Archive for 2012
Ye kyaa zindagi hai
Posted on: March 31, 2012
This article is written by Pradeep Raghunathan, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a new contributor to this blog.
There is one day of the year that most of us Indian’s are not very happy about, and that date is today, 31st March, when we need to make sure we have filed our tax returns and submitted it. For some reason, you find every one in India very busy during the month of March, as they are busy collecting documents and filing their taxes. Coming to think of it, even the IPL waits for this March madness to complete before it starts on the 4th of Apr :).
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
I was not aware of the film MERA SALAAM (1957) until few days back when I came across while searching for some songs on a website. This was a period film produced under the banner of Sushil Pictures and directed by Harbans. Bharat Bhushan and Bina Rai were in the lead roles with Veena, K N Singh, Gope, Durga Khote, Nishi, Cuckoo in supporting roles. The film had some lovely songs which were written by Sheven Rizvi and set to music by Hafeez Khan. Some of the song’s orchestration appear to be somewhat different than what is normally heard in the songs of that period. For example, the song ‘husn kehte hain mujhe’ probably depicting a mushaira competition between Bharat Bhushan and Bina Rai is rendered without the use of any musical instrument. Then, it has a nasheed ( Islamic devotional song) ‘madinewale se mera salam keh dena’ sung by Mohammed Rafi, Bande Hasan and others, the composition of which, in my view comes close to the qawwali style.
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Mujhe kuchch kehna hai
Posted on: March 30, 2012
This article is written by Ava Suri, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a new contributor to this blog.
In the early 70s Bangalore was heaven on earth. It was a city you could walk around in, full of gardens and broad sidewalks. If you were a movie lover, this was the place to be. My best friend Aruna lived a few houses away from me, we were constant companions to each other. A short distance from our house was Kempegowda Circle, or KG Circle, that was like a jungle of cinema houses. There were times when we found an empty ticket window, bought a couple of tickets, got into the hall and asked people in seats next to us about the movie that was playing. Some of the halls were so close together, it was hard to figure out where we were.
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This article is written by Sudhir, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
The past two three weeks have been somehow overtly busy and a run around for me, and I must apologize that I have not been very regular in writing and posting. Just too many things seem to be happening on the domestic and professional front, and time is at a premium. Being connected to email most of the time, I do follow the posts on email, all the day, but have been delinquent in responding regularly.
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“Inspector” (1970) was a movie which was produced by Chand and directed by S K Kapoor. The movie had Joy Mukherjee, Alka, Helen, Rajendra Nath, Kiran Kumar, Zeb Rehman, Samina, Murad, M.B. Shetty, Asha Nadkarni, Jayant etc in it.
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
FARIYAAD (1964) was produced and directed by Kidar Sharma under the banner of Show People. Ashok Sharma ( son of Kidar Sharma) and Zeb Rahman (also known as Preetibala) were in the lead roles with Ashok Kumar, Achala Sachdev, Dilip Dutt and Tuntun in the supporting roles. I remember to have read the reports in some of the film magazines at that time about propping up of Preetibala (Zeb Rahman) as another Madhubala in the making taking advantage of the resemblance of her face with that of Madhubala.
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Shama pe aake o parwaane
Posted on: March 30, 2012
This article is written by Sudhir, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Given that during most of the 50s, C Ramchandra was very favorably inclined towards Lata, I was just wanting to find out what is the earliest that he had used the voice of Asha Bhosle. I did a quick scan of the films for which C Ram has composed music, in the Geet Kosh, from 1950 onwards. And unless I made a mistake in my scanning, the film ‘Meenaar’ in 1954 seems to be the first time that Asha Bhosle has sung for C Ramchandra. If not mistaken, then this is likely the first such occasion.
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“Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kyaa” (1963) was a Vikram Productions movie. It was directed by B S Ranga. The movie had Shammi Kapoor, B. Saroja Devi, Pran, Prithviraj Kapoor, Om Prakash, Agha, Helen, Shobha Khote, Nazir, Hussain, Pushpawalli, Rukmini Devi etc in it.
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This article is written by Sudhir,a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Rewinding back to 1950. The earlier year, 1949, had proved to be a golden year for music and songs in Hindi films. Many a memorable films and many many memorable songs got released in this year, and many relatively new artists got launched on hugely prolific careers. Some writers accord the period from 1949 to 1952 as the best period of music in Hindi film industry. But one voice was relatively unheard. A very new singer by the name Asha Bhosle, was just fledgling, and a career that was still to take a shape. Sixty one years hence, she would be celebrated as the most recorded singer in history. But back, in 1949 and 1950, you could count her songs on your fingers. All of sixteen years old at that time, and already saddled with turbulent personal affairs, no wonder that she did not have many songs to her credit in this golden period of Hindi film music.
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
‘Ghazab kiyaa tere waade pe aitbaar kiyaa’ is a famous ghazal written by Daagh Dehlvi. Ever since I heard this ghazal sung by Mohammed Rafi for the first time in late 60s, I am spellbound by his rendition. In fact, I scouted for a gramophone record in 78 rpm of this song in early 70s and I was able to get a brand new record. I must have played this record many times and now I can tell which points Mohammed Rafi takes a momentary pause while singing this ghazal. This non-filmy ghazal was set to music by Khayyam. This ghazal has also been sung by many well known singers of thesub-continent such as Mehdi Hasan, Pankaj Udhas, Mallika Pukhraj, Farida Khanumand many more. With due respect to all these singers who are numero uno in their own rights, I still prefer to listen to Mohammed Rafi’s version.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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