Archive for the ‘NFS’ Category
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Recently, I listened to a song ‘is dil se teri yaad bhulaayi nahi jaati’ on YT sung by Mohammed Rafi. The song sounded familiar to me. My first impression was that this song was from an old film. But the uploader of the audio clip mentioned that it was a NFS composed by Hansraj Bahl. I never knew that Mohammed Rafi had sung any NFS under the baton of Hansraj Bahl. One of the regulars on YT whom I consider to be fairly reliable has mentioned that this song was written by Rajinder Krishan as he had heard his name being mentioned by the announcer on Radio Ceylon while playing this song. Since the composition as well as rendition of this song gave me an impression of a filmy song, I searched for other audio clips of the same song and got my hand on an audio clip where the uploader had claimed that the song was from the film ‘Kaneez’ (1949). The film had two music director – Ghulam Haider and Hansraj Bahl and the song was accredited by the uploader to Ghulam Haider-Hansraj Bahl.
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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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Pitu maatu sahaayak swaami sakha
Posted on: March 1, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
It is a tradition or convention in most of the schools that just before the start of the classes in the morning, students collectively sing a prayer. During my early school days – probably in 1952 or 1953, I remember, we used to sing a prayer ‘pitu maatu sahaayak swami sakhaa tum hi ek naath hamaare ho’. In the absence of public address system, the prayer used to be sung by 4-5 students from our class who had aptitude in singing and others in the class would sing with them in tandem.
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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.
If one browses through the Hindi films made in the 1940s, it will be observed that there were many lesser known music directors who had tried their luck in Hindi films. My guess is that the number of such lesser known music directors in the 1940s may be a close to 50. Sadly, most of these talented music directors could not sustain their careers for long in the Hindi film industry. This blog has covered songs of many of lesser known music directors of the 40s such as Neenu Majumdar, Shanti Kumar Desai, Shyambabu Pathak, Madhulal Damodar Master, Ramchandra Pal etc. V Balsara was one among such music directors who started his career in Hindi films but could not sustain it for long as a music director. But he changed the track of his career and became a famous instrumentalist, orchestra conductor, a music teacher and the music director of non-filmy songs and a few Bengali films during rest of his life. I became aware of his name in the 1970s mainly for his beautiful compositions of some non-filmy Hindi songs.
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Mere geeton ka singaar ho tum
Posted on: February 24, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Khayyam is one of the music directors of Hindi film industry who made a significant contribution in propagating the NFSs. By his own admission, he had started declining most of the offers for Hindi films’ music direction during late 50s and early 60s as he did not feel comfortable in working in such films in which interference of producers and distributors in music direction had become the order of the day. It was during this period that he devoted his time and energy in composing some of the finest NFSs especially with Talat Mehmood and Mohammed Rafi.
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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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Udd gaya bhanwra kali udaas
Posted on: February 11, 2013
This article is written by Sudhir, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
There are singing voices. Then there are voices that sing. And then there is SD Burman – affectionately Sachin Da, or just plain Dada, to most people in the industry, a voice that stands apart from everyone else.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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