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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