RMIM Archive Article "259".

From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: The RMIMeet Chronicles and MDs copying each other.
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# Posted by: Satish Subramanian (subraman@cs.umn.edu)
# Author: Satish Subramanian (subraman@cs.umn.edu)
#




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			MDs copying each other
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[Context: A discussion in one of the RMIM meets about songs sounding
	  similar to each other]

> After much pushing and prodding from Ashok, here for your reading
> pleasure is an account of two episodes from the RMIMeet that were
> neglected in earlier commentaries.

> The Trial by Jury [...] in order to differentiate photocopying someone
> else's work from merely glancing at it over one's shoulder. First on
> the stand were :

> 1. tu pyaar ka saagar hai (Seema, Manna Dey, Shankar Jaikishan)
> 2. maanasa vaire vare     (Chemmeen, Manna Dey, Salil Chowdhury)

> SalilC was found innocent of all charges. Except for a couple of
> snatches here and there, no cause was found to declare 2 to be a copy
> of 1. Satish Subramanian who imagined some similarity in these songs
> was asked to pay costs to both the parties. Sami wrote a dissenting
> note to this judgment when he said that there was a definite flow of
> inspiration from 1 to 2 which came as a surprise to those who were
> familiar with this jury member's ideological leanings. 

Alright! :) Let's assume that I did imagine some relation between the
songs. Now what did you 'imagine' when you wrote "snatches here and
there"; what did Sami 'imagine' when he said there was a "flow of
inspiration"; and what did Pradeep 'imagine' when he wrote "Salil song
starts off sounding similar to the SJ song"? Also I never said Salil
had copied the "Seema" song.  This is what I wrote:

	> "Chemmeen" had another great song by Manna Dey which is based
	> on a Shankar-Jaikishan's tune. It was the bhajan tune from the
	> movie "Seema"- 'tu pyaar ka saagar hai, teri ik boondh ke
	> pyaase hum'. Sung again by Manna Dey. (Even the strongest of
	> SJ-haters on RMIM, if you recall, had openly admitted to
	> liking this song. No wonder even Salil liked it :).

	(Hey, I even got Sami's musical leanings right. :) 

I am beginning to wonder if the "pushing and prodding from Ashok" was
just to give a start to this article or...? :) Anyway, with a hung
jury, who passed that premature judgement?  Hope it is taken back.
Hmm, what was that motto - "Have many convictions, but never get
convicted," was it? :)

> 1. kya mil gaya Bhagwaan tumhein (Anmol GhaDi, Noorjehan, Naushad)
> 2. de di humein aazaadi bina khaDg (Jagriti, Asha, Hemant Kumar)

> "Hemant copied", he said. And that was also the unanimous verdict of
> everybody present although we didn't use such strong language. I
> felt it was a tribute from one talented composer to another.

Going by "snatches here and there" definition, I think the song from
"Bazaar" (MD: Shyam Sunder) "apne nazar se door ho" (Lata-Rafi) has
something in common with the song "socha tha kya kya ho gaya"
(Suraiyya; Anmol Ghadi). And the similarity between "tera khilona
TooTa balak" (Rafi; Anmol Ghadi) and "yeh hai duniya ka bazaar" (Rafi;
Bazaar again) was mentioned by Chandel recently on RMIM.  I am sure
Naushad must be overwhelmed by all these 'tributes' for his "Anmol
Ghadi"!

Talking about 'tributes', not so long ago Ikram wrote in a "MDs
copying each other" thread:

> Even Naushad pays tribute (probably unconsciously) to SC's Aja re o
> pardesi in Guddu's song "Selena" {Wow, ek hi song meN tribute to
> SalilC and tejano singer Selena bhi?? :)}. The stanzas have some
> notes at the very end which are similar to the aja re o pardesi
> song. mHo. Most probably I would say that Naushaad must have liked
> that song greatly and it came out naturally from his sub-conscious.

There is unmistakable similarity between the songs "hum do panchhi 
uDe gagan mein.. Selena.." (Guddu; Naushad) and "aja re pardesi"
(Madhumati). The tunes are similar in the stanzas of the two songs,
esp. in the lines:

	"aao chalen aakash ke peechhe
	jungle parbat paaon ke neechhe
	uDte rahen ham ankhen meechhe"
		(Sanu and Devki in "hum do panchhi")

In the movie "Papa Kahte Hai" too Rajesh Roshan uses the "aja re
pardesi" tune a little bit in the lines:

	"gajra sajaaye mehkaaye aanchal
	 aankhon mein leke sapnon ka kaajal"
		(Sanu and Poornima in "aaha ham dulhan waale")

Talking about "Guddu" and "Papa..", how can one forget "Guddi", where
the entire Madhumathi song was replayed? Why was it included verbatim?
They had a nice line before the song, to justify its inclusion, "Sing
a film song, only those are popular nowadays" or something to that
effect.  I am sure there are more songs that belong to the family of
songs inspired by the "Madhumati" song.

Talking about family of songs, perhaps the most famous (at least on
RMIM) is the "saagar kinaare" family.  It starts with S.D.Burman's
"thandi hawaayen leharake aaye" (Lata, Naujawan).  This SBD tune was
taken by Roshan to make his "rahe na rahe ham mehka karenge" (Lata,
Mamta). R.D.Burman once wrote about this song in an article:

	Roshan said to me "You know what I've done? I've taken the
	metre of Dada's Naujawan composition, 'thandi hawaayen lehra
	ke aaye', just changed the tune and turned it into 'rahen na
	rahen hum'!". 

	What a beautiful tune! Yet the metre had been provided by Dada!


The same metre appeared in Madan Mohan's "yehi hai tammana tere ghar
ke saamne" (Rafi, Haqeeqat). This then became RDB's "hamen raaston ki
zaroorat nahin hai" (Asha, Naram Garam) which Pradeep mentioned
recently on RMIM.  Finally (?) it was used again by R.D.Burman in
"saagar kinaare dil ye pukaare" (Kishore, Saagar). 

Another well-known pair is Sajjad's "yeh hawa yeh raat yeh chandni"
(Talat, Sangdil) and Madan Mohan's "tujhe kya sunaaon mein dilruba"
(Rafi, Aakhri Dao). Ravi's "zara sun haseena ai nazneen" (Rafi) from
"Kaun Apna Kaun Paraya" also seems to be inspired by this Talat-Sajjad
song.  In his career, Sajjad had just a handful of songs, yet that
didn't stop the other MDs from looking for inspiration there.  Doesn't
Naushad's "gham ki andheri raat mein" (Rafi-Talat duet) sound a little
similar (at least at the beginning) to Sajjad's "dil mein samaa gaye
sajan" (Talat, Lata; Sangdil)?

The "Papa Kehte Hain" song "mujhse naraaz ho to ho jaao" (Sonu Nigam),
was based on Madan Mohan's "baad muddat ke ye ghaDi aayi, aap aae to
zindagi aayi" (Suman, Rafi; Jahan Ara). Before using it in "Papa Kehte
Hain", Rajesh Roshan had already used the same tune in "paas ho tum
magar qareeb nahin" (Lata; Lootmaar). So you have another family of
songs there.

C.Ramchandra's "eena meena deeka" (Asha) inspired a bunch of songs,
like CAT cat maane.. in "Dilli Ka Thug". Then there is the Muqabla
family of songs ('Mukaala Muqabla laila', 'O jaaneman chehra tera
jadoo', 'Muqabla hai pyar ka', 'Mukkala muqabla hoga').  Apparently
the song "Channa jor garam baabu" also has a set of related
songs. Anyone with the details?

Madan Mohan's "main nigaahen tere chehre se hataoon kaise"(Aap Ki
Parchaiyaan) seems to have the same tune as Jaidev's "kabhi kud pe
kabhi halaat pe rona aaya" (Hum Dono).

A Filmfare reader wrote about a program on Vividh Bharati which used
to play similar sounding songs back-to-back, without mentioning which
was the original. The reader mentioned some of the songs that were
played in that program which I repeat here without verifying (I just
added the year of the film where ever possible).

1.	Roshan's "gusse se jo" - Dil Hi To Hai 	  - 1963 - Mukesh
 	Chitragupta's "muft hue badnaam" - Baraat - 1960 - Mukesh

2.	Bappi Lahiri's "saiyaan bina" - ? - Lata, Bhupindar
	R D Burman's "tere bina jiya" - Ghar - 1978 - Lata

3.	Hemant Kumar's "kahan le chale" - Durgesh Nandini - 1956 - Lata
	Shankar-Jaikishan's "kahan ja raha hai" - Seema   - 1955 - Rafi

Looks like there are many 'tributes' to SJ's "Seema"!

In recent times it is not rare to find two different songs on the same
top-ten list to have the same or similar tune!

To end, here is one interesting case of a 'flow of inspiration' going
from S.D.Burman's "sar jo tera chakraaye" (Rafi; Pyaasa) to Anu
Mallik's "ruk ruk ruk" (Alisha; Vijaypath).

Alisha's song goes:

	ruk ruk ruk,
	arre baba ruk
	o my darling,
	gimme a look!

While Rafi sings (a few lines after the start of the song):

	sun sun sun,
	arre raja sun
	is champee mein,
	baDe baDe gun!

:)
--
bye
satish

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From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian