Of recycled songs...and Recycled Artistes !!!

The twin-releases of Raees and Kaabil hogged all the limelight this week,  in a disproportionate manner, with all the TV channels and print media comparing the two. Both of them appear to be good business propositions, though the stories and treatment are reported to be widely different. Film enthusiasts have found half a dozen commonalities between the two films, one of which is most obvious: Recycled Song !

For quite some time, we have been observing these "cover versions" or recycled songs being used by film-makers. While it is an honest admission that they have nothing original to offer (imitation is the best form of flattery) , the re-working, if not done with finesse, insults the original number. In the two films mentioned above , we have Laila main laila ( the Qurbani foot-tapper by Kalyanji Anandji) and Saara Zamana ( Rajesh Roshan's own work in Yaraana) recycled for your listening pleasure. 

Which leads me to other forms of re-cycling. Songs composed on same tune, lyrics matching earlier songs and actors recycling themselves in newer versions. Remember Pran doing a makeover from bad guy to good samaritan or Shatrughan Sinha from a villain to hero ?

 But that is merely playing different roles, as is wont for an accomplished actor. 

The "real" re-cycling is when an artiste does a complete makeover with a different name altogether ! 

So, while people change names to appear in films, there are instances when the same person has changed his name and has contributed with both names. Rare, but possible.

Let us look at some examples of this happening in film world. 

Who hasn't heard Talat Mehmood, the man with silky voice and the King of Ghazals ?
 His romantic and sad songs in his characteristic vocals  still give goosebumps, when listened through a lonely evening.

The Lucknow-born Talat started to sing ghazals from the age of 16 and soon earned enough fame, to reach Calcutta. In the late 40s and early 50s , Talat used used to sing Bangla songs as Tapan Kumar !

His Bangla songs were a rage and it was Anil Biswas (composer of  Ae dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal jahaan koi na ho-Arzoo, 1950) who had faith in Talat , due to his  velvety voice with a unique tremolo and the rest is history. Here is a  Bangla song as Tapan Kumar.

Shaukat Ali Dehalvi was a music director in the 40s and 50s , who did a lot of films with various producers and directors. When he was contacted by Nakshab Jarachvi in 1953 for the film Nagma   , he did not know that everything is going to change for him, including his name !

It seems Nakshab had approached music director Naushad for the film, who had expressed his inability. Dejected but not defeated, Nakshab picked Shaukat and had an agreement with him that he will be presented as Nashad in the credits as music director. Probably the first instance in the creative industry where the original was challenged by his name-alike.
 That's how Shaukat became Nashad and since the music of was a superhit score ( badi mushkil se dil ki beqarari ko qarar aaya, kaahe jadoo kiya  and other gems) , he retained the new name for the rest of his life. Listen to a song he composed as Shaukat Dehalvi, another of his names !

Lata Mangeshkar had become very busy with hindi films in the 50s and was scaling dizzy heights in popularity. However, she had not forgotten the Marathi film industry, from where she had come up. In 1955, she became a music director but under the pseudonym of Anand Ghan ! 

She composed for a few films of  Marathi language, while continuing her success in hindi films to be crowned Nightingale of Hindi films. One of her early compositions was in the film and is this:

ram ram pahune

A unique example is of a mainstream music director, extremely successful and still going for another name to compose music...!
Did you guess the name?

 It was Shankar of the famous Shankar Jaikishan team. The duo was the leading pair of composers and after Sangam (1964), Janwar ( 1965) and Suraj ( 1966), they were actually ruling the film music scene. What transpired so that  he took on the name of "Suraj" to give music in the 1966 film Street Singer,  is a matter of conjecture. The working of SJ was known to be such that each prepared songs individually and then the team presented the score as a team effort. Is it possible that at that point of time, Shankar thought it fit to try out a film on his own and did the film or was it the Sharda effect ?To his credit, after the untimely death of Jaikishan in 1971, he continued the brand name Shankar Jaikishan for the next 10 years, giving great numbers.

An instance of a lyricist choosing to take on two names is that of Manohar Khanna. He was the father of Usha Khanna, the music director of 60s through 80s. While he wrote songs as Manohar Khanna and at times  as M.L.Khanna, he had another name Javed Anwar in some films. It appears that he chose to change his name due to continued lack of success. His song Haaye tabassum tera as Javed Anwar gained popularity, while his songs in his original name ( one variant was K.Manohar) were not as popular. He had maximum hit numbers in the mid-sixties as Javed Anwar.
This is his song as K.Manohar.

The child artiste Baby Sonia , who also got a double role in Do Kaliyan, did not use her name but switched to Neetu  Singh as adult. She had a long run as a successful mainstream leading lady and her pairing with Rishi Kapoor moved from reel to real life. They did a couple of films together  as senior citizens also.  She remains a rare example of an on-screen artiste changing her name.

The hero who changed his name was none other than the son of a great actor, a shadow he could never shrug off. Balraj Sahni's son Ajay Sahni entered the filmdom with a lot of expectations and had to switch to being called Parikshit Sahni, which remained his name ever since. He did get a few films as solo hero ( though , in heroine-oriented films) and then became an in-demand  character actor, doing small roles in big budget films like Desh Premi etc.

Recycling oneself seems to be an exercise not entirely futile. Whether it is a choice or it is forcibly done,  doesn't really matter. What matters is that the creative juices that flow, irrespective of the name.

 As Kalidas has said, "what's in a name?"
Or was it Shakespeare?
Well, what's in a name...
 :)

Silence, the Court is in Session !!!

The two events this week which generated opposite feelings for the Honorable Courts were the Acquittal of the reigning Superstar of Bollywood  and the Defiance of Supreme Court's orders on jallikattu.  In one case,  the prosecution could not press a point effectively and in the other, the public sentiments overruled the law. 

We have an enigmatic relationship with law. While we want to be on the right side of law and want it to be upheld, we are afraid of courts, their procedures and their outcome. This love-hate syndrome is also reflected in hindi films which have been depicting courts since a long time, mostly in a cosmetic sense. 

So, let's explore how Bollywood looked at Courts down the years in terms of stories having a legal tangle, court-room dramas and songs depicting courts and law.

One of the earliest film to depict a legal dilemma was Pukar 1939 which underlined the Mughal sense of justice. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"  was the prevalent motto and when the Emperor Jehangir  finds that the Empress has killed a washerman , what is to be done? Hang the Queen? What justice did Jehangir mete out? He told the aggrieved widow, ‘The Empress killed your husband. You kill the Empress’s husband’ !

Listen to the song the Empress sings while in confinement.

Two films in the 40s touched upon the position of the law, each in separate eras. Ram Rajya in 1943 questioned ‘Kya yehi Ram Durbar, kahan vaidehi…?’ , referring to the judgemental Ram banishing Sita.

Shaheed (1948 ) was about the British manner of justice through  a memorable performance by Chandramohan, who thundered ," ‘You did not spare your own King Charles –tried him for sedition, sentenced him to death and hanged him”. Whether this was an attack on imperialism or euologising British fairness is for the audience to discern.

This song goes out for the innumerable victims of British travesty of justice in pre-Independence India.  

                                   

Awara was a popular romantic film which had the backdrop of a judge meting out injustice to his wife ( on the lines of Lord Rama) and had many  powerful court-room scenes. In one of the best scenes, the  judge tells Nargis in the court room, ‘Kanoon kisi dil ko nahin maanta’ and Nargis (Rita was her name in the film) says, ‘Judge Sahib, dil bhi kisi kanoon ko nahin maanta’

The film was a super hit.

While the narrative  in Bollywood often boiled down to a court-scene in which the protagonist ( often framed maliciously) was acquitted ( ba-izzat bari kiya jaata hai !) , the lyricists were also weaving their own yarn. Check out this song, containg all possible legal terminology,  from the social family drama Ghar Sansar 1958, in which the bhabhi and devar have , through this song indicated that a legal battle is in the offing !

Bhabhi kare appeal aur devar bane vakeel, muqaddama jeetega... 

The Bollywood of song and dance was its first song-less film released Kanoon 1960. A hard core legal fight presented  a case against capital punishment putting up the argument that  “a thousand criminals may go unpunished, but an innocent man should never be punished  because if at a later date it is discovered that he was innocent, he cannot be brought back to life".

Despite the odd realistic court room depiction, the usual hindi film of the 70s has a lot of dialogues such as  “Order order!”, “Kanoon andha hota hai!”“Geeta pe haath rakh kar kasam khaiye" and “Adalat is nateeje pe pahunchi hai…..”. From hard-hitting to clever, theatrical to emotional, the on-screen courtroom trials have  spectators asking for more. 

The songs also have the mention of courts, occasionally and more so , supeficially 

In Eighties, we had a flurry of  titles of  films having  Kanoon ( Kanoon Apna apna, Kanoon Kya Karega and many other). At last count, more than 20 films have had titles having Kanoon, most of them dealing with justice of the vigilante kind !

The early 80s saw the release of an unabashedly titllating crime film Insaaf ka Tarazu, in which there were trial scenes following rape of the protagonist and her sister. While the brutal cross-examination of the rape victim was shown to stun the audience, the film fell short of a serious statement on legal issues relating to defence and prosecution in such type of cases, owing to commercial interests of the producer-director. The lyricist Sahir, however came up with a hard-hitting critique of the legal system through this song.

insaaf ka tarazu jo haath me uthaye
zurmon ko theek toley, zurmon ko theek toley 
aisa na ho ke kal ka itihaashkar boley
"mujrim se bhi zyada,  munsif ne zulm dhaaya"

Two small budget films in 80s focussed on the legal options before the common man and in the event of his being a member of jury !

 I am referring to that gem of a movie Ek ruka hua faisla, in which one jury member is able to convince the other 11 to his  point of view in  a charged environment of a jury room.

"Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho",  Saeed Akhtar Mirza 's art film takes a satirical look at the cases stretched in the court rooms for decades. While plaintiffs lose all hope and money,  the corrupt run free,thanks to their costly lawyers.

A  bitter realistic scenario, regrettably.

This is a rarely available song " haaye re muqaddama" from Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho.

The mention of 1993 film Damini is essential because of the one dialogue "taareekh pe taareekh, taareekh pe taareekh", apart from the many court-room scene pitting Sunny Deol's David against Amrish Puri's Goliath.

Similarly, Shaurya (2008) deserves a special mention as it dealt in the procedures of court martial ( rarely attempted in Bollywood) and the defence of the undefensible.

Finally, in one of the most realistic depiction of current Indian judicial scene, in 2013 film  Jolly LLB ( whose sequel is round the corner) , we have been witness to   the fight of innocent wage earners trying to snatch  justice from the jaws of  monopolistic rich of  the judicial world.

Here's wishing that the common man gets justice, in good time and at an affordable cost. 

Hum honge kaamyaab !

Bringing Back Bapu !

    

This week Bapu made a comeback !

His signature was unwittingly highlighted when the Khadi Board decided to have him replaced on their calendar. The ensuing brouhaha on TV channels brought out one thing very clearly: his is a name ( and a surname) to reckon with, 70 years after his demise.

It prompted me to find out how our dear old Bollywood dealt with the Mahatma , specially in the songs churned out ever since independence.


The film Sona Chandi is said to be a 1946 film. It  had a song exhorting people to take an oath in the name of  Bapu. I don't know whether the film was released before independence or after Gandhiji's death, because the lyrics also mention that he laid down his life. Puzzling, to say the least.
Another interesting fact about the song is that its music director D.C.Dutta had confidence in a young voice owned by a young girl Lata Mangeshkar and this became one of her initial successes.





Gandhi ji was eulogised for the next few years by the grateful nation, to the effect that he became an inspiration for the new generation. Seven years into independence, a film was released which continued to be remembered at least till the kids of my generation were in the teens: Jagriti 1954.

Jagriti was a children's film and its story was full of ideals and great hope for the future of the country. The lyrics show how the lyricist Pradeep viewed Gandhi ji in the period when the country had just achieved independence. 
This song praises Father of the nation for all that he had done, all his life .


 

Within a matter of a decade and a half, things started to change. The country had had two general elections by then in 1951-52 and 1957. The countrymen saw the type of leaders they were getting , asking votes in name of Gandhi and yet, so far removed from his ideals.
This was the time when lyricists in the film world expressed this anguish in their words and an example is this song by Ramesh Gupta in the film Matlabi Duniya 1961. The song laments the deterioration in the morals of the country and wants the message to be given to bapu that his sacrifice was in vain. Sample a few lines...

tumhare naam ka bapu yaha vyapar hota hai
mere bapu se ye kehna, tumhara desh rota hai


Listen to the full song, sung by Talat Mehmood.

Cut to 1966. We again have a song evoking Bapu, from the lips of a kid. The words of Bharat Vyas again show that the new generation wanted the promises to be kept. The entire picture of the nation is depicted in great detail in the song and through the vocals of Suman Kalyanpur.

It is clear that 20 years after the azaadi, we were racing close to a point of no return, as far as the ethics and governance are concerned. Gandhi was available on currency notes and they had become the main source of all dealings, good and bad.

Half a century ago, the words of Bharat Vyas have come back to haunt us, in stark reality.

praant praant se takarata hai
bhaasha par bhaasha ki laat
main panjabi tu bangali
kaun kare bharat ki baat

By then, Bollywood had already become another name for escapism and larger-than-life depiction of contrived drama. There was little place for serious discussion or presentation of the real-world agony and Gandhi was rarely mentioned in the films ( sometimes in dialogues) and that too, in passing or in a symbolic, token manner. For example this 1970 song mentions his three monkeys  and set in a western -style catchy composition made it popular, too.
Just goes on to show that in order to get the message , the messenger had to become more attractive to the target audience !

 
The era of soft emotions ( enacted by Rajesh Khanna) gave way to the era of strong emotions ( displayed by Amitabh Bachchan) and more than a decade passed. Violence took over the narrative and there was space for song and dance, buffoonery and revenge but no mention of Gandhi.

It is ironic that a foreigner Richard Attenborough brought Gandhi back into limelight through his magnum opus Gandhi 1982. The stalwarts of "parallel" cinema , active in last one decade or so were all itching to get the role of the protagonist but Ben Kingsley got it and acquitted himself very well. The bilingual made a strong case to discuss Gandhi, for all it was worth. Gandhi's favourite bhajan was , naturally, a part of the film.
                                                               

That flash in a pan was soon forgotten, with the changing moods of cine goers.
The 80s were one of the worst periods in hindi cinema and its music and cacophony was the order of the day, By this time the concept of Bapu  was totally alien to the young India and the Nineties brought an anti-hero to the forefront. The leading man was no more a law-abiding , dead honest guy. he was a murderer, a stalker, a conman, a muscle-man  and a cheat.

However, like a Phoenix arising from its ashes, Gandhi made an appearance in form of a back-ground loving spooky figure, regulating a wayward Munna Bhai in 2006.
Gandhi was re-packaged through the concept of Gandhigiri and insistence on speaking truth ( satyagraha), even if it meant material loss. Lage Raho Munna Bhai , in 2006 , had Swanand Kirkire  as the wordsmith and he, alongwith music director Shantanu Moitra  brought Gandhi back, albeit as a parody of Vande Mataram !

sach baat hai, BANDE MEIN THA DUM !

Wishing that Bapu comes back into the focus, not through cosmetic measures or negative utterances but by having discourses in public on his ideas and imbibing his ideals.
Jai Hind.

Election songs from hindi films

The elections for five states have been announced in the new year and for the next few months everyone will be influenced by election  fever , leading to results in March 2017.
 An opportune time to look at a perspective about the 'janta' and 'neta', election and voting --songs from Hindi films which showcase elections...

One of the songs which promises what is going to happen to 'netas' when the 'janta' raises its voice, is from the film Jaan Hazir Hai 1975, optimistically  hoping  that ...
bhaande phoot jaayenge, chhakke chhoot jaayenge, janta shor machayegi, chor pakde jaayenge!

It is actually the public which really knows the right person from the wrong one.This sentiment was adequately expressed in the Roti 1974 song , Ye jo public hai ye sab jaanti hai, public hai

However, there still are some gullible guys for whom the message, loud and clear, was sung in this Namak Haraam 1973 song featuring Asrani doing a stage act and exhorting  people not to vote for the liar , even if he tries to buy it !

Now about the candidates: this one is making an appearance after five long years, only to get support for another term ! Gulzar nailed her in the Aandhi (1975)  qawwali-style song Salaam keejiye, haali janaab aaye hain, ye paanch saal ka lene hisaab aaye hain

A more positive campaign is to advocate voting for the chosen one. The song from Aansoo Ban Gaye Phool 1969, in which the voter is reminded that whomsoever he want to love is okay, but the vote should be given to the chosen one only!

As the voter goes into the voting area , a message to him: all he has to remember is to vote for the candidate he feels is truthful, as the song from the film Zindagi Zindagi 1972

And when the results are declared we will find out who the winners are, as well the losers: just like it happened in Apna Desh 1972 ----koi jeeta koi haara !

So guys, choose your 'neta' wisely  !