"Pacific Duets - IV"

 #421

         Song:   dil leke chhupnewaale, tuu hai kahaan bataa de
                 suurat nahiin dikhaata, aawaaz hi sunaa de

         Film:   Paras (1949)
         Singer: Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi
         Music:  Ghulam Mohammed
         Lyrics: Shakeel Badayuni
         *ing:   Rehman, Kamini Kaushal, Madhubala
 

 Music director Ghulam Mohammed's death anniversary passed recently (Mar 18).
 Today's pacific duet, a tad delayed due to arbitrary JDBC woes, is dedicated
 to his memory.

 This inaugural, and rather brief song wafts like a zephyr of soft melody in
 the early moments of the movie, picturized on the lead pair in a quiescent
 moonlit garden setting. It sets the stage for a delightful spectrum of tracks
 in this movie that I discussed briefly a while ago. A very charming
 intermingling of lines between the male and female voices, as if in the
 course of their conversation, they suddenly lapsed into song and continued
 talking. If only Kamini Kaushal were a little more convincing in her
 emotiveness and Rehman a little less preppie, it would have been an equal
 treat to watch and hear.

 Ghulam Mohammed's music in Paras sounds like a 50-50 mix of Naushad and
 Husnlal-Bhagatram. Some of Rafi's slow numbers, like "dil ki lagi ne
 humko diiwaana karke chhoda" are very reminiscent of his Husnlal-Bhagatram
 weepies from "Badi Bahen", etc.

 Shamshad has got some very good footage in this movie too - including a
 delightful duet with Rafi picturized on the ubiquitous Cuckoo : "man doley ho
 man doley man doley nadi kinaare", a riverside group song sung by a legion of
 "dhobi"s.