MUSIC DIRECTOR MADAN MOHAN, HIS MELODIES, HIS GHAZALS.

When one thinks of old melodies, especially haunting melodies and ghazals of Hindi films one name that always come up top in the mind is that of the highly talented music director the late Madan Mohan (1924 – 1975).His career in Hindi film music,  beginning with the 1950 film Ankhen , to the haunting melodies of film ‘Woh kaun thi’(1964),  through his  National Award winning music in film Dastak(1970), to the much acclaimed music of ‘Mausam (1974) and to the films released posthumously including the IIFF Award winning music of  ‘Veer – Zaara’, had been a musical journey in the pursuit of  excellence  firmly rooted in Indian classical music where no compromises with quality were allowed.  There were innumerable films for which he had composed music in which the Madan Mohan stamp was always there even in those films which did not do well in  the box office.

One notable feature of Madan Mohan’s music was his penchant for using ghazal style for his compositions especially during his  earlier years. It was Madan Mohan who best exploited Talat Mahmood’s  voice and talent for ghazals beginning with MADHOSH(1951-Meena Kumari-Manhar Desai)).In this film Talat  rendered the beautiful lyric penned by Rajah Mehdi Ali khan,viz., ‘Meri yaad mein tumna aansoo bahana’ in his inimitable trembling voice. This song  remains a much listened Talat ghazal even today. In film AASHIANA(1952-Raj Kapoor- Nargis),  Madan Mohan composed two evergreen ghazals for Talat using the lyrics of Rajinder Kishen. One is, ‘Mera qarar leja’ and the other is, ‘ Mein paagal mera manva paagal’ often aired by Radio Ceylon and Vividh Bharati those days.  In film CHHOTE BABU (1957-Nimmi-Sekhar), there is this popular ghazal by Talat, viz., ‘Do din ki mohabat mein humne’ and  a Lata-Talat duet, ‘Teri chhamak ke aankhon mein’. In the highly popular  film DEKH KABIRA ROYA(1967) with lesser known actors like Anita guha and Annop Kumar,  Madan Mohan  again uses the voice of Talat Mahmood to create another great ghazal, ‘Hum se aaya na gaya tum se bulaya’, the lyrics penned by Rajinder Kishen. In fact this film was a big musical hit with a wide variety of songs composed by Madan Mohan. There are two semiclassical numbers by Lata, the first being ‘Lagan tose lagi balma’ and the sweet melodious ‘Meri veena tum bin roye’. Along with these two there is also  the soft, romantic melody, ‘Tu pyar kare ya thukraye’  indicating how best he uses Lata’s voice to embellish  his  rather difficult compositions. The film is also noted for one of the top semi-classical melodies of Manna Dey,viz., ‘Kaun aaya mere man ke dware’. It is a pity that the music of this film did not fetch a Filmfare Award for Madan Mohan.

The fruitful association of Madan Mohan with Talat continued in  films like BAHANA(1960), with  Meena Kumari  in the lead. The lyrics penned by Rajinder Kishen, viz., ‘Barehen aasman meri manzil bata’ was tuned soulfully for Talat to croon and again an Asha – Talat ghazal was created with the lines beginning ‘Teri nighahen mein teri hi baton mein’.  Lata’s melodious semi-classical number  ‘Ja re badra bairi ja’ was also there. Sadly these songs are not often heard nowadays.The culmination of the success of the duo of Madan and Talat was in  the film JAHAN ARA(1962-Bharat Bhusha-Mala Sinha)) . The three ghazals penned by Rajinder Kishen,’Phir wohi sham wohi gham’, ‘Main teri nazar ka suroor hoon’ and ‘Teri aankh ke ansoo’were probably the last of Talat’s fascinating ghazals for Hindi films as Talat Mahmood faded away thereafter to the regret of music lovers.

A few of the best ever filmy ghazals of Rafi was also composed by Madan Mohan.The one coming to my mind readily is, ‘Main nighahe tere chehre se’ and ‘Yah hi hai tamanna’ from film AAP KI PARCHHAYIYAN (1964-Dharmendra-Sashikala) with lyrics by Rajah Mehdi Ali Khan who along with Rajinder Kishen was the most favoured lyrist of Madan Mohan. In film DULHAN EK RAAT KI(1967- Dharmendra-Nutan)we can listen to Rafi at his melodious best with the song ‘Ek haseen sham ko dil mera kho gaya’(Lyrics: Raja Mehdi Ali Khan).In film GATEWAY OF INDIA (1957-Bharat Bhushan-Pradeep Kumar-Madhubala)the duet ‘Do ghadi woh to pass ho baithe’ has two versions, one by Asha-Rafi and the other by Lata-Rafi,  both versions equally captivating. In film AAKHRI DAU(1958-Sekhar-Nutan)there is this popular Rafi ghazal.’Tujhe kya sunaon mein dilruba’ and the melodious Rafi-Asha duet, ‘Humsafar saath apna chhod chale’.

Another feature of Madan Mohan’s music was his preference for female voice and most of his haunting melodies were  in female voice. In fact a perusal of the LP albums of films with his music will reveal the dominance of female singers which, of course,  in no way had affected the quality of his songs. In film ADALAT (1958-Nargis-Pradeep Kumar) all the songs except a chorus were in female voice  with Lata’s ‘Yun hasraton ke dagh’ and ‘Unko yeh shikayat hai’ topping the list.It was only in his earlier films when he was using the voice of Talat Mahmood  that we could see better use of male voice. Still Madan Mohan had used the voice of Mukesh for two of his famous melodies.One is the grief  filled melody from film DUNIYA  NA MANE(1959-Mala Sinha-Pradeep Kumar)viz., ‘Ham chal rahe hai, woh chal rahe hai, Magar duniyawalo ke dil jal rahe hai’. There is also a happy version of this song, a duet, by Lata -Mukesh. The other is a ghazal from SANJOG(1961-Anita Guha-Pradeep Kumar),viz.,’Bhooli hui yadon’ which used to be heard frequently over the radio. Film Sanjog is also noted for two of the most popular melodies of Lata,viz.,’Woh bhooli dastan lo phir yaad a gayi’and  ‘Badli se nikla hai chaand’. The strength,timbre and quality of Lata’s voice are in full evidence in these songs as well as in the song ‘Ham pyar me jalne walo ko chaine kaha haaye aaram kahe’ from film JAILOR(1958- Raj Kumar-Gita Bali). No wonder Lata remained as the most trusted singer of Madan Mohan and their personal rapport seemed to have contributed much to the success of the duo.  No wonder that Lata’s tribute to Madan Mohan echos this .  “Madan Mohan’s music will prevail; for it embodied melody, the basis of Indian music. It was my privilege to have sung for him.”

The songs of film WOH KAUN THI(1964-Sadhana-Manoj Kumar)’ was the crowning glory of Madan Mohan’s  musical success. The film with supernatural incidents as its central theme, as in films like Madhumati and Bees Saal Baad, had some of the top haunting melodies common for such themes those days. The song “ Aajare pardesi(Madhumati-Lata- Music: Salil Chaudhury) and  ‘Kahin deep jale kahi dil( Bees Saal Baad-Lata-Hemant Kumar)were till then two of the top such songs.  But Madan Mohan, with three songs by Lata, viz., ‘Naina bharase rim jim rim jim’, ‘Jo hamne dastan apnee sunaaee aap kyon roye’ and ‘Lag jaa gale se phir ye haseen raat ho na ho’ rewrote history. The beautiful lyrics of these songs were by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan and no wonder why he became one of Madan Mohan’s preferred lyricists. That reminds me about a rare duet of Madan in this film, viz.,the  breezy “Chhod kar tere pyar ka daman’ (Lata-Mahendra Kapoor)The music  of this film was nominated for Filmfare Award for best music but to Madan Mohan’s eternal disappointment the Award was given to Laxmikant Pyarelel for film DOSTI. Even prior to Woh Kaun Thi,  Madan Mohan in film ANPADH(1962-Dharmendra-Mala Sinha) had composed  a few beautiful melodies including the path breaking ‘Aap ki nazaron ne samjha’ of Lata. There  is also a rare comic song in the film , Mahendra Kapoor’s ‘Sikandar ne porus se’. The success of Woh kaun thi  led director Raj Khosla to make two more films with similar theme viz. Mera Saaya and Anita. For Mera Saaya  Madan Mohan composed yet another haunting memody for Lata,viz., ‘Too jahan jahan chalega mera saaya sath hoga’ which was a superhit.  But for film ANITA  Laxmikant Pyarelel was assigned to do the job. Obviously, by then this musical duo had arrived on top. The decline of Madan Mohan  also started around this period.

Madan Mohan continued to compose music for several films but the magic, somehow, remained unnoticed. The films were not box office successes and top artists were also not there in them. He tried to make a come back with HEER RANJHA (1970) and DASTAK(1971-Sanjeev Kumar-Rehna Sultan) but it was not enough. The highly acclaimed Dastak  fetched the National Award for Madan Mohan with  Lata’s  ‘Baiyaan na bharo balma’ becoming highly popular. Again his music in film MAUSAM( 1974-Sanjeev Kumar Sharmila Tagore) showed that he had not lost his magic as the Lata-Bhupinder duet ‘Dil dhoondtha hai’ and  Lata’s  solo ‘Ruke ruke se qadam’ achieving tremendous popularity.But alas! In spite of his enormous talent and success he could not get the same prominence which Naushad, S.D.Burman, Shankar Jaikishen  and  even a Laxmikant Pyarelal could get. He was more like the ‘Kabhi Kabhie’ Khayyam and the ‘Hum Dono Jaidev who also could not achieve the celebrity status in spite of talent and success. Talat Mahmood, Madan Mohan’s most trusted male voice,  said of Madan Mohan; ‘ Madan Mohan never made any compromises in his life and in every tune he produced there was newness”. Probably his inability to make compromises stood in the way.

HINDI FILMS THOSE NOSTALGIC TITLES.

As youngsters we were always attracted by the romantic, poetic and meaningful titles of films released those days. The titles used to be so catchy and thought-provoking that we marked it as a ‘must see’ film the moment the news of the launch of the film reached us. During those days the launch of films used to be widely published in the print media like THE SCREEN and  CINE ADVANCE  and so on with full page advertisements, news and photos including that of well attended ‘muhurat’ ceremonies. Follow-up reports indicating progress of production, delays, recordings and so on also used to be there giving us a lot of topics for discussion and to be prepared for the release of the films.

One of the earliest of such films whose title fascinated us was  AB DILLI DOOR NAHIN(1957) produced by Raj Kapur with Motilal, Yakub, Anwar Hussain and Sulochana in lead roles. There is nothing in my memory about our seeing the film but the songs composed by the talented music director Duttaram had lingered in memory. The song  ‘Yeh chaman hamara’ by Asha Bhosle and the children’s song ‘Chhun chhun karti’ by Rafi are still fresh in memory.That also reminds me of an earlier film of Raj Kapur, AAG (1948) with Raj Kapur, Nargis and Kamini Kausal in the lead which had music by Ram Ganguly. The voice of Shamshad Begum was at its powerful best in the song, ‘Kahe koyal shor machaye re’ sometimes heard on the radio even now. While titles with lengthy names were more attractive to us, short names like AAG  and PYASA caught our imagination, may be for the depth of meaning/sentiments they conveyed. A few of the outstanding songs of all time in Hindi films are from film PYASA. Geeta Dutt’s ‘Jane kya tune kahi’, Hemant’s kumar’s ‘Jane woh kaise log they’ and Rafi’s ‘Jinhen naaz hai Hind par’ and ‘Yey duniya agar milbhi jaye to’ are immortal compositions of S.D.Burman.

Apart from the beauty of the titles, the expectations about the music score of the films also had caught our imagination for earmarking the films as ‘must see’. The advertisements about the launch of films usually gave equal prominence to music directors just like directors and lead stars. Names like Shankar Jaikishen, O.P.Nayyar, S.D.Burman, Naushad, Madan Mohan,C.Ramachandra and so on were ‘guarantees’ to the film goers for outstanding songs. Three films with nostalgic titles and Shankar Jaikishen’s music come immediately to mind. One is  R.K.Films’ JIS DESH MEIN GANGA BAHTI HAI with Raj kapur and Padmini in the lead.The sizzling romantic number ‘Ho maine pyar kiya’ and the melodious ‘O basanti pavan’, both by Lata , were hugely popular even before the film was released. There is also an enchanting chorus led by Lata, Geeta Dutt, Mukesh, Manna Dey and Mahendra Kapur,  ‘Hum bhi hain tum bhi ho’ beautifully filmed on the lead actors. Probably this is the only song in which  these five great singers had joined together. The song is also unique in  that a few lines were picturised on Pran, a rare event for a  ‘villain’to sing a song. Pran as villain Raka had given a stellar performance.The music of the film also bagged the Filmfare Award for best music of the year 1960.

The film DIL APNA AUR PREET PARAI (1961), a  familiar romantic story with Raj Kumar and  Meena Kumari in the lead was another much awaited film with music by Shankar Jaikishen. In fact the scintillating songs of Lata  like ‘the title song and ‘Ajib daastan’ and the rhythmic ‘Mera dil ab tera o saajana’, were the mainstay of the film. No wonder that the music of this film won the Filmfare Award for best music in 1961.There are also a few other romantic titles with Shankar Jaikishens’ music like  Jab pyar kisee se hota hai, Ek dil sow afsane, Roop ki rani choron ka raja, Aas ka panchi, Aayi Milan ki bela and so on. The main feature is that each title formed part of the lyric of a song in the film, a speciality of Shankar Jaikishen. A rare song,’Dil mera ek aas ka panchi’, by the talented Subir Sen made the film  Aas ka panchi memorable.

Music director O.P. Nayyar was also associated with a few films with imaginative titles with his famous  mastery over rhythm. The names readily coming to mind are the Joy Mukherjee-Asha Parekh film PHIR WOHI DIL LAAYA HOON (1963), the Biswajeet-Sharmila Tagore film YEH RAAT PHIR NA AAYEGI and the Dhrmendra-MalaSinha starrer BAHAREN PHIR BHI AAYEGI (1966). In Phir wohi dil laaya hoon O.P. Nayyar was in his elements exploiting to the hilt the vocal talent of Rafi and Asha to create rhythmic, foot-tapping songs with his typical ‘horse trots’ in the background. The title song as well as ‘ ‘Lakhon mein nigahon men’ are songs so typical of Rafi that one cannot think of hearing them in any other voice. Similarly the semi-classical song ‘Dekho bijli dole bin baadal ki’ and the melodious ‘Ankhon se jo uthri hai dil men’ are typical Asha numbers for O.P. Nayyar. Films Baharen Phir....’ and ‘Yeh raat phir...’have  many of the top Asha numbers for O.P.Nayyar with ‘Koi kahde kahde’, ‘Woh hanske mile hum se’,’Yeh wohi jaga hai’ and the highly rhythmic ‘Mohabet cheese hai kya’ are a few of them. Who can forget the popular hit ‘Huzure wala’ powerfully rendered by Asha and Minoo Purushottam in Yeh raat ? Mahendra Kapur owed his success to a large extent to his songs ‘Badal jaaye agar mali’ (Baharen phir) and ‘Mere pyar woh hai’(Yeh Raat) along with his songs for OP in Sawan ki Ghata and Kismat. The word ‘phir’ also reminds me of another two romantic film titles,one “Dil ne phir yaad kiya’(1966) with  beautiful music score by Sonic Omi. The pleasant Rafi numbers ‘Lo chehra surkh sharaab’ and ‘Khaliyon ne gunghat khola’along with the title song ‘Dil ne phir yaad..’ by Rafi,Suman Kalyanpur and Mukesh come readily to mind. The second is the Raj Kapur- Mala Sinha film, PHIR SUBHA HOGI (1958), based on Feodor Dostoyevsky’s famous novel Crime and Punishment. Two songs composed by the great Khayyam, ‘Phir subah kabhi to aayegi’(a solo by Mukesh and as a duet by Mukesh and Asha) and ‘Chino Arab hamara Hindustan hamara’ (Mukesh) contributed for the success of the film to a large extent.

There are two  romantic  musical films of the 50s whose title and music made them a hot topic of discussion among us. One is the hilarious romantic film KALI TOPI LAL RUMAL(1959) with Chandrasekhar and Shakila in the lead. The film’s music was by Chitragupta, a highly underrated music director who had tuned beautiful songs for films like Tower house, Apalam chapalam and several films from AVM of the south like Mein chup rahoongi and Mein bhi ladki hoon etc. Two songs of Kali Topi deserves special mention,viz.,Lata’s ‘Daga daga vai vai vai’ and the pathos filled duet with Rafi  ‘Laagi chhoote na’. The other is DEKH KABIRA ROYA(1957) with Anup Kumar, Ameeta and Anita Guha in the lead. Music lovers are ever grateful to music director Madan Mohan for the wonderful music of the film. The most popular two of the ten songs are Manna Dey’s ‘Kaun aaya mere man ki dware’ and Talat Mahmood’s ‘Humse aaya na gaya tumse’. The captivating way Manna Dey was singing the first word ‘kaun’ and the remaining lyrics is a treat to the years. One can’t think of Talat without remembering the song ‘Humse aaya’.Lata’s light classical number ‘Meri veena tum bin roye’ and ‘Tu pyar kare ya thukraye’ are a few of Lata’s best for Madan Mohan.

Yes, there are many more such attractively titled films like Barsat ki raat, Meri surat teri ankhen, Baharon ke sapne, Chaudwin ka chaand, Yadon ki baraat, Hum kise se kam nahin, Do ankhen barah hath,Tere ghar ke samne, Aaye din bahar ke, Door gagan ki chaon mein, Usne kaha tha, Bedard zamana kya jane and so on. But let me conclude this post with a few lines on the last named three films.

Film  DOOR GAGAN KI CHHAON MEIN(1964)  was a much awaited film for us as it was, in every respect, an exclusive Kishore Kumar film, a monument for his genius. The film was written,produced, directed and acted in by him with Supriya Chatterji in the lead. The music was composed by Kishore Kumar and a few songs were sung by him. In ‘Ah chal ke tujhe’ and ‘Koy lauta de mere’ Kishore’s voice was at its soft melodious best.  Title song Door gagan ki chhaon men  and Rahi tu ruk mat jaana are typical Hemant Kumar songs in his  characteristic voice.

76rpm DISC  USNE KAHA THA

Film USNE KAHA THA (1960), a typical love story partly against the back ground of war with Sunil Dutt and Nanda  in the lead,was a much discussed film on the campus, probably for the story in which  the hero sacrifices his life on the battle ground for saving the life of his former lover’s husband because she had told him to protect her husband!(Usne kaha tha). Two songs composed by Salil Choudhury are fresh in memory. Talat Mahmood’s ‘Ah ha rim jim kar ke pyare pyare’  and ‘Janewale sipahi se poochho’, by Manna Dey, Sabitha Bannerji and chorus.

 

The film and the title BEDARD ZAMANA KYA JANE (1959) with Asok Kumar, Nirupa Roy and Pran with a contrived story lingers in my mind probably for the songs ‘Naina hain jadu bhare’ by Mukesh and ‘Door kahi tu’, a duet by Lata and Rafi both songs  composed by Kalyanji Virji Shah.76

It is a pity that many of the beautiful songs of lesser known films are not heard nowadays except to a limited extent on AIR and that lovers of old Hindi film songs, especially from the young generation, are fed with only popular songs of a few successful films over and over again.

Tail piece: While typing  this post,  a  popular song by Jagjit Singh was repeatedly  passing through my mind. “....magar mujhko lauta do bachpan ka sawan,  Woh kagaz ki kashti woh baarish ka paani ..............Badi  khoobsurat  tha woh zindagani”.Take away everything  but give me back my childhood days.