RMIM Archive Article "252".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Off Record Melodies
#
# Original article
# Source: Indian Express, Friday, May 9 1997
# Author: Lata Khubchandani
# Copyright 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
#
# Followup 1: Ashok Dhareshwar
# Followup 2: Surjit Singh
#
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Off record melodies
Lata Khubchandani
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IMMORTAL MELODIES:
Waheeda Rehman in the famous Piya tose naina lage re number in
Guide. Have you ever heard a tape over and over again, trying to
find that haunting melody you heard in the movie? Have you ever
rushed out from a Hindi movie to buy its music cassette, only to
find half the songs missing? The song Bade bhole ho hanste ho
sunke duhayi kanhayi, from the film Ardhangini cannot be had for
love or money. So also, the song from New Delhi, Kanhayi tori
murli bairan bhayee.
For these songs, you have to prowl the by-lanes of Chor bazaar,
or Calcutta and Hyderabad's patli gullies. And only after sifting
through mounds of dust do you come across a musical find a stack
of old records which some unthinking owner had thrown away. Says
Atul Pendse, a collector, "It's strange that some very rare
soundtracks can be found with music lovers, but music companies
are not trying to unearth these and make them available. When I
was looking for the soundtrack of Saiyyan, made in 1951, no music
company had the music. I found someone who had it and managed to
get it after a long time. I recorded 30 cassettes and distributed
it to different people."
Earlier, recording companies gave the reason of shortage of disc
space. Songs had to be cut down to three-and-a-half minutes as
that was the time span a 78 RPM record could accommodate. Given
this, it became a rule to record songs twice once for the film,
that is, for the original soundtrack; and once for the recording
company. The result? Often one or two songs were cut off. Even
after the transition from the 78 RPM to the LP, the situation
remained the same.
And even CDs haven't changed that practice. Music buffs are look-
ing for missing antaras. Songs like Meri pyari Bindu, meri bholi
Bindu from Padosan, which was improvised on the sets of the film,
were never recorded on tape and are still missing. Piya tose
naina laage re from Guide is another example. Director Vijay
Anand says, "I recorded it as a 12-minute song against everyone's
advice. "I wanted this song to tell the whole story. But in the
record we had to cut it."
Recordings picked up from the original soundtrack reveal each
note, each nuance, every subtle fluctuation of the song. Music
picked up from LPs or cassettes do not have the same quality.
This is evident in the CD of the film, Naujawan. The Lata
Mangeshkar number Thandi hawayein lehrake aayen has been taken
from the original soundtrack and released by EMI. The song has a
colour entirely its own.
There are innumerable examples of songs which one has never heard
after seeing the film. In the film Deedar the famous number O
bachpan ke din bhula na dena by Lata/Shamshad was repeated by
Rafi at the end of the film, but one never hears it. In Sazaa,
the popular number Tum na jaane kis jahan mein kho gaye was dif-
ferent in the film and quite different on record. In the 1956
film Devta, C Ramchandra composed a fabulous number, Kisi se pyar
hai humko, which is not on records. There immortal moments on
celluloid that never make it to the audio version are the real
tear-jerkers of Indian cinema.
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Follow up-1
Posted by: ADhareshwar@worldbank.org (Ashok)
One update: 'SaiyaaN' is now available. I recently saw it on the
"sale" bin along with a few other hard-to-sell CDS (and some
mutilated CDs). I had already bought it at full price :(
The difficulty in selling albums such as 'SaiyaaN' would also
explain the state of affairs. As a thoughtful shopkeeper in a
cassette store in Bangalore told me: The market for good music
from the past is very thin. We should be happy for whatever lit-
tle there is of it. Howevermuch inadequate it may be, it
represents the labour of love by a nahdful of people at HMV. The
revenues from such projects are peanuts compared to a blockbuster
like 'DDLJ,' which HMV can't produce enough to meet the demand.
In other words, people get the music they ask for! The only I
hope I see for mining the past treasure, and in a manner it
should be, is specialty (hobby-ist) labels.
The author is right about the 'The Guide' song. The Sheer Magic
tape for the film does NOT have the full version of "piya tose".
Ashok
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Follow up-2
Posted by: Surjit Singh
According to the Second Edition of Vol III of the Geet Kosh, the
songs from saiyaan (1951) are available in the following media:
all 7 songs on a cassette STHV 43309 and CD: CDF 120292; some of
the other songs are individually available on CD's and cassettes.
I have a cassette entitled, "Saiyan & Hits of Sajjad Hussain"
STHV 43309 manufactured by HMV in 12/1991. It has 7 out of 8
songs of saiyan and 3 other sajjad creations. On the inlay card,
it says, "Source courtesy: Mr. Vinod Sonthalia and Mr. Sudhir
Dodwadkar". I probably bought the cassette in Bombay from Rhythm
House.
According to Har Mandir Singh, Vinod has many other rare records
that even HMV does not have and he gave the saiyan record to HMV
so that everybody can enjoy sajjad's heavenly music.
Clearly, the writer of the Express article does not even have the
Geet Kosh, a standard reference for Hindi Movie Songs!
Surjit Singh, a diehard movie fan(atic), period.
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From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian