Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs

Archive for the ‘Post by Sadanand Kamath’ Category


This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog. This is his 100th writeup in this blog.

Yesterday, Shamshad Begum hit a double century on this blog. That reminded me that I had missed writing an article on her on the occasion of her 93rd birth day on April 14th. Her songs of 40s, 50s and 60s are still remembered and some of them have reappeared in the guise of remix songs. At 93, she is the senior most playback singer amidst us. Manna Dey, the next senior most playback singer is 16 days younger to her.
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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.

KOHINOOR (1960) was a block buster film produced by Dr V N Sinha and directed by S U Sunny. Dilip Kumar and Meena Kumari were the lead actors in the film.
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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 find it interesting to compare the filmy careers of G M Durrani and Surendra Nath. Both of them were tall and handsome and amateur singers. While G M Durrani virtually ran away from his home town Peshawar for Bombay (Mumbai) to pursue a filmy career, Surendra came to Bombay after completing his education (B.A., LLB) to become a lawyer. But a chance meeting with Mehboob Khan in 1936 changed his career path and he became a singer-actor in his first film ‘Deccan Queen’ (1936). Because of his singing style, he was seen as a clone of K L Saigal. In fact, he was called ‘Bombay Saigal’ after his parody song birhaa ki aag lagi more man mein based on K L Saigal’s baalam aaye baso more man mein. G M Durrani also started his stint with the film industry around the same time (1935-36) as an actor-singer in ‘Saaed-e-Hawas’. After acting in a couple of films, he decided to concentrate on playback singing with his distinct voice which was not influenced by K L Saigal.
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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.

It is said that among the domesticated animals, dogs have a special bonding with human beings. They can anticipate their masters’ mind and act accordingly. During my childhood, we had cats as pet but not the dogs. However, we always had some street dogs around us who were like pets to us. While our pet cats’ loyalty was suspect, I always found street dogs around us very loyal. Theyalso had the ability of assessing the degree of our docility and act accordingly.
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Last week, I suddenly felt an urge to write an article on Shashi Kapoor whom I admire for being a different Kapoor from his two illustrious brothers – Raj Kapoor and Shammi Kapoor. He may not have the genius and business acumen of Raj Kapoor nor have the yahoo image of Shammi Kapoor. But he scored over his two illustrious brothers in that he was the most handsome among them. I remember a handsome and boyish looking Shashi Kapoor in ‘Waqt’ (1965). With his handsome and ever smiling face, he had a huge fan following during his hey days. He was different from his brothers on one more count – he married an English girl Jennifer Kendal who was associated with a theater group.
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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.

July 17th is the birth anniversary of Snehal Bhatkar ( 17/07/1919 – 29/05/2007), one of the forgotten music directors of the Hindi film industry. On his last death anniversary, I had written an article on him for this blog. So I would skip his profile. Snehal Bhatkar was a talented music director who, like many lesser known music directors, lost in the rigmarole of the Hindi film industry.
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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.

July 17th is the death anniversary of Kanan Devi (22/04/1916-17/07/1992). I had written an article for this blog on her last birth anniversary. So I will not go into her profile. She was one of the most beautiful and graceful actors of her time. She brought respectability to female actors. It is said that she was the highest paid film actors of her time and in one film, ‘Chandrashekhar'(1948), she was paid one rupee more than the remuneration paid to her lead actor Ashok Kumar. Sahir Ludhianvi, probably took a hint from her when he started demanding one rupee more than that paid to the music directors.
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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.

July 14th is the 37th death anniversary of the great maestro Madan Mohan ( 25/06/1924 – 14/07/1975). An artillery man in the army during the second world war, he aspired to become an actor in the Hindi film industry. After the end of second world war, he quit army and came to Bombay (Mumbai). He did act in a few films like ‘Shaheed’ (1948) but the almighty seemed to have already decided him to be a music director. His father, Rai Bahadur Chunnilal Kohli was a big name in the Hindi film industry ( being partner in Bombay Talkies and later Filmistan) in the 40s. But he was against his son joining the film industry. As a result, Madan Mohan had to struggle a lot to get an entry into Hindi film industry of his own efforts. He started his career as an assistant to music directors Shyam Sundar and S D Burman sometime in the late 40s.
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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 had played my 78 RPM record (No. N.52584) of the song ‘ajab hai daastaan teri ae zindagi’ from the film ‘Shararat’ (1959) umpteen times on my record player in my younger days. But it did not occurr to me at that time that there was something amiss about this song. It was much later I came to know that in this song, Mohammed Rafi had given playback for Kishore Kumar. .
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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.

This is the story of a 16 year old boy born in Peshawar in a conservative Pathan family for whom the association with film industry was a strict taboo. The boy was attracted to Bombay (Mumbai) as a destination. While listening to some Hindi film songs in one of the shops in Peshawar, a few of his friends coaxed him to try his luck as an actor in Hindi film industry since he had a good face. The fascination for Bombay coupled with the remarks from his friends were sufficient motivational factors for this youngboy to leave ( rather run away from) Peshawar for Bombay some time in 1935. The young boy was Ghulam Mustafa Durrani (1919-1988), later known in the Hindi film industry as G M Durrani, the playback singer.
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