Archive for the ‘Ghazal’ Category
Chaand tanha hai aasmaan tanha
Posted on: March 31, 2013
This article is written by Sudhir, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
A remembrance of today that must include her own expressions. Mahajabeen was an emotional personality, and as with all emotional people, there is an expression of the artist in ways more than one. A poetess in her own right, she is known to have been writing couplets and ghazals from a very young age. And when her life started on downhill glide, it was the drink that became a faithful companion, and it was her pen that became an outlet for her to tell the world, about her sorrows and her wounds.
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Udaasiyon mein nazar kho gayi
Posted on: March 29, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Majrooh Sulatanpuri’s filmy career as a lyricist started with ‘Shah Jehan’ (1946) under the music direction of Naushad. In the same year, he also wrote lyrics for ‘Keemat’ (1946) for which Naushad was the music director. It was only after the success of ‘Andaz’ (1949) that Majrooh Sultanpuri got his foothold in Hindi film industry. Unfortunately, this success was short lived as he was arrested in 1949 for his anti-establishment poems. He was given an option of either to apologise or face two years of prison. He opted for the later. At the time of his arrest, he was writing lyrics for the film ‘Aarzoo’ (1950) and it was his first collaboration with the music director Anil Biswas. This film also became a hit and all the songs including the iconic song ae dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal became very popular.
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Jis raat ke khwaab aaye
Posted on: March 19, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular cotributor to this blog.
The name of Habba Khatoon, the Kashmiri poetess may not be familiar to many people. This name became familiar to me only sometime in 1987 when Muzzafar Ali ( of Umrao Jaan fame) announced his plan to make a film on the life of Habba Khatoon. Dimple Kapadia was taken for the title role with Vinod Khanna in the role of the first husband of Habba Khatoon. The title of the film was changed to ‘Zooni’, Habba Khatoon’s maiden name. The lyrics were to be written by Shahryar and Khayyam was to give the music direction. Muzzafar Ali believed that Zooni’s life was the powerful vehicle to project the real Kashmir. After nearly 20 months of shooting in Kashmir, the film was shelved in 1989 probably due to the rise of militancy in the Kashmir valley. I got my hand on a small video clip of the film on YT uploaded by Basheer Ali who was the Director of Photography for the film. From the content of the clip which also has a part of the song ‘rukh-e-dildaar deedam daras ko aaye preetam’ picturised on Dimple Kapadia, it appears that it was made as a part of marketing the film for international audience. The video clip is here.
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Dil e naadaan tujhe huaa kyaa hai
Posted on: March 18, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
In recent years, there has been a trend in Hindi film industry to make sequels of the box office hit films. Sequel films are said to be comparatively risk free as the success formula has already been tested. The earliest sequel film that I spotted on the internet was ‘Hunterwali Ki Beti’ (1943) which was supposed to be a follow-up of ‘Hunterwali’ (1935). I doubt whether the maker (Wadia brothers) of these two films ever thought in terms of a sequel but the story of the later film seems to be a follow up of the first film. Fearless Nadia (real name Marry Ann Evans) the first stunt heroine in the Indian film industry, John Cawas and Bhoman Shroff were part of the cast in both these films which were box office hits.
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Dahar mein naqsh e wafaa
Posted on: March 7, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath,a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
The year was 1947. Dilip Kumar, Anil Biswas and Lata Mangeshkar were travelling in a suburban local train to Malad where Filmistan Studio was located. During the journey, Anil Biswas introduced Lata Mangeshkar as a Maharashtrian girl who would be the singing star of tomorrow. Those days most of the Hindi film songs used to have more Urdu words than Hindi. Dilip Kumar retorted sarcastically. ‘A Maharashtrian? Her Urdu would not do justice to the song. My ears would tingle in shame’. These words stung Lata Mangeshkar so much that in the following morning, she started learning Urdu from an Urdu tutor just to prove Dilip Kumar wrong. This incident was revealed by Lata Mangeshkar in a private function at Dilip Kumar’s residence some time in 1970. Dilip Kumar in his characteristic style, replied that Lata Mangeshkar’s pronunciations and diction both in Hindi and Urdu are so clear and correct that now his ears tingle in shame for those remarks he made in 1947.
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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.
A few months back, I came across a non-filmy ghazal ‘asser-e-gham ka bhalaa phir kahaan thikaanaa thhaa’ sung by Kamla Jharia, a classical singer of dadra, thumri, ghazals and devotional songs. She was also an actor-singer and a playback singer mainly in 30s and 40s. I loved this ghazal so much that in token of my appreciation, I decided to write an article on this ghazal for which I was collecting background information on it. During this period, I came across another audio clip of the same ghazal on YT, sung by her. But this time, it was accredited to a Hindi film ‘Struggle’ (1936). So I put my plan to write an article on hold until I solved the puzzle of this ghazal being labelled both as non-filmy as well as a filmy ghazal.
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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.
My browsing through non-filmy songs on the internet for the last few months have been like a nostalgic journey in the down memory lane. Some of the NFSs I have listened to in the recent period took me back to 60s and 70s when I had heard those on the radio. I had completely forgotten some of them until I rediscovered them on the internet. My latest rediscovery of a non-fllmy ghazal is less than 24 hours old but I have already listened to it umpteen times and still listening. This Shakeel Badayuni’s ghazal is ‘nazar nawaz nazaaron mein jee nahin lagtaa’ sung by Shanti Hiranand, a well known classical vocalist and a disciple of Mallika-e-Ghazal Begum Akhtar. I has heard this ghazal many times in the 60s on the radio but had completely forgotten it until I came across the audio clip of this ghazal again.
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This article is writtten by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
The ghazal ‘ae mohabbat tere anjaam pe ronaa aayaa’ and Begum Akhtar are inseparable. If ‘deewaana banaana hai to deewaana banaa de’ (1925) heralded the arrival of Begum Akhtar as a ghazal singer, ‘ae mohabbat tere anjaam pe ronaa aayaa’ (early 1950s) consolidated her position in ghazal singing paving the way for her to be bestowed upon the title of ‘mallika-e-ghazal’ later. I came to know about Begum Akhtar in my younger days only because of this ghazal which was regularly played on the radio. The simple words in this ghazal with the captivating style of Begum Akhtar’s rendition attracted not only the connoisseurs of ghazals but also the commoners. No wonder, the sales of gramophone records of this ghazal attained the stature of a platinum disc.
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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.
When the techniques of song recording were first introduced in India by a few music record companies, there was some initial myths and superstitions associated with it. A few of the professional singers believed that song recordings reduced the life span of singers as the electric gadgets suck away the lung power. A few even went to the extent in saying that the microphone takes away all the good qualities of a singer’s voice. It is said that Kesarbai Kerkar, the classical singer did not record a single song for music companies during her life time. Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, the doyen of Patiala Gharana initially evaded recordings on some pretext or other but the underlying factor seemed to be the fear of losing the quality of his voice.
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Tumko fursat ho meri jaan
Posted on: February 15, 2013
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
My younger days were made more enjoyable by Talat’s songs. Though I was born and brought up in Hyderabad state- a Muslim ruled state(The Nizam was the king ruling on 85 % Hindu population….exactly opposite of Raja Harisingh of Kashmir ruling on 85% Muslims ! ), initially I was not much interested in Urdu Gazals etc. My interest in Urdu Gazals was ignited and further nurtured by by the way Talat sang them.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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