Pandora's Box

Our film music would have remained incomplete without the message songs that we were treated to in the decades of yore. And I use treated, not flippantly, because these were verses written with a simplicity and a dignity that the film lyric as we know it today has lost. As contrived and unspontaneous as so much of our melodrama was, life's lessons were never lost sight of and more often than not lyricists were able to drive home a point with telling effect, and music directors channeled the words into poignant and eloquent melody:one often left the cinema hall feeling a bit wiser than when one had entered it. That really wasn't the end of it, though: the song and its message whether of Gods (a pantheon-full of them!), mortals or morals remained with us forever, via the radio and the gramophone record...

The fifties, especially, were known for this. Film directors sought to portray the weaknesses and vices inherent in our social structure and, unlike the priest in the temple, made the message more palatable by their musical tableaux on the screen. Beautifully worded songs were introduced at critical junctures during the course of the film and depending upon who was being invoked, the camera would either zoom in on the household deity or pan out to the heavens. If not, there was always the wandering baba with his timely word of advice to the errant character on the screen...

 Thus, the gentle pujari was a pivotal mouthpiece for director H S Rawail's melodrama Mastana (The Carefree One~1954). And I remember it well: a young woman saddled with an unwanted babe leaves the infant on the steps of the local temple and proceeds to the ocean to end her responsibility by it. Here's where the trio of composer Madan Mohan, lyricist Rajendra Krishan and singer Mohammad Rafi step in to keep life flowing, admonishing the mother, as it were, with  मत भूल अरे इन्सान तेरी नेकी बदी नहीं उससे छुपी, सब देख रहा भगवान्  (God is watching you, O straying human....). Pretty Dickensian, as was the wont then. The mother keeps moving towards the restless, fateful waves, Rafi-saab gives voice to one of his best (that's all he gave in that wonderful era, anyway!) and a scamp (the always lovable Mr. Motilal) adopts the infant (Master Romi, a bit further on in the movie) leading him to the happy ending, after a delectable wandering tour of old Bombay.

 The poet Gulshan Bawra, a contemproary, has gone on record saying, "The 50s belonged to Rajendra Krishan". This was the most prolific lyricist the industry has known: prolific in output and quality. There was not a music director of that generation who RK did not work with. Even the hardcore Shankar-Jaikishan team who would not look at anyone except Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri in those days, worked with him in College Girl. The ultimate romantic, RK held the pulse of the music-loving moviegoers and he expressed his poetry in simple yet eloquent Hindustani and we still remember his contribution to films right from Anarkali and Nagin at top of the 50s, all the way down to the late 60s.

He wrote a lyric for Gemini's Insaniyat (1955) that was picturized on a simple villager (Dilip Kumar) who bows before God when he realizes that the girl he loves has given her heart to another (Dev Anand). The song is couched in simple language, such that a yokel might give vent to in a situation like this. It would be considered laughable in today's context, but people can be and are simple at heart and capable of such transparent sincerity. Dilip-saab made an indelible impression with the song, as he emoted the words woven into C. Ramchandra's arrangement. आशा के जब दीप बुझे तो मनका दीप जला, जगका रस्ता छोड़ मुसाफिर तेरी राह चला, he exclaims (when the lamps of Hope dim, the mind awakens and Man moves towards You). This is more a soliloquy than a song. The 78rpm version leaves even more of an impact: unforgettable.

Madan Mohan gave us another great message song ओ माटी के पुतले इतना न कर तू गुमान पल भर का तू मेहमान (shed your arrogance, you are but a piece of moulded clay, your life a brief span!) a few years later in 1957 when he collaborated with the then up-and-coming poet, Qaif Irfani, in a film called Sheroo which starred Ashok Kumar and Nalini Jaywant and was directed by Shakti Samanta, in probably his first outing in the field. I have never seen the film but as a child remember being moved by the force with which Rafi-saab articulates the second  antara and, I just have to emphasise this, the gentle buildup he gives the verse before he reaches its climax with धन के लोभी येह न जाने क्या मांगे भगवान (those who cast money in the temples before God, do not realise that's not what He is seeking from His worshipers). 

As you listen to it even today, 55 years after the first time, you marvel at the ease with which this great singer did justice to the lyric.The temple bells are the lead-in for the minimalist arrangement and the ever present sitar once again defines the Madan Mohan we would grow to love. What's missing here, though, is the couplet at the top of the track that one heard in the film version.

And there were other lyricists who gave of their best to the films. There was Sahir Ludhianvi and there was Shakeel Badayuni.

Sahir was the maverick among the lyricists of the time: a rebel who saw himself as a social reformer, he riled against accepted social norms, lamenting the evil in them via his verse. His unconventional use of language and metaphor sometimes made it difficult for us to understand him but once we did, we absorbed his works. From the bitterness in तलखियां to the lighter sweetness of  गाता जाए बंजारा (a lot of which was adapted to our films), his verse stemmed from a pent up urge to set things right and he was stern in his rebuke of society (Pyaasa, Sadhana, Dhool Ka Phool, Dharmputra, Phir Subah Hogi et al). Unmatched.

Sahir's contribution to the great success of  B.R. Chopra's epic Naya Daur (1957) condemning the corrosive over-industrialisation that was eating away at the heart of agrarian post-British India, was immense. His collaboration with composer O.P. Nayyar in that film remains memorable with the monumental sathi haath badhana sathi re still echoing today. My personal favourite, though, is the philosophical tirade against hapless man losing his faith in Divinity: Rafi's आना है तो आ राहमें कुछ फ़ेर नहीं है, भगवान के घर देर है अन्धेर नहीं है  (there is no obstacle in your pathway to God, walk to Him, there is justice at His door).  It leads man to make his peace with the Almighty. And like Shakeel, though in a different way, Sahir convinces man of the forgiving essence of his Maker. Not for him the gentle coaxing of a Shakeel. 

Shakeel Badayuni, juxtaposed with Sahir, emerges the gentler of the two. His feelings were gentle, couched in soft, persuasive language--often the mentor to his listener. Unlike Sahir, he was patient with a failing humanity, recognized the pitfalls in Man's way and he often placed his hand on your shoulder, steering you away from the path you should not have taken, or were about to take. He was also the most romantic of our poets. His admonishments, like his poems on love, were tender and persuasive--rarely harsh.

Back in 1954, Mehboob Khan made his opus Amar: three people on the crossroads of life, with a denouement in the last 10 minutes that takes your breath away. Dilip Kumar's performance as the conscience-stricken Amar-babu is subdued yet shattering. You never want to take your eyes from his face, as Faredoon Irani's camera captures him in all those precious closeups. The end of the film is contained emotionalism at its best with Madhubala, realisation having dawned on her of what's what, gently steps aside leaving Nimmi, victim of his rape, to gather up what's hers. Three top performers at the peak of their careers, making the best of elements from classic Victorian literature.

Naushad Ali's magnificent scoring and Shakeel's moving lyrics reflect life's betrayals and beneficence--gently, all the way to the epic  इन्साफ का मंदिर है येह भगवानका घर है (This is a temple of justice, God resides here). One of the best, this resonating song plays in segments in the movie and reaches its climax at the end as Amar-babu finally takes faltering steps through the portals of the mandir. In the absence of a clip here is the complete, original 78rpm recording.

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That was a generation of romantics. There was also a parallel subculture that held sway from the 30s through the mid-50s which believed that if it is man's irrational fear of God that leads him to believe in Him, it is ultimately introspection that often fully convinces him of God's existence. They turned the eye inward and while their poetry had its base more in scriptural philosophy, the faith they propounded was intellectual and humanistic though not bereft of prayer. This was the Bengali influence in our films.

In its waning years, the legendary New Theaters of Calcutta made Yatrik (The Pilgrim-1952). Directed by Kartick Chatterjee as a travelogue into the Himalayas and starring Abhi Bhattacharya and Arundhati Mukherjee, the film is also a collage of philosophical poems written by Pandit Bhushan set to devotional music by the great Pankaj Mallick. Apart from Pankaj-babu himself, the other star singers were Dhananjay Bhattacharya and Binota Chakravarty, hoary singers both, long since departed.

While a lot of the lyrics were bhajan-oriented there is this one which is philosophical and dwells on the futility of man's search for God in places of worship, rather than within himself . तू ढूंढता है जिसको बस्ती में या के बनमें, वोह सांवला सलोना रहता है तेरे मनमें, he says. (The God whom you seek in the world outside, resides in you)...

....and again, an elemental Meera-वाणी, that has its base in love for all Humanity, sung by the melodious Binota Chakravarty. Perhaps at this juncture in Man's history when religious fury and fervour are unbridled in their savagery, both in the East and in the West, there is an humble lesson to be learnt here from a way of life that is, essentially, more a human philosophy than a religion.

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Finally, an essay like this can never be exhaustive. There were other poets more notably Kavi Pradeep, Pt. Bharat Vyas, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Shailendra and Indivar, who have written as well as the ones mentioned here and whose writing has been adapted to great music: compositions that have been beautifully rendered by the other singers we have known. A common link connects all great lyrics and great singers and composers and in these few selections here there is a hark back to all .....

Songs The River Sang

They made the rivers sing in those days. The waters were as hoary and dusky as the history of the country itself. They had kept the plains and farmlands alive and fruitful for centuries. For, it was in this bucolic earth and its soil that love was born and was nurtured.  In the dawn the waters rushed about their business quenching the thirst of the land and acting as waterways,  and in the quiet of the evenings while the river undulated  its own song it listened to the sweet nothings the swain whispered in his playmate's ears as they flitted about on its grassy banks in the dusk....
Naushad Ali was at the peak of his powers by the late 40s (चालीस करोड़ में एक नौशाद  they said of him in those far off days-one Naushad in 40 million) and as he took firmer hold over his ragas, he harnessed wonderful voices to the song of the river: voices as deep and profound as the river itself.

S U Sunny's  Babul (1950), a precursor to Mehboob Khan's more ambitious and nobler Amar of a few years later, told the tale of a शहरी डाक बाबु  (a post master-Dilip Kumar in an eloquent, understated performance) who finds himself, during a transfer to a small village, in disparate relationships with two belles (Nargis & Munawar Sultana) and ends up losing both. This becomes the background for a number of good lyrics set to fine music in the voices of Talat, Shamshad Begum and Lata, not to speak of Mohammad Rafi often echoing in the background.....The banks of a placid river flowing by the village are a meeting place for Dilip and Munawar deeply in love and on one of the evenings, Talat and Shamshad lend their voices to the lovers and the river, in an eloquent tryst.

While they merge in complete vocal harmony (as they did in the other two duets for this film), Rafi-saab adds a romantic touch to this jhinjoti-based folk ditty, with the setting sun in the background. And the river listened....

The Naushad-Shakeel tandem was in full swing by now, for along with Babul, they had scored memorable music for Dard (their first), Mela & Anokhi Ada. The best, however, was yet to come....and come it did with Sri Prakash Pictures' and director Vijay Bhatt's Baiju Bawra (1952). The term 'classic' is often loosely applied to art, literature or musical composition of the highest quality that helps it to become a model for other inspiration to follow. In the 60 years that have passed since the release of this once-in-a-lifetime film, its immortal musical soundtrack remains a shining example of how uplifting classical music in films can be when it is devoid of pedantry.

And it stands alone.

Naushad-saab himself never again did anything like his tracks for this film, at any time in his distinguished career. Shakeel Badayuni's village-simple, yet eloquent lyrics, were poetry at its best. All those who lent their voices to his songs, Rafi and Lata and Shamshad and Ustad Amir Khan and Pandit D.V. Paluskar, took a step closer to immortality. Composer Naushad won the first-ever Filmfare award for best music and (unfortunately) his only one, while Meena Kumari won the first Best Actress award, as Baiju's tender foil, Gauri.. She would go on to win three more and bag at least eight other nominations for best actress before her very tragic career was done.

Bharat Bhushan's portrayal of the music-crazed, vengeance-bound Baijnath ('Baiju') has often been ridiculed as being over-the-top but to see him perform in the dramatic song sequences (man tarpat Hari darshan ko aaj,... insaan bano,...o duniyake rakhwale...) is to see a study in unbridled, poetic madness. The ambivalence in his role was complete in the same wild ecstasy he was able to project in the more romantic songs in the film like tu ganga ki mauj, main jamuna ka dhara,...door koi gaye,....jhulemein pavanke ayi bahar...). Baiju's moral defeat at the hands of Tansen (Surendranath in a dignified role) is a sequence better watched than reviewed! He never repeated his histrionics from Baiju Bawra, in any of the three similar films he did in the later 50s. This is a track for the ages, as iconic as the raga in which it has been immersed~the bhairavi. 

Another memorable 'river' song deserves a mention and revisit, if not for the forgettable film (Sunny's Udan Khatola-1955), then surely for the memorable lyric and tuning. Naushad and Shakeel, this time with Lata crooning the more wistful 'more saiyanji utrenge paar' (my beloved will come ashore, safe), have given us a composition that we still hold dear. In her legendary association with this maestro, it would be difficult to give this pilu-based song (or any other song, for that matter) a rank, but it certainly is among her best for him. Lata's articulation of Shakeel's simple Hindi (ताल तलैया दुनिया माने....मनका सागर कोहू न जाने....one can fathom the bottom of the lake, but not that of the mind) gives the song an unique depth, as Nimmi beseeches the river to ease its flow, to ensure the safety of her lover (a drugged Dilip Kumar)~a metaphor for the current predicament (Surya Kumari) that he faces. Nobody, nobody sings like this anymore!..

It is interesting that while the film version of the song ends with the boat crashing against the rocks, the 78rpm recording ends on a gentler note on the piano. Both are valid depending on who you are. 

And the Chenab sang its own song of torment in Chaudhury Brothers' Sohni-Mahiwal (1958),  which recounts the tragedy of  Sayed Fazal Shah's ill-fated lovers.  It is never a cliche for anyone to say that the poet-composer teams of yesteryears 'knew what they were doing'.  Indeed, one can never say that enough! They delved into culture and folklore and came up with verse and tune that befit the themes of the film, even if the direction and plotting of it fell short of expectation. It was Raja Nawathe's unskilled direction that never quite lifted the Sohni-Mahiwal  saga to the heights where it belonged.

Shakeel Badayuni's ballad chand chhupa aur tare dube, raat ghazabki ayi--the moon and the stars have faded and a night of terror has descended), which climaxes the film was Mahendra Kapoor's breakout song and his fresh voice, the winner of the Murphy Radio contest that year (at which Naushad-saab was one of the judges), did full justice to the poem, and the cadences he lets loose seem to rise and fall with the surge and ebb in the eddying, live river. The lyric is a distinct two-parter with the first setting the mood for what is to come in the second. It is replete with metaphor. A moaning wind, spelling ultimate doom right after the aalaap helps set the pace, coupled with the dark of the night which stands for the fear and betrayal interjected by man and God alike in which the lovers flounder, albeit in defiance.

But it is in the second segment as things move towards a climax that poet and composer are jointly at their best. Naushad's composition and arrangement lend an epic dimension to the poem. Indeed, his  genius lay in weaving the raga jogia as closely into western symphonic garb as was coherently possible.  The river takes on an ugly turn and the deafening crash of its waters signal the end--which in itself is unnerving and eerie in its anticlimax, as the waters settle after taking their toll, with the cello carrying the softer dulcimer, as the maelstrom closes over the lovers.

(Lest any of my readers feels I have suddenly become a musicologist of sorts doing a name-dropping stint with the ragas, let me hasten to say I have not. Friend Anand Padgaonkar has offered his knowledge in identifying them for me. Thank you. After all, one cannot talk about mian-Naushad even in brief, without naming the ragas). 

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I recently came across a song that I had always associated only with Conrad Rooks' Siddhartha (1972), the  largely ineffective retelling (via Shashi Kapoor & Simi Garewal) of Herman Hesse's great novella of self realization ("drivel" they called it here, in this part of the world) probing the never-ending nature of life, in Buddhism. Hemant Kumar's scoring of the two theme songs, and Sven Nykvist's camerawork lifted the film a bit above the commonplace, giving it a vagous place in film history. There is a sequence in the book where the lonely boatman muses upon the river, a metaphor for life, comparing the immortality of the soul to the everlasting flow of the waters. In the film the beautiful O Nodi Re rendered by that great composer in his eternal voice, plays in the background.

Hemant-da had originally recorded this song for a 1959 Bangla film called Neel Akasher Neeche, which told the story of a Chinese refugee in India, who fled his country from aggressive powers circa 1930. The sequence is a reflective black and white in the gathering dusk, with the lonely immigrant musing upon the river and by extension, his life.....the mood is accentuated further by the harbour lights in the distance. O Nodi Re projects a a deeper sadness than it did in Siddhartha.

(PS: Hemant-babu would record this tune one more time with mesmerizing effect in a song he composed for Lata (ओ बेक़रार दिल ) in the film 'Kohraa' (1964).

And Hemant Kumar gave his voice and music to the river in two other notable songs of the 50s. 

A fisherman out with his nets at night, is essentially Man in isolation under the star-filled universe and as he waits for his catch he muses upon his Maker and eternity, and his own place in it.....Bandish (1955) was Daisy Irani's debut film. She is a waif who 'adopts' Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari perforce as surrogate parents and gives them a tough time all through the film. It's all in a light vein under Satyen Bose's direction and in one sequence a harried Ashok Kumar finds himself with her by the river....setting the stage for a deeply philosophical song penned by Prem Dhawan, driving home one of life's important lessons to Ashok-babu's character....(note: that's Mehmood in one of his earlier screen appearances, as the boatman).

And it was a year before this last that the ever-eloquent Rajendra Krishan had penned this song of the river for Hemant Kumar in the Dev Anand-Geeta Bali starrer 'Ferry'. In the voiced introduction to the song, though, the accent is on the riverboat which is being borne by the waters and which ferries people towards one another and sometimes away. Again, the majhi (or the boatman) philosophises upon life in the universe.....The kid in the picture is Hemant Kumar's son Ritesh whom we saw briefly in 'Kacche Dhage' with Moushumi Chatterjee. He walked away with her in that film and also in real life and I, for one, have not heard of him since then.

As the 'Kabuliwala' in the film of the same name (1961) Balraj Sahni found himself in pretty much the same situation as that Chinese immigrant in Neel Akasher Neeche. Gurudev Tagore's immortal story of the Pathan from Kabul is heartbreaking to say the least and was transferred to celluloid with average results. Hemen Gupta directed the film under the Bimal Roy banner. The Khan reflects upon the song the holy man is singing upon the banks of the Ganga~the conversation between the two that follows, unfortunately missing from this clip, is one of the very moving sequences in the film.

This is very early Gulzar giving us flashes of the genius that was to come. And as eloquent as Salil Chaudhury's compositions are it is Hemant Kumar and Manna Dey who touch us with their rendering of the two pivotal songs in the film. Cameraman Kamal Bose has captured beautifully the dusk that shrouds the banks of the Ganga as the song wafts over to us in Hemant Kumar's voice...... 

I have long held a very fortunate opinion that when Majrooh Sultanpuri wrote his 'मचलती हुई हवामें छम छम हमारे संग-संग चले गंगा की लहरें' he was not just rising to an occasion that a bad Hindi film demanded. It is a बा-अदब  (respectful) bow that a gentle poet born under one faith makes in  acknowledgement of another, thus uplifting both. There is reverence in the voices of Lata and Kishore (her "सर को झुका  के नाम लो इनका " moves you emotionally) as they go through the three antaras in Chitragupta's fine melody, in praise of the waves of the Ganga.

However, Devi Sharma's direction of the visuals makes a mockery of the song and divests it of the dignity that Majrooh had imparted to it. Ergo, I will spare you the video showing Kum Kum and Kishore Kumar cavorting in the waters.

And one can never forget Manna Dey's monumental rendering of Indivar-ji's great lyric for Safar (The Journey), tuned by Kalyanji-Anandji.  Coming as it did in the wake of Hrishikesh Mukherjee's very gentle Anand that same year (1970), Rajesh Khanna more or less reprises his role in the earlier film as a cancer patient with the same tragic end. But as cliche-ridden as the earlier film was it was deep and soul-penetrating unlike this one saturated in bathos. Of course, that does not take away from the fine histrionics put in by both Sharmila Tagore and Rajesh Khanna, not to speak of Ashok Kumar and Feroze Khan in important roles. Indiver's poetry excelled in all the songs but especially in this chorus led by Manna Dey (a bit marred by Rajesh's sad soliloquy halfway) and the title song by Kishore. This one, however, seeks to philosophise as deeply as Indiver's other great poem for 'Anokhi Raat', taal miley nadi ke jalmein: the same river that is life, moving, rushing towards an unknown destination....

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Finally, it was the 50s. The age of Pankaj Mallik and Raichand Boral was coming to an end and the age of Shankar-Jaikishan and C. Ramchandra had set in. We were growing up with it. In time, dad would grow to love this new music of SJ and SDB and the rest, which was being permeated by the outside world, but he would still love the old guard. Pankaj-babu and KLS and Juthika Roy and Jagmohan and the rest would still have a fond place on the turntable. Because of this attachment that lingered in that generation (and Radio Ceylon--let's not forget that!), we of the new breed learned to listen to them all and be awed by them.

However, there was still one song left in Pankaj-babu and it came to us via the film 'Zalzala' (Earthquake-1954), which depicted the tepid underground stirrings in the country against the British, not that this is intended to belittle the revolutionaries (Gandhi's non-violence movement was stronger). It starred Dev Anand and Geeta Bali and that's all I remember of it.....that and Pankaj Mallik's deep chorus 'haiyyo, haiyyo' as the river makes its presence felt one more time. Ali Sardar Jafri's homage to a tottering mankind still in bondage is encouraging and the great, cadenced singing of composer Pankaj Mallik was deep....like the river .....

Ravi-अस्त

For some reason, I always wanted him to know that 'Gharana'  from 1961 would remain a milestone in  my film viewing experience not because it was an exceptionally well-made film (it wasn't!), but because it was my first movie away from school, when I was too young to even recognize Rajendra Kumar and Asha Parekh, leave alone Bipin Gupta and Raj Kumar! I was (still am) totally, madly in love with the Rafi-Asha duet 'जबसे तुम्हें देखा है आँखोंमें तुम ही तुम हो....'  penned by Shakeel Badayuni in that film, and wanted to see how it played out on the screen.            


Well, I never got around to telling Ravi that, even when he visited close friends of mine on an evening at their apartment in Bombay some odd years ago-I was on the other side of the world. One good thing about memories, though~you can always bring back the past.....this time, in tribute to a track from Filmfare's Best Music Award winning score.

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Of all the film personalities we have known in our time, music directors and lyricists deserve our utmost respect because despite what went on in the other departments of film making, including the silliness on the screen, it was often the composer and his right hand, the lyricist, who salvaged a film from the trashcans and led it, often in those days, to the coveted 25th Silver Jubilee Week. It was mainly thanks to them that we  music lovers remember our films, today.


Ravi Shankar Sharma (or Ravi as he was popularly known to us) who died the other day at a hospital in Bombay, was one such composer: a consistently dependable creator of hits who led films to success with simple but immensely melodious tunes, with uncomplicated arrangements. Not for him the 100-piece orchestra: just a telling display of the flute's virtuosity and the flourish of the sitar accompanying our singers was enough. He was, like C. Ramchandra, Hemant Kumar himself (his mentor) and a few others of that generation, a minimalist.

Did he compose better duets than this one during his long career? Immeasurably, both before and after it. For, long before he did Gharana, Ravi had already established himself as a composer of considerable stature since 1955, when he branched off from being Hemant Kumar's assistant (indeed, the cognisanti have often credited Ravi for the colossal success of the tracks from Filmistan's 'Nagin' ) and, encouraged by his mentor, became an independent music director with Devendra Goel's 'Vachan' and 'Albeli'. The first was a huge success musically speaking and we still remember that eternal tear jerker, the ultimate beggar's song, 'O babu, O babu, O janewale babu, ek paisa de de, penned by Prem Dhawan (with whom he would do more memorable work, later), and the lighter 'Jab liya haathmein haath, nibhana saath more sajna....' both in the joint voices of  Mohammad Rafi and Asha Bhonsle, the latter now firmly in the saddle thanks to OP Nayyar and his Mangu, the year before. Indeed, right upto the mid-60s and beyond, Asha would go on to record some of her best songs for Ravi, along with her phenomenal work for OP Nayyar! Her solo for Ravi in Vachan, 'Chandamama door ke....', can still be a treat for the kids......if one can find the track, that is, or the voice to sing it!

'Albeli'  boasted a couple of charming but now forgotten tracks: among them Hemant Kumar's rendering of 'Gori tujhe aana padega....' and the Hemant-Lata duet 'Muskurati hui chandani...' They still echo in the mind and reveal Ravi's penchant for poetry: he penned both the lyrics himself.

In 1957 he teamed up again with Devendra Goel in the Ashok Kumar-Madhubala starrer 'Ek Saal', and I believe this was the first rung in his steady climb to success. That very touching Lata-Talat tandem, 'Sab kucchh luta ke hoshmein aaye to kya kiya....' has remained a favourite down the years, as have the Lata solos 'chale bhi aao' and 'chhum-chhum chali piya ki gali...', and her never-never duet with Hemant-da 'ulajh gaye do naina....'  However, the song that stops your heartbeat in its tracks is Rafi-saab's iconic rendering of Prem Dhawan's 'kiske liye ruqa hai, kiske liye rukega, karna hai jo bhi karle yeh waqt jaa raha hai, yeh waqt jaa raha hai,' which talks about the relentless passage of Time. 




Years later (in 1965), both composer and singer would come together in a more powerful composition for Sahir's 'waqt se kal aur aaj, waqt se din aur raat, waqt ki har shai ghulam, waqt ka har shai pe raaj....'  driving home the vagaries of Time with a deep emotional impact, in BR Chopra's fatalistic 'Waqt'. While the rest of the tracks in that film were, unfortunately, below par, this theme song would sway our minds and soul forever.



Back in 1957, Ravi had one more collaboration with Devendra Goel, this time in the mythological 'Narsi Bhagat'  starring Shahu Modak and Nirupa Roy. Like all films with religious myth at the core this opus too was, well, unbelievable in a different way if you get the drift but also, like all mythologicals, it challenged both  composer and his lyricist, Gopal Singh 'Nepali', to give of their best. The result was a film that gave us 'bhajans' we still remember in the voices of Hemant and Asha and Sudha and Rafi, with the virtuoso we know as Manna Dey doing a reverberating solo version of 'Darshan do Ghanshyam....'





We all remember the charmers from 1958~films like 'Ghar Sansar' (bhala karnewale bhalai kiye ja and yeh hawa yeh nadi ka kinara)....a very young Rajendra Kumar and Kum Kum....




....and 'Dilli Ka Thug'  with its 'yeh raatein, yeh mausam nadi ka kinara, yeh chanchal hawa,  penned by Majrooh Sultanpuri and sung by Asha Bhonsle & Kishore Kumar.



However, it was Ravi's contribution in Pushpa Pictures and A.A. Nadiadwala's Ajit-Jayashree-Veena starrer 'Mehndi' (that same year) which opened new doors for him to a wider, more varied musical career. With this film he finally began to move from situational composing to mood composing. The film was a dated Muslim social, rich in poetry and the cultural nuances of the courtesan and Ravi came up with a subtle musical score evocative of a bygone era. The poets Khumar Barabanqvi and S.H. Bihari, the latter now a frequent collaborator, came up with striking ghazals and we remember poignant numbers like 'apne kiye pe koi pashemaan ho gaya' and the very wistful, lonely 'pyarki duniya lutegi hamein maloom na tha'  with a gentle sitar as the lead in, both rendered by Lata as only she could have. 

The piece de resistance, however, in my book is the Lata-Hemant duet 'bedard zamana tera dushman hai to kya hai, duniyamein nahin jiska koi, uska khuda hai....' so exquisitely rendered by both artistes it defies description. S H Bihari came up with a gentle lyric that preaches without prating. Indeed, a bard can drive home the point of the Almighty's existence in two lines: something that a professed man of God submerged in his own scriptural theories may not succeed in, in a lifetime. In this day and age we need gentle nudges of this type: religious philosophy more than religious dogmas....While Lata is extremely melodious, Hemant-da carries the ditty. It was this type of rendering that prompted Lata-ji to liken his singing to that of  a pujari chanting to his God at eventide!




It was, perhaps, his work in 'Mehndi' that drew Guru Dutt's attention to Ravi. That film maker was still reeling from the commercial disaster that was his 'Kaagaz Ke Phool' (1959) and launched his own Muslim social in 'Chaudhvin Ka Chand' (1960)--a sterling achievent in every way, with Ravi's new found lyricist, Shakeel Badayuni, walking away with top honours at the Filmfare Awards soiree for the best lyric, and Rafi as top singer for his rendering of the title song. (Psstt-The award for best music direction that year went to Shankar-Jaikishan for their totally undeserving (for once) score in Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai. Along with Ravi for 'Chaudhvin Ka Chand', there were better contenders for the award that year: Naushad-saab with his Mughal-e-Azam, for instance!

Anyway, Ravi came back the following year--winner of the Filmfare statuette for his music in Gemini's 'Gharana', along with Shakeel Badayuni who was voted once again best lyricist for 'Husnwale Tera Jawab Nahin', with Mohammad Rafi carrying off his own trophy for the same song. (PS: In all fairness, one does feel that Jaidev-ji deserved the award that year for his fine scoring of Navketan's 'Hum Dono'). Poet and composer went on to form a fine team and did good work together in films like 'Ghunghat' (1960), 'Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya' and Nartaki (1963), 'Door Ki Aawaz' (1964) and 'Do Badan' (1965) among others.

A very haunting song from the film 'Ghunghat' begs to be remembered at this point.....



Ravi's association with Rajendra Krishan was also memorable and as a team they were great together in films like 'Nazrana' (1961) 'Rakhi' (1962), 'Yeh Raaste Hain Pyarke' (1963-Sunil Dutt's disgusting take on the Nanavati trial of the time) and 'Khandan' (1965), the last earning him another award for Best Music Direction with Lata romping in with her very gentle 'Tumhi Meri Manzil', from that film. Among the other tracks in the film this Rafi-Asha duet is a standout....both of them in top form....



After the debacle of  'Dharmaputra', composer N. Dutta left the BR Films camp and Ravi was invited to replace him. Thus began a momentous association with that banner which commenced with 'Gumrah' (1963) and ended, I believe, with 'Niqah' (1982). Ravi thus began with Sahir Ludhianvi, that maverick amongst our film poets and resident poet of  BR Films, a relationship that would remain the longest in our filmdom with the possible exception of the Naushad-Shakeel tandem and the SJ-Shailendra-Hasrat powerhouse.


'Gumrah' told the story of love gone wrong, a triangle that left us all guessing and debating who, among Sunil Dutt, Mala Sinha and Ashok Kumar, was the real odd man out! Sahir Ludhianvi came in with some of his most overpowering and searing lyrics and Mahendra Kapoor's rendering of that poet's 'chalo ek baar phirse ajnabi ban jayen hum dono', finally brought recognition to him and he earned the first of two Filmfare awards that he would under Ravi's baton, the second being 'e neele gaganke tale', also penned by Sahir for BR's 'Hamraaz' (1967).

But as great and powerful as 'chalo ek baar' is as a lyric the tuning of that other fine ghazal from 'Gumrah', 'aap aye to khayal-e-dil-e-nashad-aya', remains a superior achievement, the unspoken fury of that other song being spent, and each of the three characters muses upon the affair: perhaps it was nobody's fault after all..... 




After the critical and popular acclaim for 'Gumrah', Ravi and Sahir teamed up in Vasant Joglekar's 'Aaj Aur Kal' in that same year and went on to earn more plaudits in films like 'Kaajal', 'Waqt'  and 'Bahu Beti' (1965), 'Neel Kamal'  and 'Do Kaliyan' (1968), 'Aadmi Aur Insaan' (1969), 'Dhund' (1973) and finally 'Amanat' (1975).

During this period Ravi continued his association with old faithfuls like Prem Dhawan in films like 'Pyar Ka Sagar' and Ek Phool Do Mali (1961 & 1969),  Asad Bhopali  in films like 'Tower House' (1962) and 'Ustadon Ke Ustad' (1963), S.H. Bihari in 'Apna Banake Dekho' (1962), Rajendra Krishan and Gulshan Bawra in 'Modern Girl' (also in 1961) etc.

The decade was drawing to a close and along with it the trends in film making that the old world knew and always craved for. However, Ravi's career was by no means over. He moved to the south where the realtionships that he had fostered in the 60s with studios like Gemini and AVM stood him in good stead. There, from what one hears, in the backwaters of filmdom where family themes still rule he did well, setting to music lyrics written in languages he was not familiar with, very much like his mentor, the great Hemant Kumar Mukherjee, had once done....history had drawn another full circle.


R.I.P.

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Finally, there was a time when we often despaired of ever being able to listen to beloved music like this, as the songs aged and began to fade from memory. We music lovers have to thank the various DVD companies like Shemaroo, Time, Ultra and Rafiology and others for uploading these songs for us in cyberspace and facilitating our own individual attempts to keep alive the songs for posterity.


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