Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.misc Path: ns1.cc.lehigh.edu!netnews.cc.lehigh.edu!netnews.upenn.edu!msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!murdoch!uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU!an4m From: nuts@virginia.EDU (Nuts) Subject: Talat Mehmood - The Silken Voice Message-ID: Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU Organization: University of Virginia Computer Science Department Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 16:23:54 GMT Lines: 83 Huge Disclaimer: All my opinions! None based on any facts. Of the six prominent singers of yesteryear - Rafi, Kishore, Mukesh, Hemant Kumar, Manna Dey and Talat Mehmood - perhaps the least known was Talat Mehmood. While the popularity of the first three was beyond doubt, not many avid listeners of film music would come out very strongly in favour of Talat. Hemant Kumar shone as a music director too while Manna Dey's felicity at the more classical songs was something even the multi-faceted voice of Rafi could not match. In contrast, Talat Mehmood stood alone. His forte was the ghazal and he sung them with a rare passion and feeling. Compared to Rafi, Talat's renditions lacked the ease, the display of skill that Rafi put in, but Talat's was the voice that sounded like wine poured into a goblet. His was the voice (and I refer to it in the past tense because he rarely sings any more) that encompassed the pain of unrequited love - a love that does not hold any bitterness for the unresponding other, but just wishes to be like the moth drawn inexorably to the flame. Listen to jalte hain jiske liye teri aankhon ke liye dhoondh laaya hoon wohi geet main tere liye dil mein rakh lena kiske haathon se yeh toote na kahin geet naazuk hai mera sheeshe se bhi toote na kahin The delicateness in that voice is not something that a "macho" hero would like to have, but it fit admirably into the kind of role that Dilip Kumar used to play. The lover with the deep-seated pain, the anguish, but yet completely besotted as in yeh hawa yeh raat yeh chaandni teri har adaa bemisaal hai mujhe kyon na ho teri aarzoo teri justjoo mein bahaar hai The archetype of the hero who is basically a gentle person, not exactly the type who would take on the whole wide world is what came through in his songs. andhe jahaan ke andhe raaste jaayen to jaayen kahaan It is a feeling of helplessness, a feeling that falling in love is in some way the road to pain, but let me enjoy it while it lasts dil-e-naadaan se hua kya hai Somehow I have ever felt that Talat Mehmood's is the voice I would hear on one of those lonely evenings, hitting the bottle with the rain lashing outside. phir wohi shaam wohi tanhaai hai And when the loneliness became too much to bear, it would have to be shaam-e-gam ki kasam aaj ghamgeen hain hum aa bhi jaa, aa bhi ja mere sanam shaam-e-gam ki kasam And as night draws and the pain intensifies, raat ne kya kya khwaab dikhaaye rang bhare sau jaal bichaaye Talat, it seemed made a cardinal mistake in insisting that he be given roles in films if he was to sing. Perhaps that accounted for his not being so popular as the others. It seems a shame that the man whose voice could make the steeliest of hearts weep a little should be condemned today to a life of relative obscurity but then such it is. zindagi denewaale sun teri duniya se dil thak gayaa main yahan jeete ji mar gayaa zindagi denewaale sun -- ______ /_____/\ / \ \ / __ \ \ / / \ \/ ______________ \ \__/ / | | | | \ / | | | | \______/ |__|________|__|