When Lata Had The Last Laugh!

Anything can happen on a Thursday. All through my school days it was Thursday that I looked forward to because of the solitude that the day off from school gave me: pretty much on my own, reading my books and more importantly listening to the music that would eventually coalesce into a major part of the subconscious. Years later, Thursday would become a day of revival: like today. Memories surfacing.

I was out walking earlier this evening when a discussion I had with friend Sharad Saklecha months ago emerged. It involved Lata Mangeshkar and a chance remark she had made during an interview not too long go. The interviewer had asked her what, at this stage in her life, she missed the most. The subdued but stunning response was: "I wish I had learned to sing!"

I remember Sharad and myself laughing at the remark and dismissing it as sheer sanctimony.  After all, लताबाई has been and will always remain to millions of us the epitome of great singing. But something that I came across just the other day has left me musing upon her remark, assessing her own singing. It was her rendering of Narendra Sharma's Jyoti Kalash Chhalke from Bhabhi Ki Chudiyan (1961), composed by the late Sudhir Phadke. 

Sudhir Phadke seemed to have disappeared from the Hindi film scene no sooner than he had entered upon it. True, he had made Lata sing for him in films like Malti Madhav and a couple of others whose names now evade me, in the 50s, and Bhabhi Ki Chudiyan might as well have been his swan song (I, personally, never heard of him again). But what a swan song it was. He was denied the fame and glory reached by other contemporary Marathi music directors like Chitalkar Ramchandra and Vasant Desai. However, he did give Lata at least one of the 10 best of her career i.e. Jyoti Kalash Chhalke....a song that defies definition and as at least one admirer puts it, is divinity itself.

As it so often happened in those days, before music directors made the playback singers record their creations, they themselves sang the songs to show them the way. Quite a few of those tracks have survived: among them, Jyoti Kalash and to name another, C. Ramchandra singing Radha Na Bole, his own dainty from Azad (1954). To listen to Sudhirji singing Jyoti kalash chhalke before a live audience and to watch the expressions on his face as he invites his audience to share his feeling at the coming of a new morn, is ecstasy itself.

Perhaps I have read too much into this video: I leave you to judge for yourself. Perhaps, again, it was this rendering that Lataji used as a touchstone to make the kind of comment she made about herself: this, and other recordings she has made along with classical singers like DV Paluskar.

I have appended two video clips of this famed composition. This first one is the actual clip from the movie Bhabhi Ki Chudiyan beautifully emoted by the late Meena Kumari supported by fine chiaroscuro from the cameraman......

and the other, appearing below, is the same song sung by Sudhir Phadke for a live audience. 

While both leave their own impact, unfortunately, the ravages of time are undeniably visible.
The idea is simple.....they are ushering in a new day.

Salaams!