Archive for the ‘Post by Sadanand Kamath’ Category
Saawan aaye ya na aaye
Posted on: August 22, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
In one of my earlier write-ups posted on this blog, I had mentioned that of late, my memories of childhood and younger days have become very sharp where as I tend to forget many events which had happened in recent years. Recently, I came across an article on reminiscence bump theory. It says that there are three stages of memories: (1) the period of childhood amnesia during which we do not remember the events that had happened during infancy to say up to the age of 5 years, (2) reminiscence bump is a tendency for older people to increasingly remember events that happened during 10 to 30 years of age and,(3) the period of middle age to old age, viz.over 35 years of age to the present period during which there is a tendency to forget the events. So my memory is working as per reminiscence bump theory :-). And I am not complaining because it helped me to remember and locate about half a dozen rare songs of 30s and 40s which have already been posted on this blog.
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Dil hai haazir leejiye le jaaiye
Posted on: August 19, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
August 19th is the 36th death anniversary of the Sahitya Akademy Award winner for Urdu poetry and Hindi film lyricist Jan Nisar Akhtar. In his last birth anniversary on February 14th, I had covered his profile while discussing the song main abhi ghair hoon penned by him. Suffice it to say here that such a talented Urdu poet born in the family of Urdu scholars and poets was not as successful as a lyricist as his contemporaries like Majrooh Sultanpuri, Sahir Ludhianvi and Shakeel Badayuni. From what I gathered from various websites, he appeared to be surviving more on his shayaris than from writing songs for Hindi films. He was wellknown for his repartee through his shers (couplets). During his filmy career of over two decades, he wrote only around 150 songs for the Hindi films.
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Bolo bolo kuchh to bolo
Posted on: August 16, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
When ‘Dil Deke Dekho’ was released in 1959, the only thing I remembered at that time about the movie was that it was a film in which Asha Parekh was introduced as a new heroine to pair with Shammi Kapoor. The film was a super hit and its songs became very popular. But little did I know at that time that the film’s songs were composed by a new music director called Usha Khanna. In fact, I carried a wrong impression for some time that O P Nayyar was the music director of this film. Even for her second film ‘ Hum Hindustani’ which was released in 1960, I thought that the music director was Dattaram, the music assistant to Shankar-Jaikishan. I carried these impressions as the music compositions of these two films were very close to the styles of O P Nayyar and Shankar Jaikishan respectively. After about 4 decades when I revisited her songs, mostly of 60s and 70s, I felt that she had developed her own style of music for the songs of her later films.
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Ek do teen chaar
Posted on: August 13, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Recently, I came across a duet song ‘ek do teen chaar’ sung by Asha Bhonsle and Kishore Kumar from the film MUQADDAR(1950). I remember this film in which the lead actor Nalini Jaywant had sung three songs in her own voice, one of which has already been discussed in this blog.
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Saanjh ki bela panchhi akelaa
Posted on: August 11, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
In this blog we have discussed three pairs of Hindi film personalities having more or less the same name leading to considerable confusion. Shyam vs Shyam Kumar, Shashi (chand) F. Kapoor vs Shashi Kapoor ,and Arun Kumar(Ahuja) vs Arun Kumar (Mukherji).
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Log mujhko khush samajhte hain
Posted on: August 6, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
I was aware of Behzad Lucknowi as a lyricist for the films mainly of the 40s. I found that he suddenly vanished from Hindi film industry after he wrote lyrics for a few songs in films released in 1951. Last week, I accidentally came across an audio clip of a ghazal sung by none other than Ghulam Haider from the film ‘Zamindar’(1942). This beautiful ghazal was written by Behzad Lucknowi. I was so touched by this poignant ghazal that I started looking for his other songs penned by him for Hindi films. Two songs among a few already covered in this blog were very familiar to me but I was not aware that those two songs were written by Behzad Lucknowi. Those two songs were : zindaa huun is tarah kigham-e-zindagi nahin, tumhaare bulaane ko ji chaahataa hai. After listening to these songs and the ghazal from the film referred to above, there was an urge in me to know more about Behzad Lucknowi. As it turned out, he was an interesting personality.
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Wo thhi ham thhe ham thhe wo thhi
Posted on: August 4, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
On the occasion of Kishore Kumar’s birth anniversary on August 4th, the wheel of time(kalchakra) takes me back to my teens when I used to listen to Radio Ceylon’s programme on old Hindi film songs. On the first day of every month, the first song that was played on this programme was din hai suhaana aaj pahli taarikh hai from the film ‘Pahli Taarikh’ (1954). That was the time when I came to know about Kishore Kumar as a singer. It was a revelation to me later from the film ‘New Delhi’ (1956) that he was not only a singer but an actor also. With his many subsequent films in 50s and early 60s, I had taken it for granted that he was a comedian who sang mostly fun songs and that too for himself.
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O saawan ke din aaye re
Posted on: August 2, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
I am familiar with the Hindi film ‘Sikandar-e-Azam’ (1965) which I had watched on Doordarshan long ago. How can I forget the iconic song “jahan daal daal par sone ki chidiyan karti hai basera” which used to be played on our Independent Day and the Republic Day. A few months back, I came to know that there was another film ‘Sikandar’ with the same story line which was released in 1941. The film was produced under the banner of Minerva Movietone owned by Sohrab Modi and directed by him. The star cast included Prithviraj Kapoor ( Sikandar), Sohrab Modi ( King Porus), Vanmala (Ruksana), Sheela, Meena Shorey ( Prarthhna, Kign Ambi’s sister), K N Singh ( King Ambi of Taxila) etc.
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Ye baat koi samjhaaye re
Posted on: July 29, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Sandhya Mukherjee is one of the relatively lesser known playback singers of 50s as far as Hindi film industy is concerned. But she has gone on to become one of the top most playback singers of Bengali films. I first came to know about her as a playback singer when I bought a 78 RPM record (No. N. 36794) of the film ‘Sazaa’ (1951) for the iconic song ‘tum na jaane kis jahaan mein kho gaye’. The other side of the gramophone record had “aa gupchup gupchup pyaar karen” sung by Sandhya Mukherjee and Hemant Kumar. When I first listened to this song, I felt that I got a bonus song along with the iconic song of the film.
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O pagle der na hogi palchhin ki
Posted on: July 27, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
In the late 60s, there was a time when I would watch one Hindi film almost every week-end in the theatre. The one aspect of the films which used to irritate me at that time was actors suddenly going into singing mode thus interrupting, like a speed breaker on the highway, the smooth flow of the narration. Some people would even walk out of the theatre as soon as the song started on the screen and come back only after the end of the song. Of course the audience would not do that when a song is melodious and well picturised.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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