Singing and Dancing Villains

The demise of Vinod Khanna this week came as a shock to all his fans. Though his condition had been made viral on social media, when the news came in, it still took time to sink in. He had been a wonderful actor , who had traversed the spectrum from being a villain to hero, with amazing ease. The term villain used throughout refers to the role played by actors and not their persona, per se !

Vinod Khanna entered the industry as a villain in Man Ka Meet ( 1968),  in which the hero was Som Dutt, Sunil Dutt's brother, paired with Leena Chandavarkar, another debutant. Both Vinod and Leena went ahead in their careers and the hero faltered. That was , probably, the indication of the times to come for Vinod Khanna. His days as villain ( Shatrughan Sinha had the same trajectory) were short-lived, being  hero material, actually. As a hero, he got the top billing in the late 70s and early 80s, before quitting to join Osho, a one-of-a-kind event in Hindi film industry.  When he returned, he got action-centric projects and had a good second innings. he was active till lately, last seen in the film
Downtown ( 2016)

One of the less-known facts is that his garlanded photograph was used in the film Anuraag ( 1972) , to which his widow Nutan speaks to !

Today we remember not only Vinod Khanna , but also, those villains ( of hindi films), who were considered good enough to sing songs and dance on screen, attributes normally associated with heroes. Vamps are excluded, as they usually had their share of cabarets and mujras.
Normally the singing and dancing  is restricted to heroes in Hindi films and the baddies are there to fight and make life miserable for the heroine and hero. They are not scripted  to be musically-inclined and certainly do not sing a full song.

However, from 50s to 90s , the villains ( bad men ) had  a great time singing and dancing, when this was made part of the storyline or script. Vamps are not considered  as they have a lot of songs like cabarets, mujras and so on.
The first name that comes to mind when we think of villains is Pran, naturally.

Pran started off as a hero, then turned into a celebrated  villain and later on, Manoj Kumar gave him a new Avatar as a character actor. Though he had his songs as hero ( "Tere Naaz Uthane Ko Jee Chahta Hai" from Grihasti-1948) , his mannerisms as villain ( smoking rings, disguises, hair-do and voice modulation made each of his role memorable. Pran was called upon to sing  song in Munimji 1955, in which he was supposed to sing "Besura".  The prevalent black and white portrayal of characters demanded that the hero has a sonorous voice and the villains had cacophonous ones !In the song, Pran  tries to match hero Dev Anand ( Hemant Kumar's voice)  in singing and is made fun of by heroine Nalini Jaywant ( Asha Bhonsle's voice) . In this song Pran sings himself ( under the name of Thakur). Probably the producer and director didn't want the public to know who sang the song !

    

Most of us remember MacMohan as Sambha of Sholay ( The film Luck by Chance 2007 underlined the fact that with only one dialogue in the film MacMohan derived most mileage !) and many other roles as henchman and under- cover operator of villains. But there was time when MacMohan was young and wanted to be a hero. His dancing skills were on display in the film Aao Pyar Karein ( 1964) , as you can see in this song....     

                                 

 More of Pran, this time with the other members of his tribe!
 Anwar Hussain is known as a character actor, generally playing the suited-booted scheming villain, most often the No. 2 of the gang. He is hardly associated with a song.

 Ajit , who also started as a hero and then turned to negative roles, did not have many songs to sing as a villain , as the characters he played were having an aristocratic touch. It was left for Mona Darling and Raabert to do all the song and dance routine!
However, Pran, Anwar and Ajit  teamed  up to play criminals who are reformed when they have to raise a little girl  abducted by them in Nanha Farishta 1969.

   

Shatrughan Sinha also started off as a villain and had the reputation of a getting whistles and claps when he made his entry, even as a villain ! From late 60s to mid-70s, he played villain in many films before turning into a hero with blockbusters like Kalicharan and Vishwanath. In Rampur Ka Laxman ( 1972) , he sings a song with the hero Randhir Kapoor and heroine Rekha , while giving signals to his gang to complete their 'evil' mission !
  

                                                     

In the next song, Pran is again the leader of the baddies who, in 1973, sing a song for the Gaddar of the gang, who is  Madan Puri. Ranjeet, Manmohan and Vinod Khanna join in.

Each of the villains in the song is a 'baddie' in his own right. We have Ranjeet -the rape guy, Manmohan - the lecherous relative, Madan Puri- the foxy smooth talker, Iftekhar- the policeman, generally but  with a twist sometimes ( remember Khel Khel mein?), Ram Mohan- the henchman, Anwar Hussain- the cigar chewing slippery gent and Pran, again leading the pack of villains. We have Vinod Khanna also, as a hero ( paired with Yogita Bali)  but also an accomplice in the heist.

Hindi films have had negative roles portrayed by heroes, but rarely  sang  songs ( an exception being Amitabh Bachchan in Parwana--Arre hansne walon). But then he was shown as an artist who had turned negative , when scorned. The soft emotions required for a song were not associated with the baddies, therefore when they got to do the song-and-dance, it made people sit up and take notice. More often, the heroes/heroines in disguise used to cobble together a dance in the 'den' of the Boss, who was shown dumb enough not to recognise them !

Prem Chopra made his mark as a villain and scaled heights to have his own brand image( Prem Naam hai mera, Prem Chopra) but he also had been a positive character once. He had come up on his own ( he played Sukhdev to Manoj Kumars Bhagat Singh in Shaheed) , battling the heroes of sixties and seventies, missing out on heroines all the time.
He was one of the earliest villains to get  his own solo song and that is an achievement of sort!

 He accomplished  this as he sings a song on a train in Nafrat 1973. There are a lot of shady characters as passengers and it sure is an intriguing train journey ! 

 Some other "villains" of the 70s which can be recalled are Ramesh Deo, Sujit Kumar and Roopesh Kumar. However, it is difficult to recollect any songs sung by them on-screen.

 Prem Chopra was handsome and suave and nasty, so when up against a hero, very often he gave them a run for their money.This duel with Shashi Kapoor in Vachan shows how much close he was getting the lady: he could sing, he could dance and he was phoren- returned piied against ‘desi’ Shashi Kapoor !

Premnath was one of the entrants in Hindi film industry as a hero in late 40s and and he acted in a few films in the next 6-7 years. His career as hero tapered off and he was rarely seen in the 60s. But he made a strong comeback in 70s as a villain and character actor. He became famous  as Indian version of Godfather - Dharmatma , apart from many other roles as character actors ( na maangoo Sona Chandi from Bobby ). In this song from Amir Garib , he gets to sing  alongwith Dev Anand and does a "thumka", too !

One of the earliest villains  was the droopy-eyed, cigar-smoking gent wearing  a double-breasted suit having a booming voice, whom we know as K.N.Singh.

K.N.Singh ( born 1908) was the son of a famous criminal lawyer and was a sportsman of some repute. He was selected for the javelin Throw event in Berlin Olympics of 1936.  Destiny brought him to hindi film industry and his film  Baghban (1938) as a villain was the early sign of his success. He was a leading baddie in 40s and 50s and carried his charm till 1994 !Many of his roles from the late 1970s onwards were mere cameo appearances, arranged with the sole purpose of ensuring that actors turned up on time- such was his stature that actors would never turn up late when K.N. Singh was in the sets.
 It was Kishore Kumar who made him dance to his tunes( music director was Kishore da) in his 1974 film "Badhti ka naam dadhi "

                                     

The villains who made their debut in 70s were led by Danny Denzongpa. Starting off in Zaroorat ( 1971) , he followed it up with a stellar performance as a foul-mouthed, wheel chair-ridden suspecting husband in Dhundh (1973). He was a good singer too. Starting off as supporting actor and bit roles, he developed into a regular villain and by 80s, was a crowd-puller by himself. He was a good singer too and has sung many songs in Hindi films.

In Fakira (1976), he played the role of Toofan who has been given the task to eliminate the title character  played by Shashi Kapoor. But he gets a song too !
                              

Sholay gave the hindi film industry one of the most iconic villains: Amjad Khan. Amjad was son of actor Jayant and had played bit roles in Ab dilli door nahin ( as a 17 year old) , Love and God and Hindustan Ki Kasam, earlier.

After Sholay happened,  he appeared regularly as a bad man , till the time he developed a lot of weight ( due to an illness) and opted for comedy roles. In the film Mr. Natwarlal, he controls all the resources in the village and has starved the villagers and on the top of it mocks them with this song in Mr. Natwarlal 1979  

( The song is between 3.25 to 6.05 in the long clip : later on Rekha and Amitabh turn the tables on Amjad )

By the time 80s came up, the Disco Fever was prevalent and there was no reason for villains to be left behind. 

  

Shakti Kapoor entered the industry in 1975 with Veeru Ustad but soon got better roles and came into his own in Rocky (1981), getting a competition song with Sanjay Dutt, making his debut. Later on he turned into a omedian and his team with Govinda had amny double-meaning songs and dances. As a villain, he was the first one to come into direct competition on dance floor with the hero : a song whose opening lines we still mention as a challenge-- aa dekhen zara, kisme kitna hai dum ! 

 

Karan Razdan, a latter day producer-director acted  in Disco Dancer (1982) showed that  the villain was equal to hero Mithun Chakraborty  in the singing and dancing skills. 

The difference was in the character !

Then, in 1983, we had irresponsible  sons  Gulshan Grover and Shashi Puri singing and dancing while father Rajesh Khanna is toiling hard.
Incidentally,  Rajesh Khanna played the villain in  Sachcha Jootha, years ago, being also the hero( a double role). While his role as a hero got all the songs, as a villain he can be seen playing the drums  ( Pyar ki sabko zaroorat hai song, which was digitally re-created in Om Shanti Om, with Mumtaz beng replaced by Deepika Padukone!)


Gulshan Grover debuted in Madhu Malti (1978) and had a bit role in Hum Paanch ( 1980). made a big name as "bad man" and played all kinds of evil characters very well. He is among the first actors to have made a successful transition from Bollywood to Hollywood and international cinema.

Javed Jaffrey, son of comedian Jagdeep made an explosive debut as a competent dancer, being a  villain in Meri Jung (1985) This was much before he settled for mimicry and puns. He played negative roles , but saw to it the the script offered him a chance to display his dancing skills.

One of the multi-talented artistes of Hindi cinema was Kadar Khan. He was a writer of scripts and dialogues, a character actor, comedian and played villainsh roles in umpteen films ( He acted more than 400 films).

Kadar Khan had started his acting career in Daag( 1973) and graduated to main roles, in course of time. He was a mainstay in Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra films which were multi-starrers in the real sense: there were multiple villains, too !

 Kadar Khan played a corrupt official in Kala Bazaar ( 1989), but that did not make him covert. He was, in fact, more brazen and this was, indeed, a sign of changing times !

The icing on the cake can be no one else than Amrish “mogambo” Puri !

Amrish Puri's debut was in Prem Pujari ( 1970), a bit role as a henchman in a church. He balanced Art films and Commercial Films in 70s , but by 80s, he had become one of the main villains in Hindi film industry. In fact, Amrish Puri spoke a few words in many films within the songs, such as Tridev, Muskurahat, Tahalka, Vishwtama and Aaj ka Arjun.

In this song from Haatim Tai ( 1990), Amrish Puri, playing jaadugar Kamlaaq, actually sang a song ( not a playback)!

While Amrish Puri and Pran are the villains who have sung songs in their own voices in films, the other villains had their playback given by leading singers. There have been heroes playing negative roles and having song/dance numbers, Shahrukh Khan being the prime example.
But that is a different story.

Years later , we had another amazing scenario in which a charming and cultured ghazal singer doubles as a cruel person with an evil intent. I am referring to Naseeruddin Shah’s portrayal in the film Sarfarosh (1999).



What a change in the villains from an off-key Pran to melodious Naseer !

इंतहा हो गयी, इंतज़ार की ...

The long-winded saga of the most contentious of the subjects in this country, related to a place of worship, never seems to end. It has now been a quarter century almost and from the verdict of Supreme Court last week,  it appears that we will have to wait for another two years for the final decision.

Reminded me of the Hindi films which took such a long time in the making that when they were released, the outcome was far different from that intended originally. In this week's blog, we take a look at some of these "long gestation period" films, good and bad, hits and flops ...but released, finally.

There are another set of films which have been shelved, but ...वो कहानी फिर सही  !

On to the films which gave the word "project" a bad name :)

Going by the starting date  of the film, we have the Magnum Opus  Mughal e Azam taking the prime place in the list. The labour of love of the great K.Asif  was in the making for a period of 16 years, but  it was worth the wait !

The film was first conceived in 1944, while Asif was watching a play written by Imtiaz Ali Taj about the  Mughal prince Salim and  Anarkali , a courtesan in Akbar's court.An early announcement on Mughal-e-Azam appeared on the cover of the November 1945 issue of the Filmindia magazine. The star cast was named as Veena, Nargis and Chandramohan, who were to play Bahar, Anarkali and Akbar respectively.  Durga Khote was signed to play Jodha. For the main lead Salim, Sapru was chosen  after Asif had rejected a young actor by the name of Dilip Kumar !
 

The film was progressing briskly and about one-fourth was complete when partition happened. With this, the financier of the film left for the new nation and Asif was left high-and-dry. On the top of it, Chandramohan breathed his last and the film was as good as over.
But this was the film that was never made.


Even the film which was finally made took 7 long years !
Asif found Shapoorji Pallonji who financed the film after 1953. The reasons for the film being delayed are not difficult to guess. Asif,  being a  perfectionist, would devote time, effort and money on each and every detail of all aspects of the film. The magnificent innovative photography, the signing of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan,  the art direction and costumes were all planned and executed with painstaking details, resulting in huge time and cost over-runs. But Asif was not a man to be stopped by such worldly things, as he was in pursuit of artistic excellence.

Tailors were brought from Delhi to stitch the costumes, specialists from Surat were hired to do the embroidery, goldsmiths from Hyderabad designed jewellery, craftsmen from Kolhapur worked on the crowns, iron-smiths from Rajasthan made the weaponry and shoemakers from Agra produced the royal footwear.

For the battle scenes, 2,000 cameras, 4,000 horses and 8,000 soldiers were used. Most of the soldiers were taken on loan from the Jaipur Regiment of the Indian Army.

The cast changed and Prithviraj Kapoor played the title role, while Madhubala was the courtesan to Dilip Kumar's prince.

The product was , undoubtedly, awesome in all respects and to this day it is said that nobody has been able to cite and goof or anachronism or a mistake in the whole film. Nobody goes out of character and the language used is chaste Urdu, even when most of the audience may not very conversant. Yet, they lapped it up , making it an all time blockbuster.

Kamal Amrohi was another director who was very particular about every single aspect of the film he worked on. Kamal and Meena Kumari had a much- touted love affair and had married in 1952,  a little before the film Pakeezah was planned. Kamal's film Daera ( 1953) had failed at the box-office and he was wanting to make a film on a grand scale to show his directorial brilliance: thus Pakeezah was conceived.

But it was not an easy film to make. Pakeezah was launched as a Black & White venture. Later with color technology coming in, Kamal started it all again in the new color format. But soon after that when Cinemascope also got introduced, He now wanted to shoot it in Cinemascope. 

The film was shot in Black and White and had Ashok Kumar as the hero. This song clip gives us a glimpse of what Kamal and Meena had wanted to present , before the film ran into rough weather.

In 1964, Kamal and Meena separated and that brought a pause in the production of the project. For four years the film was in doldrums. The patch-up between Kamal and Meena was facilitated by Sunil Dutt and Nargis. Pakeezah became the raison d'être for the two to come together again and complete the film. By then Ashok Kumar was already doing character roles and for the male lead , the actors considered were Dhaarmendra, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar and Raaj Kumar. Raaj Kumar got the final nod.Being the writer of the film too, every line that he wrote was keeping Meena Kumari in mind.
Just when the film was moving at a brisk pace, the music director Ghulam Mohammad passed away and Naushad was requested to step in. The cinematographer Joseph Wirsching, a confidante of Kamal also breathed his last and as a tribute to the great technician,over a dozen of Bombay's top cinematographers stepped in as and when they had a break from their other assignments, and they maintained an even look.
Kamal Amrohi sketched all the set designs and camera movements, and personally selected every costume, right down to the bangles worn by the minor characters. The haveli in Pakeezah is inspired by their family haveli back home in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh and  an exact replica was recreated  in Mumbai.   Pakeezah showed  exactly how their  home looked like -- the same windows, chandeliers, arches and curtains.

The film was finally released in 1972 and though it initially failed to create a stir, Meena Kumari's death soon after became the trigger for the film to gross a handsome amount. The music was very popular, despite being out of the current trend.

 The film K.Asif wanted to make after Mughal e Azam was based on the legendary love story of Laila and Majnu  . Titled Ishq aur Khuda , the film was started in 1963 with Guru Dutt playing Majnoon to Nimmi's Laila. The film appeared to be jinxed a soon after the commencement Guru Dutt breathed his last after a drug overdose.The long and troubled making of the film continued as Sanjeev Kumar stepped in for Guru Dutt, but in 1971, K.Asif passed away, with 30% of the film, as envisioned,  yet to be completed.               

In the biography of Naushad, it is mentioned that the style of K.Asif was entirely different from ny other director. Asif was a perfectionist but being a genius, he could be disorderly and yet synthesize the final product perfectly.  It is mentioned that a song was supposed to be played seven times in the film, binding it together. Only three parts of the song could be recorded and shot before Asif's death. Only he knew how to make all the different pieces fall in place.  Sanjeev Kumar also died in 1985. K.Asif's widow wanted to somehow resurrect the film and with the help of producer K.C.Bokadia, the film was released in 1986, after a gap of  23 years from  being announced, with whatever  portions were   available in the cans.

The film titled Love and God was,  but a shadow of what the great film-maker had imagined, as none of his assistants were able to do it the way he could. Still, the film  has a "heritage value" , being the last effort of a legend ! 

In the late 60s, a film on a story of a love triangle was planned with the star cast of  Waheeda Rehman, Raaj Kumar and Sadhana. The film took a long time to make ( probably due to financing issues and ego problems amongst stars) and was shelved a number of times. In 1968, when the film was planned, it was originally called Ulfat but when it was released in 1994, the title was....Ulfat Ki Nayi Manzilein !

It was Raaj Kumar who took it upon himself to release the shelved film but Sadhana did not want to be a part of it .However, the film was completed without her ( body double was used with sunglasses on face) and released. Check out this song , in which we see only the back of the character played by her.

Another film started in 70s had  a  cast of Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha and was titled Aparajit. Amitabh had signed on for this film in his struggling days in the 70's, when he was a newcomer to the industry and looking for work.The shooting began in 1971 and was initially directed by Mukul Dutt who left the project in 1976 after having numerous problems. Ashok Gupta took over the project in 1993, by which time its title was Yaar meri Zindagi. He  completed it within a year’s time but had issues releasing the film. Obviously the film fell prey   due to certain legal issues that it was entangled in. Apparently, the director and the financier had some irreconcilable differences over which the movie was dragged to court. The two top stars also had ups and downs in their relationship .

The film finally got released in 2008, after a 37 long years, by which time everything was dated and the film had no selling point whatsoever. This was evident in the large number of goofs that were reported by those who saw the film, which had only 20 prints released. 

In the climax Amitabh Bachchan is played by a body double and only long shots are taken . The appearances and hair-styles of the two heroes flitted between 70s and 90s many times in the film. Since all the reels were not used there was a lot of discontinuity in the narrative. 

   The next film in line is a 1974 film called Love in Bombay which got released in...hold your breath... 2013 !
The film had Joy Mukherjee in the lead ( he was the producer and director of the film, too) and in one of films of early 70s,  Bombay to Goa , this film was referred ( Kishore Kumar is going to shoot for this film when his car breaks down !). The film was completed in 1974 but Joy did not have any money to release the film. Film-making is essentially a commercial activity and the product has to sell. The 70s was the period of Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan and Joy Mukherjee was not a saleable star by then. Probably that is why the film remained in the cans. Joy did try to release the movie in the 1980s and 1990s as the movie was a labour of love, but it was too costly to do so.When satellite premieres of films came into fashion in 2000, his sons Sunjoy and Munjoy suggested having a world satellite premiere.' But Joy  wanted it released in a theatre, not on television. Joy used to get the negatives cleaned manually, as they were kept in cold storage( pun intended !) . Finally after his death, his sons got the film released in 2013, a total of  42 years after the launching of the film.

                                                 

The  80s film produced and directed by Kishore Kumar ( his last) took more than five years to see the light of the day, since Kishore Kumar died in 1987. His friend Rajesh Khanna helped Amit Kumar complete the film, which was released in 1989. Kishore's son Sumit was shown as a small baby in the film and then as a 5 year old too ! 

For the bond between the  Rajesh Khanna and Kishore Kumar, this film was the last link and the lyrics mirror the emotion so well in this song 

In the 90s, when Shah Rukh Khan was making terrific decisions by signing films like Baazigar and Darr, he also made a blunder by taking up Jadoo, co-starring Raveena Tandon. A social romantic drama, it was a mess even on paper. The actors realised that later, and walked out of the project. In fact the lead pair was asked to enact a long kissing scene, which they refused and so left the film and the film was shelved.  The producers made up by roping in newcomers, used the footage of Sharukh and Raveena, dubbed their voices, changed the title to "Ye lamhe judai ke" and released the film in 2003, a full 10 years after the muhurat !

 The next in  line is a film started in 1994 but after flitting from titles like Yeh Pyaar Hi Toh Hai to Sambandh ,  eventually got released as Sanam Teri Kasam. Saif Ali Khan woke up one fine morning in 2oo9  to find a film that he had worked with Pooja Bhatt, almost 15 years ago, get released in theatres!The film was involved in a legal  battle between Ultra and Sudhakar Bokade and was shelved after being completed. In 2000 Lawrence D'Souza took up the film but could not release it. The saga of making/releasing of this film is no less than a masala film with elements of legal tussle, Mafia and Bomb Blasts ! 
       

Some other films which fit the bill are Hum Tumhare Hain sanam ( 1997/2002). Mehbooba(1999/2008), Deewana Main Deewana (2003/2013) and  Milenge Milenge(2004/2010). 

The blog can not be complete unless one film is mentioned. The film released in 1983 was called Film Hi Film and it had a lot of footage of shelved films woven round a story. in this manner, so many films , shelved and canned, got to be shown on the silver screen, albeit partially. A tribute to those films which did not get a release. 

Angrezi mein kehte hain ki....

The recent announcement of English proposed to  be taught in vernaculur schools from Nursery ( hitherto, teaching English as a language is commened from 6th standard in these schools) are indicative of changes that are in the offing. Change is perhaps the only Constant  a in life.

 Takes me back to the days when I first heard an English song in a Hindi film! What a mind-boggling change it was !

The year was 1975 and I had entered into my teens. For an avid listener of hindi film music from the days when I had learnt to turn the knobs of radio, this turned out  to be  a watershed year. The indications were felt in the vast repertoire of hindi films and its music that year. Amongst many other happenings that year, the “mod”, as in ‘is mod se jaate hain…’ was  the event which exploded into a full-blown hysteria.

It  was a song, completely in English language in a hindi film !

The film was Julie and the song was written by Harendranath Chattopadhyaya (  a multi talented personality —- an Indian English poet, a dramatist, an actor, a musician and a member of the first Lok Sabha from Vijayawada constituency) and composed by a rookie Rajesh Roshan ( albeit, backed by an illustrious lineage in Roshan, the qawwali-specialist music director of yesteryears).The song was sung by Preeti Sagar, an unknown singer. The song was a product of the story-line of the film ( an anglo-indian train driver’s daughter falling in love with an orthodox hindu family’s son) and was ahead of its times.

The effect was , to say the least, electric. Hitherto we had a few phrases of English thrown in , here and there.  While ‘Pretty pretty priya’ in Priya (1970) could not go beyond the mukhda, ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’ ( Poorab aur Pashchim 1971) was written with a deliberate contempt for the English song. At long last we had an English song, for which we had to wait till it popped out from Vividh Bharti, which was rare. Binaca Geetmala, the hit parade those days, on the other hand , was a different story. The song made waves and could be heard amidst a lot of crackling and static on the short wave channel. It ended up at the 19th paaydaan in the Annual Programme that year.

The complete English song appeared to be an event, unparalleled till then.

But, was it really the first ever English song in a Hindi film? Some research revealed that the facts are astonishing, to say the least. The advent of English song in hindi films is almost as old as the talkies themselves! 

For the proof, read on…

The year: 1933, only two years after Alam Ara. The song :”Now the moon, her light has shed”, sung by none other than Devika Rani and composed by Ernst Broadhurst and Roy Douglas for the film Karma. A  path-breaking event, showing that the elite in those days were more British than the British themselves.

Barely, four years later, another effort was made , this time by Shanta Apte , reciting Longfellow’s poem ‘Song of life’ for the film Duniya na mane. As you listen to the song, you realise that  poetry and music are woven together so adroitly and the singing is exquisite.

The period from the 50s to mid 60s is regarded as Golden Period of hindi film music and there was hardly anyone who would commit sacrilege by attempting the use of English wholly, though there were numerous cases of a line or two in English. Remember the songs Jaapaan love in Tokyo or Dekho (5 times) .. An evening in Paris?



Cut to 1964. Raj kapoor , the great showman included a foreign language song " I love you"  in Sangam. Picturised on the Swiss Alps, skiing down the gradient, the Vivian Lobo song was again an attempt to brush shoulders with the international community. It is another matter that it got submerged in the “ye mera prem patra padh kar” and “ dost dost na raha” competition.

There were a few attempts to have song written with more English than a few phrases. In fact, there was a song with the mukhda wholly in English, but lyricist Rajinder Krishan reverted to Hindi in the Antara. The song was Night is lovely, dark and cool from the film Pyar ka Sapna (1969).

In 1970, Raj Kapoor again did the unbelievable. His magnum opus Mera Naam Joker had a public school setting in the first of its three parts and the English song “Wish me luck” was an integral part of the ‘growing up’ years of the character Raju ( played by a plump Rishi Kapoor) . The sons of three legends made their first appearances: Rishi Kapoor, singer Nitin Mukesh and lyricist Shaily Shailendra. Nitin, who is among the singers of the English song, ‘Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye…’ becomes the first singer-son to become a playback singer. Interestingly, it is his father’s voice Mukesh himself who becomes Rishi’s first-ever playback singer with ‘Teetar ke do aage teetar…’( another bit of trivia, which you’ll find a lot on this blog!

And so we come to the song which  started the digging up, in the first place. Easily the most famous English song in a Hindi film, the picturisation is perfect and Preeti Sagar’s voice, so fresh, still makes the hearts beat !

Ironically, in the same year, the beginning of the end of melody had been initiated. The reference is to the two R.D. Burman scores in  two big blockbusters, but it was Salim-Javed, who stole  his thunder when Universal Music (then called Polydor) released the LPs of the dialogues of Sholay and Deewaar  and they outsold the music. Deewaar had the next English song, “ I’m falling in love with a stranger”, sung by Ursula Vaz .

But as I said,  the later years saw music getting  sidelined in favour of action and dialogues. Obviously, it was difficult for music directors to experiment with English lyrics when even Hindi lyrics were going “gapuchi gapuchi  gum gum”!

One of the last  songs to be featured in the list of English songs is the English version of ‘aap jaisa koi’ from Qurbani in 1980, sung by Sharon Prabhakar.  Incidentally, Mohd. Rafi had, years ago, sung an English song to the tune of Baharon phool barsao! The song was inexplicably titled The She I love... :)

By 80s, the disco fever had gripped the nation, thanks to Nazia Hasan and Bappi da ( forcing The Nightingale to sing Disco 82 in Khuddar!)

By this time ABBA and Boney M were on Indian circuit  and copies of such bands with hindi lyrics were getting popular. The interest of young generation was shifting to English songs by Foreign bands.

A quiet burial for the English song in Hindi films was  inevitable.

The late 80s and 90s were not the best of years, musically, and it was difficult for a music director to squeeze a wholly  English song. However honourable attempts include Dil Chahta Hai (2001) opera and songs of Marigold (2007), more of an English film than Hindi. Also, a mention must be made of Dhoom (2004) song which, save for Dhoom macha le, was in English. The 2010 film Kites,however has a song wholly in English titled Fire.

Changes will continue to happen, whether for good or bad. Hats off to those who attempt to change the landscape by their actions, not merely by words. Except when they are in English and in Hindi films.

गीत गाया पत्थरों ने ...

For music lovers, the  single most important ( and saddening) event this week was the passing away of classical vocalist Kishori Amonkar. Those who understand classical music actually feel the huge loss due to her demise.
                                                       

 For those who are not that fortunate , classical music has always been a bit of enigma. Specially for guys like me who were enamoured with hindi film music since I was a kid, listening to Vividh Bharti for hours together.
Yet, it was accepted, though grudgingly, that classical music was, well…a class apart !

It was therefore, a double treat when you came across a song from hindi film which has the vocals of a classical singer. In the 1970s, in the film Do Boond Paani, there was a song which  was sweet to listen to ( it was played often on Vividh Bharti ) and was sung by Meenu Purushottam and Parveen Sultana. The latter was an accomplished classical singer, it was learnt. Her efforts for the film songs were few and far between. But she was , by no means, the first classical singer to have adorned the panorama of film music.

In fact Kishori Amonkar preceded her, as far as Hindi film music is concerned. But the association of exponents of classical vocal music with mainstream Hindi cinema, dates even further back.

For the complete story, read on....
and also enjoy listening to the great renditions !

Right from 1940s, film producers and directors have been able to persuade classical singers to lend their voices to hindi film songs, but the Hindi films have been privileged to have pure classical singers performing in Hindi films only occasionally.

In the 1940s Begum Akhtar was a much respected name in Classical music, being an expert in rendering ghazals, thumris ( classical music-based romanric or devotional song , usually revolving round love for Lord Krishna) and dadras   ( light classical vocal form, based on six-beat rhythmic cycle).
She was amongst the early female singers to give public concert, and break away from singing in mehfils or private gatherings.  In her early years, her voice made her an ideal choice for the films, but she elected to pursue classical music. Film-maker Mehboob Khan approached Begum Akhtar to act and sing in his film, which she agreed, as an exception.

In 1942, Begum Akhtar or Akhtaribai Faizabadi, as she was called , sang for the film Roti under the music direction of Anil Biswas. The song was rendered in her characteristic style.

A decade  later, in 1952,  Pandit D.V.Paluskar and Ustad Amir Khan sang for the film Baiju Bawara, in what was an “out of the world” experience for us  “sugam sangeet”-types. Naushad , the maestro who knew his ‘notes’, was able to bring the two greats of classical music to the proletariat world. The album had two duets by the legendary singers and one solo performance by each of them. 

Pandit D.V.Paluskar  was a master  at presenting an attractive and comprehensive picture of a raga in a very short duration. Besides pure classical music, he was also a great bhajan singer.His original surname was Gadgil, but as they hailed from the village Palus (near Sangli), they came to be known as the "Paluskar" family. Unfortunately, he died an early death, at the age of just 34.

Ustad Amir Khan had a rich baritone voice with a three-octave range, and could move equally effortlessly in any octave. He developed his own gayaki (singing style).Amir Khansahib believed that poetry was important in khyal compositions, and with his pen name, Sur Rang ("colored in swara"), he has left several compositions.Amir Khan was born in a family of musicians in Indore. His unique style, known as the Indore Gharana, blends the spiritual flavor and grandeur of dhrupad with the ornate vividness of khayal.

Ustad Amir Khan sang for many films such as  Shabab ( Naushad), Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje ( Vasant Desai) and Ragini ( O.P.Nayyar)

In 1956, Shankar Jaikishan achieved the unthinkable !
They brought Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Manna Dey at one place ( in their studio) to collaborate in a duet for the film Basant Bahaar. The effect was pure magic. The context was a musical contest in which  Gopal ( played by Bharat Bhushan ),  a young talented singer  aspiring to become the Emperor's musician has to get past tough competition.

An interesting similarity happened years later when Manna Dey and Kishore Kumar were the off-screen voices in a musical competition in Padosan. Manna Dey was not ready to sing the song, since the character he was singing for
(Mehmood),  has to lose to Sunil Dutt, eventually. He was reminded of Basant Bahar, in which Bharat Bhushan defeated Parasuram ( playback by Bhimsen Joshi). after which he realised that his resasoning was not correct.


Born as Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi   in a town called Ron,  in the Gadag  district of Karnataka , Bhimsen Joshi  was known for his  spontaneity, accurate notes, dizzyingly-paced taans which make use of his exceptional voice training, and a mastery over rhythm.

In 1957, with the release of Rani Roopmati, music director S.N.Tripathi introduced Krishna Rao Chonkar ,a classical vocalist of repute , who sang a song बाट चलत नयी चुनरी रंग डारी , with Mohammad Rafi. This was a scene showing a disciple learning from his Guru. The alaaps rendered by Chonkar in this song are just out of the world.

 Interestingly, in 1953 Geeta Dutt had sung a similarly written song as a solo for the film Ladki, under the baton of music director Dhani Ram.

Actually this traditional song is a thumri written by Kunwar Shyam , a krishna-bhakt and composer of many dhrupads, thumris and khayals.

Naushad,second to none, achieved  the impossible in 1960 for the magnum opus Mughal e Azam. For the biggest film till then, Naushad alongwith director K.Asif, coaxed, convinced and brought the most revered Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Sahab to sing two pieces, based on ragas Sohni and Ragashree . Legend has it that Bade Ghulam Ali Khan charged the sum of Rs.25000 when Rafi and Lata were being given less than Rs.500 !That was the gap….

Bade Ghulam Ali Khan amalgamated the various  traditions into his own Patiala-Kasur style:  the Behram Khani elements of Dhrupad, the gyrations of Jaipur, and the behlavas (embellishments) of Gwalior .His raga expositions were brief contrary to convention and while he agreed that the beauty of classical music lay in leisurely improvisation, he believed that the audience would not appreciate long alaaps and he had to sing for the masses and change the music to what the audience wanted.
This thumri from ‘Mughal e Azam is an audio-visual treat. It has to be so because Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan insisted on watching the rush print of the picturisation of the thumri which was projected on the screen placed in front of him as he recorded the piece.

Four years later, music director Ramlal ( of the Pankh hote to ud aati re… fame) persuaded Kishori Amonkar to sing the title song in V.Shantaram’s Geet Gaya Pattharon Ne. The song remains one of the best in the genre. 

Kishori Amonkar was born in Bombay. Owing to early death of her father, she was raised primarily by her mother, the classical vocalist Mogubai Kurdikar.  Known for her   technique of meend, or gliding, between notes, she modified her Jaipur gharana performance style by applying features from other gharanas.

She reportedly returned to classical music  because of unpleasant experiences with the film industry and also due to her mother disapproval; Kurdikar is reported to have told Amonkar that she would be forbidden from accompanying her mother if she continued to work in the film industry.

Cut to the 70s…

Jaidev  composed the music of Do Boond Paani (1972) and the song which I referred at the beginning of the blog came into being. Parveen Sultana ( who later sang the twin-song “Hamein tumse pyar kitna…” in R.D.Burman’s Kudrat 1982 ) was accompanied by Meenu Purushottam in this song. Based on the scarcity of water in Rajasthan, the songs were in sync with the theme of the film and the folk-classical composition was truly like a stream of sweet water in the arid desert.

Parveen Sultana was born at Daccapatty in Nagaon City, Assam. She is a accomplished classical vocalist, known for her stage renditions. Parveen practiced in front of a large mirror for hours to ensure her posture and facial expressions wouldn't look ugly or unsuitable for stage performances.

NOTE: The link to the song, if the above gives an error

https://youtu.be/FDJq80a2YK0
In 1976, classical singer and thumri specialist Shobha Gurtu sang for the film Sajjo Rani. The music director was Sapan Jagmohan and the kothe-wala songs were still in vogue ( before the discos took over).

                                          

With the arrival of the 80s, a lot of things were left behind and vanished  from the hindi films : Ghazals, Loris, Classical music …and melody.

Still, there were isolated attempts to involve classical vocalists to sing for Hindi films. As mentioned earlier, Parveen Sultana sang for Kudrat in 1982.  Vasantrao Deshpande sang with Kumari Faiyaz in Rang Birangi ( 1983), also composed by Pancham. Jaidev  brought back Bhimsen Joshi for Ankahee 1985, while Pandit Jasraj of Mewati Gharana sang in the film Susman( 1987) for composer Vanraj Bhatia. The Kabir song starts at 2:36 in the video below. Dialogues are bonus.

The most interesting event of cacophonous 80s, however,  was music director duo  Laxmikant Pyarelal roping  in classical vocalist duo Rajan Mishra - Sajan Mishra for  Sur Sangam, a film whose story was based on classical music.  Rajan (born 1951) and Sajan (born 1956) Mishra were born and brought up in Varanasi. The Mishra brothers had achieved fame by singing in concerts and stage, being   part of a 300-year-old lineage of  khayal singing of the Banaras Gharana.

The efforts to include the performances of classical vocalists continued in the next two decades but few and far between. Aarti Ankalikar-Tikekar sang for Sardari Begum 1997 under the baton of Vanraj Bhatia.
 Also, Shubha Mudgal, the classical singer of  our generation, sang for Anu Malik in Lajja 2001. Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan sang for Hyderabad Blues ( 2004).


Then there was the beautifully sung Aaoge jab tum sajna by Ustad Rashid Khan of Rampur-Sahaswan Gharana  in Jab We Met ( 2007), composed by Sandesh Shandilya.  Pandit Bhimsen Joshi had once remarked that Rashid Khan was the "assurance for the future of Indian vocal music"

                               


Last but not the least, we were privileged to listen to Pandit Chhannulal Mishra in the film Aarakshan ( 2011), in whic the music directors were Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.  Pandit Chhannulal Mishra   is a HIndustani classical singer from Varanasi,  a noted exponent of the Kirana Gharana  and especially the Khayal and the 'Purab Ang'-Thumri.

Leaving you with the exquisite "Saans Albeli" by Pandit Chhannulal Mishra from Aarakshan.

May the melodious traditions of Hindustani classical music remain  forever !