It
has always been fascinating for lovers of old Hindi films and songs to marvel
at the genius of Kishore Kumar, the producer, director,writer, music director, actor
and, above all, singer, who ruled the Indian
film scene on his terms during about four decades from the 1950s.Even now the young
and the old adore him for the wonderful songs he had composed for himself as well as for other singers and for the
innumerable songs of different genre he rendered for all the other acclaimed music
directors of the period. For me, what makes Kishore Kumar’s contribution to
film music different is the fact that almost all his songs upto the middle of
the 70s, were popular and there would never be a dull moment when we listen to
these songs be it a melody, a semi classical, a grief filled, a hilarious or
even an ‘non sensical’one. His unique voice, open throated style of singing,
adaptability to the mood and situation of the song, his very successful stage
shows which probably started the trend
of audience participation all made him a darling of the masses.
Enough
has been written about his contribution to film music, his eccentricity, his
hilarious ways at recording studios and sets, his idiosyncrasy, his playing
pranks with co singers and co-stars which are all part of the folklore of Hindi
film world and even after about three decades of his passing away the channels
are coming up with special programs on him. But still what prompted me to throw
my fingers on this old key board is a song, from Hrishikesh Mukherji’s film
BUDDHA MIL GAYA(1971) with Navin Nischal and Archana in the lead which,
to my huge delight, I heard this morning over
Radio Ceylon on my tiny old Keltron radio! The song,’Raat kali ek qwaab
me aaye’, composed by R.D.Burman and
rendered by Kishore Kumar in his sweet melodious style is one of my
favourite Kishore songs besides being the first I recorded on my tape recorder
bought in 1971 at Bangalore! It also reminded me with nostalgia this song from
Dev Aanand’s film GAMBLER (1971-Music
S.D.Burman), Viz., ‘Choodi nahin mera dil’ by Kishore which was there on the
demonstration tape supplied along with the cassette recorder. http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=rAAT+KALI+EK+KWAAB&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35
This made me remember many of the hit songs of this trio of Kishore, Dev
Aanand and S.D.Burman especially of the 1950s during the first phase of
Kishore’s singing career. As mentioned in my earlier posts there were a few
such successful trios like Rafi, S&J and Shammi kapur, Rafi, Naushad and
Dilip Kumar, KIshore, RDB and Rajesh Khanna
in the late 70s and so on. The beauty of the songs of these trios is
that one can think of them only together as the thought of one necessarily
brings the other two to mind. One such song of the trio of Kishore, SDB and Dev Annand is this soft ’Mana
janaab ne pukara nahi’ from film PAYING GUEST
with Nutan in the lead. Another is the one ‘Hum hai raahi pyar ki’ from
film NAU DO GYARAH(1957), a Dev
Anand-Kalpana Karthik film. A rare duet of Kishore with Asha, viz.,’Aankhon
mein kya ji’ is also there in the film. In film MUNIMJI(1955), a Dev Aanand
Nalini Jaiwant film, the soft, flowing ‘Jeevan ki safar mein rahi’ was very
popular. Film FANTOOSH (1956- Shiela Ramani) is remembered for Kishore’s sombre
‘Dukhi man mera’.While Dev Aanand continued his success pairing with several of the leading female artists of Hindi film world, for S.D. Burman, Kishore remained a favourite voice for Dev Aanand even in the 60s , but in a limited way, with songs like ‘Yeh dil na hota bechaara’and the duet with Lata,viz., ‘Aasman ke neeche’ from film JEWEL THIEF (1967) wth Vyjayanthimala in the lead. In TEEN DEVIAN(1965), with Simi Garewal, Nanda and Kalpana in the female lead, there is this haunting melody of Kishore, in two versions, viz. ‘Khawab ho tum ya koi haqueeqat’ reminding us of SDB’s own superhit ‘Pyar dewaana hota hai mastana hota hai’ by Kishore from the epoch-making musical film AARADHANA. In the superhit film GUIDE(1965) the music of which had earned huge popularity for SDB, there was only one song , that too a duet with Lata, for Kishore, viz., Gaata rahe mera dil’ which is a departure from the past. In fact Rafi was given the pride of place with two haunting melodies,’Kya se kya ho gaye’ and ‘Tere mere sapne’. Again there was no song for Kishore in film MANZIL(1960), a Dev Aanand Nutan starrer in which SDB preferred Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar and Rafi instead of Dev Aanand’s usual voice Kishore. It happened in Dev Aanand’s other musical hits like BOMBAI KA BABU(1960-Suchitra Sen) , KALA BAZAR(1960 Waheeda Rahman) and KALA PANI(1959- Madhubala). In all of them it was Muhammed Rafi all the way. The fact that this had happened in films of Dev Aanand’s own production house, Navketan, speaks for itself. Yes, by 1960 and for the next decade Rafi had emerged as the top male voice in Hindi films. But, still, SDB used the voice of Kishore in yet another Dev Aanand film PREM PUJARI(1970-Sharmila Tagore) for this soft melodious song,’Phoolon ke rang se dil ki kalam se’ to the utter delight of Dev-SDB-Kishore fans.
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| SDB-RDB |
With the rise of Rajesh Khanna as the first super star of Hindi cinema
with the release of the two hugely successful romantic musical hits
AARADHANA(1969- S.D.B) and KATI
PATANG(1970- R.D.B) Kishore Kumar re-emerged as the No.1 play back singer and
continued to be so till the end in 1987.The song ‘Roop tera mastana’ rendered in his inimitable style which won him
the Filmfare Award for the best singer and the romantic song ‘Mere sapnon ki rani’ from Aaradhana were the rage
of the period especially on the campuses. The captivating songs like ‘Yeh shaam
mastani’ and ‘Yeh jo mohabat hai, composed by R.D.Burman for film Kati Patang marked the beginning of the trio
of Rajesh Khanna-Kishore - RDB with a large number of hit songs to follow. In
fact Rajesh Khanna’s rise to super stardom owes a lot to the music of SDB, RDB
and Kishore whose voice suited best for him, the romantic hero he was! Besides,
it was under SDB and RDB that Kishore gave most of his memorable songs.Two
songs readily coming to mind are the super sweet, ‘Deewana leke aaya hai dil ka
tarana’ and ‘Oh mere dil ki chain’ from film MERE JEEVAN SAATHI (1972- Rajesh
Khanna –Tanuja). In film AMAR PREM(1972-Sharmila Tagore) there are three songs
of Kishore, viz., ‘Kuch toh log kahenge’, ‘Chingari koi badke’ and the soft
persuasive ‘Yeh kya hua kaise hua’. In Rajesh Khanna’s super hit film NAMAK HARAM(1973-Rekha- Amitab
Bachhan) again there are three songs of Kishore of which the one ‘Diya Jalte
hain’was the most popular. 
The outstanding performance of Amitab Bachhan in film Namak Haram propelled him into
stardom and two very successful films followed with S.D.Burman’s music and
Kishore rendering some of his top romantic songs for Amitab Bachan. The first
is film ABHIMAN(1973-Jaya Bahduri)with the song, ‘Meet na mila re man ka’ and
the duet with Lata, ‘Tere mere Milan ki yeh raina’. The other film is MILI(1975-Jaya Bahduri) with two songs by
Kishore,viz., ‘Badi sooni sooni hai’ and the soulful ‘Aaye tum yaad mujhe’. Two other notable
RDB-Amitab-Kishore films are Hare Rama Hare Krishna(1971-Zeenat Aman)and Manzil(1971-Mousumi Chatterjee). The ‘rain’
song ‘Rim jim gire saaawan’ from film Manzil is remembered even today for the beauty
of the composition and the picturisation of the scene. Two out of the eight
Filmfare Awards for best singer were won by Kishore for his songs for Amitab,
viz., for film DON (Music by Kalyanji Aanandji) ‘Khaike pan Banarasiwala’, and
for NAMAK HALAL(Music Bappi Lahri-1982-Smita patil)the beautiful and one of the
rare semi classical numbers of Kishore, ‘Pag ghunguroo bandh Meera naachi thi’.That reminds me of RDB’s song for
film SAAGAR(1986-Rishi Kapoor-Dimple),viz., ‘Saagar kinare’ which gave Kishoren
another Filmfare Award for the best singer.
Kishore and RDB had also created a few wonderful songs, especially duets
with Lata for Sanjeev Kumar. Film
AANDHI(1975) is noted for three of the best ever duets of Hindi films, viz.,’Is
mod pe jaate hain’, ‘Tum aa gaye ho noor aa gaya’ and the immortal ‘Tere bina zindagi’. There is another haunting duet
in film AAP KI KASAM, viz., ‘Karvten badalte rahen’.In film ANAMIKA(1973)there
is this evergreen solo ‘Mere bheegi bheegi si’ and in film
PARICHAY(1972-Sanjeev-Jaya Bahduri-Jitendra)the melodious ‘Musaafir hoon na
yaro’ picturised on Jitendra. I also
remember a glorious O.P.Nayyar duet of Kishore and Asha in film BAAP RE BAAP, ‘Piya piya piya mera
jiya pukare’ with the typical ‘tonga beats’ making the song energetic and
pleasing. http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=PIYA+PIYA++PIYA&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35
Music directors Laxmikant Pyarelal had composed some of the evergreen
melodies for Kishore Kumar.In Mr.X IN BOMBAY the song. ‘Mere mehboob khayamat
hogi’;for film DAAG the song , ‘Mere dil mein aaj kya hai’; in filmDO RAASTE the
song ‘Mere nazeeb mere dost’ and for film HUM SUB USTAD HAI the song ‘Ajnabi
tum jane pehchane se’ come readily to mind.
I also remember a few popular songs of Shankar Jaikishen for Kishore
Kumar. One is ‘Nakhre wale’ from film NEW DELHI; another is ‘Hum matwale
naujaawan’ from film SHARARAT;two from
film RANGOLI,’Rangoli sajaore’ and ‘Chhoti se yeh duniya’. Kishore’s ability to
‘yodel’ has been used with great effect by S&J for some of these songs. Kishore’s
song ‘Zindagi ek safar ek suhana’ of
film ANDAZ(1971) was the top of the chart song of the popular Binaca Geetmala program of
Radio Ceylon in 1971.
Composer Ravindra Jain’s ‘Ghungaroo ki tarah’ (Film Chor Machaaye Shor-1974),Hermant
Kumar’s ‘Woh Shaam kuch ajeeb thi’(Film-Khamoshi),and lyricist turned music
director Prem Dhavan’s, ‘Teri duniya se hoke majboor chala’(Film Pavitra Papi)are
some of the other songs which passed through my mind.The last named used to be
heard repeatedly over the radio during early 70s but, regrettably it appears,
the song has gone into oblivion.
Kishore Kumar, the eternal comedian on the screen and the best and the
last ‘yodeller’of Hindi film music, had used his talent for both to great
effect especially in films in which he himself had acted and composed music.
Film CHALTI KA NAAM GADI ( music SDB) was a full length hilarious comedy where
an old motor car was the real hero. Film
JHUMROO, for which he himself composed music has a few of the top melodious
songs in which he freely yodelled to the
delight of the discerning listeners. The title song, ‘Main hoon jhoom jhoom’,
‘Thandi hawa’ and ‘Matwale hum’ are examples. The grief filled ‘Koi hum dum na
raha’ is, probably, the best song
composed by Kishore in which his voice comes out in all its glory to create the
mood of the song. In the famous ‘Mere samnewale kidki’ song of film PADOSAN, in
the ‘zaroorat hai zaroorat hai’ song from film Manmouji( Madan Mohan), and in
the ‘Priye praneswari’ song from film HUM TUM AUR WOH(Kalyanji Aanandji),’ his
ability as a comedian comes to the fore. Two of the most ‘nonsensical’ but highy pleasing songs ever were also by Kishore,viz., ‘Ina mina
dika, dai dama nika’(Film-Aasha-C.Ramachandra) and ‘C. A. T. cat mane billie’
(Film Dilli ka Thug-Ravi). The muti pronged talent of Kishore could be seen in
the films ‘DOOR KA RAHI and DOOR GAGAN KI CHAAON MEIN’, both films written,
produced, directed and ted by him
besides composing music and singing a few songs.’ Aa chal ke tujhe’ and ‘ Koi
lauta de mere’ from Door Gagan and
‘Jeevan se nahar’ and ‘Panth hoon mein is path’
from Door ka Rahi were comparable with any of the top songs he sang for
SDB and RDB. Who can forget his duet with the newcomer Sulakshna Pandit,viz.,
‘Bequarar dil’ for Door ka Rahi? http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Bequarar+dil&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35
Kishore Kumar, the genius, always wore a mask of eccentricity probably
to guard his privacy and led a life away from the limelight towards the end of
his career. His tiff with the Income Tax authorities were well known reflected in this hilarious song ‘Guni jano
bhakth jano’with words coined by the
names of film stars and films and the song ending with words ‘Peeche pad gaya
income taxum’!( Film Ansu aur Muskan-Kalyanji Aanandji). Many still remember the out and out comedy film CHALTI KA NAAM GADI. Who
else but Kishore could direct a full length parody film BADDTHI KA NAAM DADHI?
Tail piece:-Unbelievable that Kishore did not sing a song for composer
Naushad!
