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Welcome to the Naushad fan's Photo
Album!!
Ashkon se teri humne tasvir banaai hai
Ro ro ke mohabbat ki, taqdir banaai hai...
Thanks to Guri, Satish Subramanian, Kalyan Kolachala, Vish Krishnan and
Sreenivas Paruchuri for some of the pictures contained in this album.
Identify the RMIMers QUIZ
Here are two pictures, one from each of the two RMIM get-togethers. All you
have to do is match the name of the RMIMer with his/her picture. Sounds easy,
doesn't it ? Ok, here we go...
The following passage was written in a state of sleeplessnes by a Naushad and
Rafi FANdamentalist! Read on at your own risk... In case you don't feel like
going through my incoherent musings, you may skip it and click on the
highlighted text to view the pictures. The pictures were scanned from the
labels of film song cassettes (for want of better sources), and therefore you
may find unwanted items such as the cost of the cassette or the volume number
on them.
NAUSHAD
ALI, the Shehanshah-e-Mausiqui and my favourite music
director. There are many music directors whose music I adore. But, it
is Naushad's music alone which weaves a web of magic around me. I can,
and have been, listening to Naushad
Sahab's music forever. It is one of my life's greatest
ambitions to meet this grand
maestro. Naushad was known to compose his tunes on the piano
as seen in this
picture.
Another person whose talents never cease to amaze me is Mohammed
Rafi.. Among all the singers in the Indian film industry, Rafi
Sahab is my favourite. Here is one of the few pictures of Rafi
when he had a few hair still left on his balding head :-) Be it GHazals or
quawwalis, semi-classical geet or yahoo tunes, romantic numbers or sentimental
lamentations, Rafi was always at ease. As someone quite aptly described on
RMIM, he was a
singer with a smiling voice. Here is another picture of this great
man.
Other music directors:
After Naushad Sahab, Roshan
and Sachin
Dev Burman are next in my rating. S.D.Burman was perhaps the
only music director who managed to maintain the quality of his music
right till the very end of his career. C.
Ramachandra ranks next in my list of music directors. My only
complaint against Anna
is that he didn't think too highly of Rafi Sahab. Among the other
music directors, I have high regard for Khaiyyam and Madan
Mohan (doesn't he resemble Clark Gable in this pic ??). Both
these music directors were experts at composing beautiful tunes for
GHazals. Speaking of GHazals, here is a picture
of film singers who have many a good GHazal to their credit. A
couple of other MD's who had a unique style of their own were Salil
Chaudary and Jaidev.
Both of them had a distinct identity of their own. Naushad's
assistant, Ghulam
Mohammed, was an accomplished music director as well. Among
the more senior music directors, Anil
Biswas was
certainly a trendsetter and is credited with teaching Lata Mangeshkar
the art of breath-control while singing in front of a
microphone. Although I'm not particularly a big fan of Shankar-Jaikishan,
I have to
admit that they have contributed a lot to the Indian film industry.
From the second generation of MD's Rahul Dev
Burman is my favourite. His teamwork with Gulzar
has give us some truly melodious songs. The team of Laxmikanth-Pyare
lal, albeit being a bit inconsistent, deserve mention among the second
generation MD's along with Kalyanji-Anan
dji. Kalyanji-Anandji, as Abhay Avachat pointed out on RMIM, have hits
with almost all major male singers such as Rafi, Kishore, Hemant Kumar, Manna
Dey, Mukesh and even Mahendra Kapooor.
Here are some more pictures of music directors from the golden
era. Thanks to Kalyan Kolachala and Satish
Subramanian for scanning and editing the pictures. Thanks to Guri
for the picture of Khaiyyam.
Here's a nice picture of Lata in
the Anil Biswas kitchen!! Could you
spot the familiar Dalda Dabba in the foreground ? :-) I wonder if the third
person in the pic is Anil Da's wife Meena Kapoor ?
Other singers:
Among the female singers,Lata
Mangeshkar is my favourite. The "sharafat" in her voice is without
parallel. Lata and
Rafi are indeed my favourite female and male playback singers.
However, when it comes to duets, I find the Rafi-Asha to be equally good, if not better. The duets of Kishore
Kumar with Lata and Asha also rank right up there with the rest.
The Lata-Madan
Mohan is often eulogized for melody. Although I don't dispute the
accomplishments of this team, I often wonder as to why combinations such as
Lata-Naushad, Lata-S.D.
Burman, or Lata-Salil
Chaudary are not praised to such dizzy heights. Being a Naushad fan, I
find the Naushad-Lata combo to be one of the best ever.
Another singer I admire a lot is Noorjehan.Here is a
nice picture of the Maleka-e-tarannum along with Lata, Suraiyya and
Yousuf Sahab (Dilip Kumar)
Contrary to popular opinion on RMIM (a result of the annual RAFI/Kishore
"wars" :-) ), I am a BIG fan of Kishore. There were very few men who could match Kishore's talents in the film
industry. He was a singer, a music director, an actor and yes, even a
lyricist! The singing talents of this great
man, who had no formal training, can simply be termed amazing!
Asha
Bhosale is without doubt the most versatile singer in the film
singdom. The only reason I prefer Lata over Asha
is due to the sweetness in the former's voice. However, Asha's voice
was, IMHO, more suited for GHazals and quawwalis than that of her
elder sister. Another singer, who had a class of her own, was Geeta
Dutt. If you've heard the songs of films such as Mahal and
Bawra Naen, I'm sure you'll remember another great singer, Rajkumari.
Finally,
here's a picture of Lata with
the famous South Indian singer, P. Susila.
Manna
Dey was a flawless singer and a master of semi-classical
geets. The reason why Manna,
IMHO, didn't scale the heights he deserved was because of his voice
which didn't seem to suit young heroes. However, Manna
Dey remains one of the most accomplished singers of the Indian
film industry.Talat
Mehmood was the king of filmi GHazals. Although he had a limited
range, he excelled within it. Talat had
originally come to Bollywood to become an actor. Here's a picture of a young
Talat. He had a certain "dard" in his voice and along with Mukesh
was brilliant at slow numbers. Mukesh,
IMHO and contrary to popular opinion, had his best songs in non-Raj Kapoor
(and therefore non-Shanky-J) films. I love his songs sung under the baton of
Roshan and Kalyanji-Anandji.
Lyricists:
Sahir
Ludhianwi was the king of all lyricists. Sahir
has composed many wonderful GHazals, nazms, geets and
quwwalis. Another lyricist I respect is Kaifi
Azmi. He too has composed many a GHazal, geet and nazms. He
has some wonderful songs in the movie Haqeequat. Majrooh
Sultanpuri has been around since the 1940's and still churns
out quite a few popular songs. He was recently awarded the Babasaheb
Phalke award for his service to the Indian film industry. Here
is another picture of Majrooh sent to me by his biggest fan on
RMIM, Satish Subramanian. Shakeel
Badayuni was another
gifted lyricist who gave many a gem with Naushad. His non-filmi
GHazals are also immensely popular.
Here are some of my favourite songs penned by the above lyricists:
The first song is one of my many favourite Sahir songs. It's a duet sung by
Sudha Malhotra (S) and Mukesh (M). The manner in which Sahir captured deep
emotions in very simple terms is absolutely amazing!
S:
Tum mujhe bhool bhi jaao to ye haq hai tumko
Meri baat aur hai maine to mohabbat ki hai
Mere dil ki, mere jazbaat ki queemat kya hai
Uljhe-uljhe se quayaalaat ki queemat kya hai
Maine kyun pyaar kiya, tumne na kyun pyaar kiya
In pareshaan sawaalat ki queemat kya hai
Tum jo ye bhi na bataao to ye haq hai tumko
Meri baat aur hai maine to mohabbat ki hai
M:
Zindagi sirf mohabbat nahin kuchh aur bhi hai
Zulph-o-ruqsaar ki jannat nahin kuchh aur bhi hai
Bhook aur pyaas ki maari hui is duniya me
Ishq hi ek haqeequat nahin kuchh aur bhi hai
Tum agar aankh churaao to ye haq hai tumko
Maine tumse hi nahin sab se mohabbat ki hai
S:
Tumko duniya ke GHam-o-dard se fursat na sahi
Sabse ulfat sahi, mujhse hi mohabbat na sahi
Main tumhaari hun ye mere lie kya kam hai
Tum mere hoke raho ye meri quismat na sahi
Aur bhi dilko jalaao to ye haq hai tumko
Meri baat aur hai, maine to mohabbat ki hai
Tum mujhe bhool bhi jaao to ye haq hai tumko
Meri baat aur hai, maine to mohabbat ki hai...
The following is my favourite Kaifi GHazal, set to a beautiful tune by the
GHazal king, Madan Mohan. The last sher of this GHazal is outstanding!
Aaj socha to aansu bhar aae
Muddaten ho gee muskuraae
Har quadam par udhar muRke dekha
Unki mehfil se hum uTH to aae
Reh gaee zindagi dard banke
Dard dil me chhupaae chhupaae
Dil ki naazuk ragen TooT-ti hain
Yaad itna bhi koi na aae
Aaj socha to aansu bhar aae...
Here's my favourite Majrooh GHazal. The music is again composed by Madan
Mohan:
Hum hai mataa-e-koocha-o-baazaar ki tarah
UTH-ti hai har nigaah quariddaar ki tarah
Woh to kahin hai aur magar dil ke aas paas
Phirti hai koi sheh nigaah-e-yaar ki tarah
"Majrooh" likh rahen hai woh ahl-e-wafa ka naam
Hum bhi khaRe hue hain, gunahgaar ki karah
Hum hai mataa-e-koocha-o-baazaar ki tarah...
Finally, here's a beautiful GHazal by Shakeel from the film Son of
India. The music is composed by Naushad:
Zindagi aaj mere naam se sharmaati hai
Apni haalat pe mujhe KHud bhi hansi aati hai
Ek GHam chaen se jeene nahin deta mujhko
Ek uljhan hai jo aksar mujhe taRpaati hai
Is tarah chhoRke nikla hun main apni manzil
Jaise hasrat koi seene se nikal jaati hai
Raah chalte hue kuchh sochke ruk jaata hun
Har quadam par koi bhooli hui yaad aati hai
fan's Photo
Album!!