Today's celebrity is a very well-known composer, whose repertoire includes huge hits and memorable scores, even when not popular. A pillar of the Golden period, C.Ramchandra ( who also sang as Chitalkar) was a prolific music director. His tunes were extremely hummable and are remembered, even 78 years after his debut !
C.Ramchandra pioneered the inclusion of Western music into Hindi film songs, something he had learnt from his mentor Hoogan, while working for Sohrab Modi's production company. He had mastered the art of using western instruments for songs based on Indian classical music . Amongst many anecdotes associated with CR, here are three of the most delightful , which go on to show what an effortless composer he was.
The music of the film Anarkali was being planned. Once in a while a film comes which becomes an all time classic. And like all classics, several legends grow around it. Anarkali was one such film. Moreover it was, at that time, competing woth Mughal-e-Azam, also in the making , though it released many years later.
Anarkali had its own problems. Before C.Ramchandra ( CR) came on the scene, many other music directors had worked on the music composition for the film. The producer of this film kept replacing music directors. It was like a revolving door. Finally, CR stepped in and fine tuned all the songs and gave one of the best music of his career, mindful of the fact that Naushad was composoing for Mughal-e-Azam.
During the composition of the intoxicating song `Mohobbat me aise kadam dagmagaaye' for this film, CR had a problem in fitting a proper word after `peeke aaye' as there was a small gap. He used hiccups very creatively after `peeke aaye' Next day, he recorded
this song with Lata's voice (and Lata Mangeshkar performed perfectly.)
The gap after the lyrics `peeke aaye' was filled up and the song was completed. and when Beena Rai as Anarkali sang this song on the screen with a hiccup, the effect was tremendous !
The story of Azaad is also very interesting.
It is said that Dilip Kumar was feeling depressed after Devdas and was advised to accept a light hearted film. He accepted Azad, which was completed in a short period and offered a refreshing change to Dilip Kumar. The songs and the movie both became successful.
It was a 1955 film and the producer SM Naidu wanted the famed composer Naushad to compose the music for the film. Since shooting was already underway, Naidu wanted the entire soundtrack in a fortnight. ‘Naushad retorted that he was not a factory, and he couldn’t promise even one song in such a short time. Naidu then approached C Ramchandra, who gamely took on the challenge and composed all 10 songs in two weeks! Here was a man who could deliver high quality music with amazing speed, almost effortlessly !’
The third episode is about a song which is one of the earliest gibberish songs. CR was known to have an inclination for "anokhe bol" genre of songs ever since his early films.The words of this song were inspired by kids playing outside composer C. Ramchandra’s music room.
The kids were chanting “Eeny, meeny,miny, moe”, which inspired Ramchandra and his assistant John Gomes to create first line of the song, “Eena Meena Deeka, De Dai Damanika”.Gomes, who was a Goan, added the words “Maka naka” (Konkani for “I don’t want”). They kept on adding more nonsense rhymes till they ended with “Rum pum po!”. Kishore Kumar was the right choice for this song, being a natural entertainer. The real hero of the song is, undoubtedly, C.Ramchandra who made the rock-and-roll part of Hindi cinema music.
Leaving you with this iconic song to hum and wear away the lockdown blues.
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