomed, to the post-70s dominated by the triumvirate of RD Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal and Kalyanji-Anandji.
If the world only comprised narcissists at one extreme, and the most polite and courteous who profusely praise others at the other end, it would be a very boring place. Things are never black and white. There are various shades of grey in life. In our interactions we often cannot resist the temptation of putting-down a pompous person by a clever repartee, prick his ego by a smart one-liner, use various figures of speech from irony, pun, tongue-in-cheek statements, sarcasm to trenchant scorn. Even with dear friends or respected persons we often indulge in mild leg-pulling and harmless humour.
Guest article by Sivanandam Palamadai as a tribute to Rafi on his 42nd Remembrance Day (24 December 1924 – 31 July 1980)
(Rafi was the most dominant male playback singer of the Golden Era of film music. Yet he remained an unassuming, simple-hearted person with malice to none. The stories of his kindness and support to unrecognised music directors are legion. If his singing could help a struggling music director, he was willing to sing free for him. He sang some of his unforgettable songs for now-forgotten music directors.
Sivanandam Palamadai is relatively a new member of SOY, but is already an active participant. He is a passionate fan of Rafi and has been writing regularly for a forum dedicated to Rafi. When he offered to write on Rafi for SOY, we tossed ideas back and forth. I suggested this topic to him which can be worthy as a debut article on SOY.
Mr Palamadai is in his late 50s. He is a native of Tamil Nadu, but has lived in Pune for over 25 years. He has been a marketing professional all his working life, now in semi-retirement by choice to be in control of his career options. He is a keen listener of all kinds of music: film songs, non-film songs of Hindi and other languages, Hindustani, Carnatic and Western classical music. It gives me great pleasure to introduce a new guest writer with this superb article on Rafi’s songs for some unrecognised music directors, as a tribute to Rafi on his 42nd Remembrance Day. – AK)
There is a famous quote from Shakespeare’s play ‘Twelfth Night’: Some are born great; some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them. With due apologies to Shakespeare, we should add one more category to this: “Some are unfortunate in this world to be denied their greatness!!”
