When his fans are celebrating Anand Bakshi’s 90th birth anniversary with ‘Sawan ka mahina, pawan kare sor’, my heart rewinds to those teenage years when I was discovering Kishore Kumar and searching for Mr. X in Bombay . The reason was Baxi’s (that’s how he spelled his surname at that time) landmark number, ‘Mere mehboob qayamat hogi’ that many youngsters still listen to when experiencing the first pangs of love.
In the late 1980s when HMV cassettes were expensive and T-Series had yet to flood the market with cheap/affordable alternatives, a melange of melodies could be filled into blank cassettes at the neighbourhood electronics shop. Was it legal, I don’t know, but I can vouch for Mere Mehboob 's presence in almost each one of them.
Years later, one discovered that the 1964 film, directed by Shantilal Soni, who was otherwise known for his snake sagas, was a science fiction feature. It had little to write home about except for the fact that it was perhaps our first experiment with the invisible man, which later culminated into Mr. India .
There is a long list of songs that emerged from films that were declared dead on arrival. Most of them are compositions that relied more on meaningful lyrics than just peppy tunes.
Poet-lyricist Gopaldas Neeraj, whose second death anniversary was observed last week, experienced it early in his career when his immensely popular poem, ‘Karwan guzar gaya gubar dekhte rahe’, rendered poignantly by Mohammed Rafi, got a dilettantish treatment in Nayi Umar Ki Nayi Fasal (1966), that sank without a trace.
Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman in the film ‘Prem Pujari’
For years, Neeraj carried a reputation that he wrote memorable songs for not-so-memorable films. In the industry, memorable is often counted as immediate box office success. From Prem Pujari to Mera Naam Joker, both released in 1970 , he contributed to many big films with not-so-bountiful results but with songs such as ‘Rangeela Re’ and ‘Ai bhai zara dekh ke chalo’ that live on. As Neeraj would fondly remember, the former was a challenge from S.D. Burman, as he gave him the catchphrase and the situation beforehand, while the latter was in free verse, which Neeraj composed himself after Shankar of Shankar Jaikishan fame failed to set his verse to tune.
It was no different for composers. Sardar Malik, the father of Anu Malik, often suffered the same fate. His compositions, ‘Haan deewana hoon main’ and ‘Saranga teri yaad mein’ are still favourites of Mukesh fans, but if you watched them in the films they were part of, there is hardly any emotional connect.
Raj Kapoor in ‘Mera Naam Joker’
Kuldeep Singh’s serene ghazal, ‘Tum ko dekha toh yeh khayal aaya’ ( Saath Saath ) and the moving prayer, ‘Itni shakti hamein dena data’ ( Ankush ) outlasted the films they were part of. Just like ‘Aaj mere yaar ki shaadi hai’: youngsters dancing to it in baraats don’t know it was composed in 1977 by Ravi, who made ‘Aage bhi jaane na tu’ ( Waqt ), for the Shatrughan Sinha film ironically called Aadmi Sadak Ka.
Recently, in a television progamme, when Bappi Lahiri was asked to recall a film he regretted composing for, the Disco King promptly said, Toote Khilone, starring Shekhar Kapur and Shabana Azmi, which is remembered only for the evocative composition, ‘Mana ho to tum behad hansi, aise bure hum bhi nahin’.
Sung by K.J. Yesudas and written by Kaifi Azmi, it underlines the range of Lahiri, who is often seen as a purveyor of only the ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ variety of music. Few remember that the Hasrat Jaipuri ghazal ‘Kisi nazar ko tera intezar aaj bhi hai’ rendered beautifully by Bhupinder Singh and Asha Bhosle, from the little known Aitbar (1985), was also composed by Lahiri. Nobody knows what went into the making of Toote Khilone, but a riff is enough for most of us to complete themukhda: ‘Dekho to kabhi humein pyar se, darte ho kyon iqrar se.’
Himesh Reshammiya once said that giving one’s best even for flop films is good for the composer in the long run as then posterity remembers both track and film just because of him. Like ‘Aashiq Banaya Aapne’? Nah!
