I need to write about Kamal Das Gupta whose memorable career carved the segue between the more intellectual, and erudite era in film music, and the dawn of the romantic era ushered in by the likes of Shankar-Jaikishan and Chitalkar Ramchandra and their contemporaries, circa the late 40s. July marks both, the birth and death anniversaries (1912 & 1974) of this fine music composer whose geet and film music are still listened to today, even if his name is all but forgotten.
At a time when composers like Pankaj Mallik (Doctor, Mukti, Nartaki), Gyan Dutt (Bhakta Surdas), Khemchand Prakash (Raja Bhartruhari, Tansen) and Rai Chand Boral (Street Singer) were weaving intricate compositions and enchanting listeners with their erudition, along came Kamal Das Gupta with his favourite poet Faiyaz Hashmi. The one wove simple tunes and melodies around eloquent geets of the other, the kind that gave ample scope to the singer to project voice and emotion. A brief acknowledgement about Faiyaz-saab, here. Many a song lyric until this point was written in chaste Hindi or very classical Urdu, with a smattering of Farsi (or Persian) thrown in. Faiyaz brought in a welcome change with his simple blend of Hindi and Urdu, a blend that made it easier for the common man to grasp the import of the song. I admit that to this day I myself do not understand the lyrics of several of the songs of that era (especially those sung by Pankaj Mallik and Kundan Lal Saigal). It is only their singing and the powerful compositions that hold me. But Kamal-babu and Faiyaz Hashmi were a great tandem!
While he is vastly remembered for setting to music the songs of Kazi Nazr-ul Islam (the rebel Bengali poet-philosopher whose works spoke of the plight of the downtrodden, and called for an end to British dominance of India), it is his considerable output of film music and 'private' songs that are Kamal Das Gupta's greater claim to fame. Playback singing, as we have known it, had its roots in these 'private' recordings which were either simply-written verses (geets), or classic and newer ghazals or traditional bhajans that were set to simple tunes and were not included in any film. There was no fanfare involved in these creations: no complex arrangement in orchestration (the S-J team was still a few years away) and yet both, composer and vocalist, gave of their best to each three-minute 78r.p.m. recording, with an eye on the fast-emerging playback phenomenon of the late thirties and the early forties.
Perhaps what I have said above would bear weight were I to mention that Kamal Das Gupta was responsible for propelling (if not launching) the careers of some of our very famous singers of that era....
Hemant Kumar Mukherjee (or Hemant Kumar, as he was affectionately known to us), was one of them. As a young man in the late 30s (he was born in 1920) he went around listening to the already-established Pankaj Mallik singing Rabindra-geeti and wondering if he would ever sing like that senior icon. Like we all know, he did, although his take-off vehicles 'Jai Jagdish Hare' (dovetailing with Geeta Dutt) from Anandmath and 'Yeh Raat Yeh Chandni' from Jaal, were more than a decade away (1952).
In the meantime he recorded the odd Bengali song steadily gaining popularity in intimate circles. There is nothing on cyberspace that records his first meeting with Kamal Das Gupta but meet they did and Kamal-babu introduced him to the public with the very gentle 'Kitna Dukh Bhulaya Tumne Pyare', penned by Faiyaz Hashmi. The year, I believe, was 1947 and the Columbia disc played in swiftly widening circles and on radio stations, its flip side bearing the very emotional 'O preet nibahne wali...meri aashaon ki basti ko mita degi tu' which was again, set to music by Kamal-babu and penned by Faiyaz Hashmi. My own awareness of music was just beginning and the best was yet to come, but let it be said that without my being aware of it Kamal Das Gupta was the first music composer whose songs I listened to. He was my introduction to popular music. The year, like I have said, was 1947, I was two hears old and dad was already drumming the Bengali singers and composers into my ears! Both these songs have stood the test of time, the first one especially so. Here it is...
And then there is the legendary Juthika Roy a devotee of Lord Krishna whose ardour in her rendering of the traditional bhajan, it is said, matched that of Meera (the 16th century bhakt of Krishna) herself. She recorded her first song, a bhajan, when she was seven and after that never looked back. In later years as the struggle for independence became more intense, leaders like Gandhi and Nehru invited her to sing at their 'prarthana sabhas'. Kazi Nazr-ul Islam became her mentor and through him, Kamal-babu. It is said that a naat she recorded jointly with the latter in the 30s led the music director to embrace Islam in his later years.
But somewhere in between a legendary partnership was born and Juthika Ray became a household name thanks to her bhajans (of Meerabai and Kabir) and geets recorded by Kamal-babu. The temptation was strong for me to insert here the Kabir bhajan 'ghunghat ka pat khol re', the rendering of which she is most known for but there is another one that I have loved all my years and which I would like to share with all. It is a fine melody, simple and untainted by too much instrumentation, a melody the strains of which, coupled with the voice of this divine songstress, invoke Lord Krishna beseeching him to make an appearance.
Jaganmoy Mitra became 'Jagmohan' Mitra after an error made by a compere at a singing competition in 1939 and he has gone down in musical history simply as Jagmohan, a name that we have come to associate with sweetness in singing. Like his contemporaries Pankaj Mallik and Hemant Kumar, he dabbled in Rabindra-geeti but was probably unaware of his own worth until Rabindranath Tagore himself dubbed him 'sursagar', a title that was never questioned to the end of his life.
However, although he had plenty of admirers all over the country it was largely due to his 'private' recordings, both Hindi and Bengali, that we remember him. That, and his asscociation with Kamal-babu. We think back nostalgically to the times when his signature songs Dil Ko Hai Tumse Pyar Kyun and Meri Aankhen Baneen Diwani were commonly heard over Radio Ceylon and AIR. He did not have the same good fortune that Hemant Kumar had on the Hindi film scene and I cannot recall any film song that he may have sung during the 50s, for a Bombay-based film. Today, we cherish the legacy he has left behind via that old faithful, the 78r.p.m. disc.
But sing for the films he did, almost to the end of the 40s and Kamal Das Gupta gave him the boost that should have helped him along but did not, in films like 'Meghdoot' (The Cloud Messenger) based on the epic poem of the same name from Kalidasa. It is hard to describe this beautiful symbiosis of composition, poetry and rendering, the coming together of song and and raaga and singing that starts with a gentle longing and ends with the tumult in the rainstorm. The effect of the storm as the song winds down is evocative of cloud and rain and remains unmatched, considering the era in which it was created (1946), when studio doors had to be padded at the bottom to keep away external disturbance and recording was done during the dark hours! This one is a treat for the soul.....once again a fine lyric by Faiyaz Hashmi....
To say that Kanan Devi's singing career "ended" would be a misnomer: it faded away with an occasional echo still floating in the atmosphere, even as the Lata generation gradually began to take over. Quantum wise, very much like her Bangla contemporaries, she sang more in her mother tongue than she did in Hindi. Her film career spanned a couple of decades and her association with Rai Chand Boral (Street Singer, Jawani Ki Reet, Vidyapati), Pankaj Mallik (Mukti) and later with Kamal Das Gupta (Jawab, Hospital, Meghdoot) yielded fame and for us her admirers, a number of beautifully sung tracks of which the best I believe were heard in the three films that she did for Kamal Das Gupta from the early to the mid 40s.
Jawab~The Response (1942) was P.C. Barua's adaptation of the Ronald Colman-Greer Garson starrer Random Harvest, based on the James Hilton novel. A lot of us still do not know what to make of this film but I think it was a fairly acceptable attempt on the part of this otherwise distinguished film maker, with him also doing the male lead opposite Kanan Devi. But here all questions and skepticism end because the film had some of the best songs (written by Pandit Madhur) recorded in the history of Hindi films. The melody stepped in right at the top of each track and did not let up until the final hush at the end of each song. The one attached below, ai chand chhup na jana, is especially telling towards the end, even as the emotion becomes too much for the character on the screen and by extension the singer, as Kamal-babu merely allows the song to end on a subdued note. The pause in the singing towards the end where the music takes over is very poignant. There are other excellent songs in the film sung by Kanan Devi (including a duet with the composer) but this one bears testimony to her eloquent understating of a lyric. The track sounds better off screen than on because the crucial third antara is missing from the movie, thus removing the cue for what follows next in the plotting.
It is common knowledge that it was the great Anil Biswas who gave Talat Mehmood his first break as a playback singer and launched him with the brilliant "Ai dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal" in the 1950 film 'Arzoo'. This gentle singer had already been singing over the radio for almost a decade before this film ushered him in as a new playback singer. He left behind a trail of quality singing in Calcutta where he sang on the radio under the Bengali name 'Tapan Kumar'. But no matter where he sang or in what language and under what name, to us all he was 'the never-never Talat Mehmood.'
It was in Calcutta, then the hub of the film and music industry, that he probably met Kamal Das Gupta and Faiyaz Hashmi who created the immortal 'tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi'. That 1944 HMV disc, as we know, broke all sales records and is remembered even today. It would be very easy for me to insert this geet here, but the other side of the disc bore an equally charming track and I do believe that all three, poet, composer and crooner, have done superior work on it. While both lyrics deal with gentle imagery, it is this second one that has a beguiling quality about it, that deserved equal exposure but has always been overshadowed by the first. Here it is....."chand mere chand se sharma gaya...." . Both, Kamal Das Gupta and Faiyaz Hashmi in a fiesty mood...
Finally, a post script: This has been a long and drawn out write-up. For a while now, I have wanted to do a blog on this gentle composer from yesteryear. As always I was awaiting a cue that would start me off and it was a chance peek at the YouTube that told me of the dates of his birth and death, both of which fall in the month of July.
Such was his hold over the music lovers of the time that I remember how the Eros cinema in Bombay held a recital on stage every Sunday morning for almost all through 1965, to packed audiences. Needless to say dad and I attended every show and barring Kanan Devi, all the singers featured here appeared. Memories were still fresh at the time....
