Song:    meri ho gayi unse baat
                main unki huun, haan, vo mere hain
                meri ho gayi unse baat

       Film:    1857 (1946)
       Singer:  Suraiya
       Music:   Sajjad
       Lyrics:  Sheven Rizvi
       *ing:    Surendra, Wasti, Suraiya

This song flatly disproves Sajjad's own claim that only Lata could sing
his songs (well, his contention was much bolder in scope... (quote)"Lata
sings, all others make a miserable effort"(unquote) ).  Here is a
signature Sajjad tune, set in a welter of offbeat rhythms and spasmodic
violins, and fraught with gaps, just plain gaps in the vocals... I don't
think more than three words are sung in a single breath all along the
song. The kind of composition that invests heavily in the talent of the
vocalist... think of tunes like 'bhool ja ae dil muhabbat ka fasaana',
or 'jaate ho to jaao hum bhi yahaan...' (both Lata tunes, composed by
Sajjad, IIRC both from KHEL).

And Suraiya triumphs... on all fronts. She succeeds in underlining the
appeal of the alternative tune by singing it in the only way it needs to
be sung. I've heard a lot of singers sing Sajjad songs, and very few
came close to capturing the essence of his arcane tunes (most of them
anyway)... I think not even Asha could capture the nuances very well in
RUKHSAANA. Lata, Rafi, Talat and of course Noor Jehan (who sang Sajjad's
first film song in Dost in 1944) were some ofthe few who could really
harness the beauty in his compositional convolutions. Or so I thought,
until I heard songs from this lesser known soundtrack, which, going by
its name, must be set against the backdrop of the Great Mutiny? A whole
bunch of lovely Suraiya and Surendra tracks on this one, out of which,
to the best of my knowledge, only one has been released commercially -
'teri nazar men main rahuun, meri nazar men tuu', a Surendra-Suraiya
duet.
 

..Hrishi