On p.65 of this book, Raju Bharatan recounts how he once corrected the legendary composer Naushad, when the latter mistakenly named two of his compositions as being from “Deedar” (1951) when they were, in fact, picturised on the actress Nutan in “Shabab” (1954).
Writes Bharatan, Naushad reflected before responding: “Yes, on Nutan in ‘Shabab' it is — as you say. Remember, I compose and dispose. You impose restraints on me by expecting me to remember the film's name all the time, all the way!”
One can only empathise with the imperious Naushadsaab after plodding through this book, which could be a statistician's delight but makes painfully tedious reading for the average film buff.
Bharatan, who had the enormous privilege of interacting closely with some of India's greatest composers and singers, could have given us a marvellously nostalgic, readable book that brought alive those legendary names. For, he has a ear for the telling anecdote as much as for hidden musical gems, as well as the depth of knowledge to place them in their historical context.
Getting it straight
Alas, in this look at Hindi film music down the decades, he drowns his anecdotes in a sea of mind-numbing facts and figures, much like a cricket statistician who gets caught up in the batting pattern of a Tendulkar innings rather than revel in the glory of the master's shots. Bharatan does say upfront, “The aim of this book…. is to set the gramophone record straight…” Getting the facts right is indispensable, of course (and Bharatan does so in many instances) but when the effort overwhelms the sheer joy of a performer's artistry — in sports or films — you're tempted, like Naushadsaab, after a moment's reflection, to sweep them aside.
Luckily, Bharatan does offer quite a few revelations and nuggets. There is Vijay ‘Goldie' Anand — considered by most directors to be the master of song picturisation — telling Bharatan how he chose his songs: “… The song I am okaying must be ‘actable'. Once the song is ‘actable', it automatically becomes ‘singable'.”
And composer Shankar of the Shankar-Jaikishan duo has the definitive word on the classical subtext in film music: “The knowledgeable musician always plays in sur. After that, the tune he is trying to evoke, to match the mood on the screen, could go into any raag.”
There are quite a few spicy anecdotes too, especially about the love life of sisters Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle (Bharatan has also written a biography of Mangeshkar). He traces Mangeshkar's rise to supremacy and how the industry referred to her as the ‘High Command'. Mohamed Rafi, who once called her “Maharani” sarcastically, paid the price for that and other indiscretions with a long stand-off and Bharatan recounts Rafi's poignant decline in one of the many examples of filmdom's harsh side.
There are some surprises as well. The author reveals how Naushad and Salil Chowdhury were dismissive of Kishore Kumar for many years till they finally acknowledged his genius (Naushad refused to ask Kishore Kumar to sing for him for 27 long years!)
And we learn that Jaidev had composed eight songs for “Umrao Jaan” before he was displaced by Khayyam and his now-memorable score for that movie.
Hard truths
Bharatan tells of how plagiarism was common all those decades ago, and one-upmanship as cut-throat as it is today. He gives us the inside story on what is commonly believed to be Lata Mangeshkar's edging out of her sister Asha in her historic performance of “Ae mere watan ke logon”: “New Delhi, discreetly, let it be known, at the last minute, that it wanted only our ‘nightingale on the highest branch'; performing before Prime Minister Nehru,” reveals Bharatan, letting Mangeshkar off the hook.
Like many steeped in the music of the 1950s and 1960s, Bharatan is largely dismissive of much of the music that came after. “If you… asked me to underpin the one solid reason for the decadent decline of Hindustani cinesangeet, I would say it is Amitabh Bachchan,” he insists, remarking that the art of music “passed, irrevocably, into the fists of the fight composer from the baton of the song composer.” While there is certainly some truth in that reasoning, such a sweeping allocation of blame seems quite undeserved, really.
To his credit however, Bharatan has the grace to acknowledge: “Am I being too condemnatory of the music being made today?... Am I expediently forgetting that music at its root… is generational in its appeal? Hearing the music of Rahman extensively, recently, did make me wonder if I was not a whole generation behind the times in my daily listening.”
Expectedly, Rahman is the one composer who has his approval. By the time Bharatan's musical expedition has reached Rahman, however, the reader is somewhat weary, having suffered a deluge of statistics and the author's predilection for phrases like “‘Musey' musicality”, “coiled-springy Vyjayanthimala” or “Pam Choprapport” (no, I'm not kidding). Long-winded sentences and paragraphs don't help either; this book could have certainly done with a firm editor. If we didn't have to dig so much for those nostalgic nuggets, this journey could have been both shorter and sweeter.
