Month: February 2018

Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music – February, 2018

Welcome to February, 2018 edition of Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music.

We begin our February, 2018 episode with Bharat Darshan – Bharat Darshan in Songs (1): Small towns  followed by Bharat Darshan in Songs (2): Metros. Once we tour India, how can we be satisfied without having a look Around the World in Songs.

Knowing fully well that a mere mention of the these tours will not suffice, I have selected one song from each post to taste the potentials of these tours

Tum Dilli Main Agra Mere Dil Se Nikle Haaye – Pahle Aap (1944) – Shyam Kumar and Mohammad Rafi – Naushad  – DN Madhok

Bombay Purani Kalkatta Purana – Umar Qaid (1961)   Mohammad Rafi and Kamal Barot – Iqbal Qureshi – Hasrat Jaipuri

Ek Din Lahore Ki Thandi Sadak Par Shaam Ko Ja Rahe The – Sagai (1951) – Chitalkar, Rafi and Shamshad Begum – C Ramchandra  –  Rajendra Krishna

Around the World in Ten Songs also is an off-shoot of the aforementioned Bharat Darshan posts. There are songs—the ones shot abroad—merit a separate post, because so many of them (Akele-akele kahaan jaa rahe ho, O mere shahekhubaan, Raat ke humsafar, Aye meri zindagi tu ajnabi toh nahin, etc) have little to do with the place itself. The present list is limited to the songs that actually name a city or town, whether or not the song itself is shot there, e.g.  Bade Bhaiya Laaye Hain London Se Chhori  – Ek Hi Raasta, (1956) – Asha Bhosle – Hemant Kumar – Majrooh Sutanpuri

And, now, we take up the tributes in January (post-our January, 2018 issue) / February, 2018:

The first five posts are w.r.t. the Valentine Day.

Valentine Day also is the birth date of Madhubala.

The Many Moods of Madhubala – On her 85th birth anniversary on 14th February, 2018 – Her obvious beauty blinded people to her talent, and her ill-health didn’t allow her much of a chance to explore roles that might have rewarded her latent talent.

Barsat Ki Raat Part 1: A Musical Romance – On the occasion of Valentine’s Day, and the birthday of Hindi films’ Venus, Madhubala, Monica Kar revisits the classic musical Barsat Ki Raat 1960, exploring the evergreen memorable songs and scenes of this delightful romantic story. [We will include the Part II of the article in our next episode.]

Happy Birthday Suman Ji! presents her representative solo songs on her 81st birthday on 28th January, 2018.  This is followed up with Suman Kalyanpur – Duets. I have picked up a duet with Mohammad Rafi from her one of the first films just after her marriage:

Jara Thahero Abhdul Gaffar Rumal Mere Leke Jaana – Satta Bazar (1959) – Kalyanji Anandji – Gulshan Bawra – The tune is composed on Gujarati Garba folk song tune.

The Many Moods of Waheeda Rehman – a ‘song’ tribute to Waheeda Rehman on her 80th birthday (3rd February, 2018), songs that she sang on screen presenting her in a different mood and/or emotion.

OP Nayyar — Music Alchemist  –  In a tribute to the legendary music director OP  Nayyar, Silhouette presents a unique collection of essays curated by noted musicologist and author Manek Premchand, admin of the RTS group. The group draws its name from Manek’s book ‘Romancing the Song’, an in-depth encyclopedic lyrical journey through the history of the Hindi film song.

Khayyam: The Poets’ Musician – The earnestness, the depth and the genius of Khayyam led to the creation of masterpiece ghazals, songs and nazms that are among the most beautiful melodies in Hindi film music. Vijay Kumar explores a few of Khayyam’s everlastings songs on the music maker’s birthday on 18th February, 2018.

Pankaj Mallik-The Singer,Composer Admired By Rabindranath Tagore – The credit of taking Tagore’s songs and music, which have come to be known as ‘Rabindra Sangeet’, to the masses goes to ‘Mukti’.

Zindagi Bhar Nahin Bhoolegi: Bharat Bhushan’s Unforgettable Singer-Poet Musicals – By Peeyush Sharma – Bharat Bhushan’s educated, decent, quiet and humble personality made him excel in unforgettable musicals as historical singer-poet or romantic shayar.

February, 2018 episode of Fading Memories, Unforgettable Songs is dedicated to: Talat Mahmood’s Duet Combinations with Rare Co-singers. I plan to follow the practice of following-up one artist every month every year. E.g. Our present episode is follow-on post to the February, 2017 episode: ‘Some of the Talat Mahmood Duets receding from the memory’.

And, now the posts on other subjects:

The mesmerizing Qawwaalis from Hindi movies – Listening to a good Qawwaali may take you into a state of trance. Bollywood movies have carried the Qawwaali tradition a long way through several memorable Qawwaalis.

Bombay Returned is Manek Premchand’s maiden article as far as this blog carnival is concerned.  The post looks at many actors, singers, composers or filmmakers who came to Bombay to try their fortunes in Hindi films, only to go back to where they were known better through the prism of lens of their Hindi Film Songs.

Great Theme Music of Bollywood – Theme music is a piece that is often played during the intro, opening credits and/or ending credits. This music is a Signature Music of a Film. For example – Alaap at the end of a musical piece from ‘Pakeeza’. In the early years of radio and television, celebrities often had a signature song associated with them that became their theme.

‘Bandini’ is about crossings real and imagined, literal and metaphorical – Rudradeep Bhattacharjee – Gulzar made his debut as a lyricist with the 1963 Bimal Roy classic, starring Nutan, Ashok Kumar and Dharmendra and scored by SD Burman…Mora Gora Ang Lai Le is the only song Gulzar wrote for Bandini. By then Burman and Shailendra had made their peace, and the latter wrote the remaining songs. [A concerned Bimal Roy then asked Gulzar to join in on his next production, which was being directed by Hemen Gupta. Kabuliwala, for which Gulzar wrote Ganga Aaye Kahaan Se, went on to release earlier than Bandini.].This song also is the first after SDB and Lata’ feud was patched up.

25 All Time Great Whistling Songs Of Bollywood – Whistling is an old art used in songs started in 1930s and 40s. A whistle can be used to express happiness or woo a beloved. Many a times whistling is a part of hero’s introduction song, where he is shown to whistle happily, either walking or riding a bicycle, or driving a car.

‘Gharonda’ remains one of the most resonant films about Mumbai’s housing woes – Nandini Ramnath – House-hunting leads to heartbreak in Bhimsain’s 1977 morality tale, starring Amol Palekar, Zarina Wahab and Shreeram Lagoo.

Devika Rani is a free-spirited bird in ‘Main Ban Ki Chidiya’ – Archana Nathan – The famous song from Franz Osten’s ‘Achhut Kanya’ is a perfect ode to Devika Rani.

Zara Dekhiye Meri Saadgi’ – Dara Singh – His first real acting film was Bhaktraj (1960). But he came in a hero in Faulad (1963), and then went to act in 80 films in the lead role. The song that the article title refers to is from Nasihat(1967) – rendered by Mahendra Kapoor and composed by O P Nayyar.

We concluded our series Micro View of Best Songs 1948 @SoY of Best songs of 1948: And the winners are?  with the final post that presents my views on the Top Music Directors for 1948. If we recall, SoY had concluded the series with Best songs of 1948: Final Wrap Up 4.  All the posts of the Micro View of Best Songs of 1948 can be accessed @ The Songs of 1948 @SoY.

In our tradition of ending our post with article or topical song, I have picked up one duet with Suman Kalyanpur and one rarely heard composition of O P Nayyar and Roshan each, in continuation to leads that we have had earlier in this episode::

Aankade Ka Dhandha Ek Din Teji – Satta Bazar (1959) – Kalyanji Anandji – Gulshan Bawra

Sharab Ka Sahara Leke Bahal Saka Na Mera Dil – Commecrical Pilot Officer (1963) – Roshan- Anand Bakshi

Bana De Bana De Prabhuji Tu Bigdadi Bana De Prabhuji – Phaagun (1958) – With Asha Bhosle – O P Nayyar – Qamar Jalalabadi

Madhubala and Bharat Bhushan lip sing the song on the screen.

I earnestly seek your suggestions / inputs / criticisms so as to make our Film Blog Festival more interesting and live.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – February, 2018

Welcome to February, 2018 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We have chosen the theme –Dorian Shainin – of Jim L. Smith’s three part article – Dorian Shainin’s Influence on Quality Professionals – for our February, 2018 episode.

Before we go the Jim Smith’s article(s) in details, let us first know a little more about Dorian Shainin and his method(s).

Dorian Shainin was one of quality’s most accomplished contributors, died January 7, 2000 at the age of 85. Shainin had acquired nearly 60 years’ experience improving the professional approach to industrial problem solving.. Among the awards bestowed upon Shainin are ASQ’s Brumbaugh Award, the Edwards Medal, the Eugene L. Grant Award and the Shewhart Medal. In 2003, ASQ established a medal to recognize the development of statistical methods for solving quality problems in products or services. The medal was named for Dorian Shainin. The medal is presented at the annual ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement. More information on the Shainin Medal is available @ asq.org/about-asq/awards/shainin.html.

Shainin wrote more than 100 articles and was the author or co-author of several books, including Managing Manpower in the Industrial Environment; Tool Engineers Handbook; Quality Control Handbook; New Decision-Making Tools for Managers; Quality Control for Plastics Engineers; Manufacturing, Planning, and Estimating Handbook; and Statistics In Action.

ShaininR : The Red XR Company – Shainin’s most significant contribution was his discovery of the Red X model of systems variation. The prevailing wisdom held that variation causes could be discovered and controlled until the system reached a state of statistical equilibrium. At that point, the remaining causes were believed to be random and undiscovered. Any further improvement would require a redesign of the system. However, Shainin found that by talking to the parts, he could find variation causes within stable systems. He concluded that Juran’s Pareto principle must apply to the causes of system variation. No matter how many causes had already been identified and controlled, among the remaining causes there must be one that contributed more to the overall variation than any other  – The Red X. He called this cause-effect relationship the Big Red X. To support his system Shainin created more than 20 engineering and statistical tools that aided in the search for the Red X.  Shainin followed three principles for solving variation problems:

  • There is always a Red X.
  • The fastest route to identifying the Red X is a progressive search using a process of elimination.
  • Talk to the parts with tools that are both rigorous and statistically simple.

Background on Shainin based problem solving –  Jo Moore – Real-life quality problems, just like people, are simultaneously different and the same. It is impossible to get a tough problem solved by just applying a pre-defined ‘cook book recipe’. Recognizing the distinctive characteristics of a problem is critical since the devil can lie in the detail… Problem solving is very much a human activity and reasoning has a prominent role in it… Erroneous beliefs and faulty reasoning can doom problem solving to failure… Lack of structure is another hurdle that can complicate problem solving activities. The circumstances in which tough problems have to be analyzed and solved is often not clear from the start… An effective approach takes all these aspects into account!… Statistical engineers, following the discipline developed by Shainin, solve problems by finding “what is different?”

Cause-to-effect versus effect-to-cause

For those who would prefer a brief introduction, the video clip – Shainin based problem solving | Philips Innovation Services – is a good source.

An Overview of the Shainin System TM for Quality Improvement – Stefan H. Steiner and R. Jock MacKay – The goal of this article is to provide an overview of SS, a critical assessment, and a brief comparison with other industrial problem solving systems.

Shainin method: edge over other DOE techniques – A.K. Verma ; A. Srividya ; A.V. Mannikar ; V.A. Pankhawala ; K.J. Rathanraj –  Shainin methods refer to a collection of principles, which make up the framework of a continually evolving approach to quality. After the classical design of experiments (DOE) and Taguchi DOE, the third approach is Shainin DOE, which is a collection of simple, but powerful techniques invented or perfected by Dorian Shainin of the United States. In this paper, three cases of Taguchi experiments have been taken from literature and the above method has been tried to find out whether the authors have got the positive results from their experiment. If not, authors emphasize on the importance of giving the check in the start of the experiment (screening experiment) with minimum number experiments prior to the Taguchi approach.

Another Look at Dorian Shainin’s Variable Search Technique – Tirthankar Dasgupta, Nagesh Adiga, C. F. Jeff Wu – The article provides an in-depth analysis of Shanin;s variable search  (VS) method.

Quality 2020 – A study by AIAG conducted in conjunction with Deloitte entitled Quality 2020 Report  – This study illustrates the Automotive Industry’s View of the Current State of Quality and a Strategic Path Forward : “OEMs and Suppliers both identify Problem Solving is their #1 most critical issue.” 

Dorian Shainin’s Influence on Quality Professionals ǁ Part II ǁ Part III : Shainin, like Juran who popularized “the vital few and trivial many” (also known as the Pareto Principle), came to realize that quality defects had an unequal frequency in that only a relative few accounted for most of the defects. This led to what he called the Red X, which he theorized was the primary cause of process and product problems. Shainin stressed “talking to parts” which consisted of swapping pairs of parts of functional and non-functional parts until the culprit was discovered. With the Shainin method there was a certain degree of a theoretical step, but mainly it was to determine possible causes of a problem. This was accomplished by one or more techniques designed to determine root cause or the Red X.

Why haven’t we heard much of Shainin’s methods since the Six Sigma/lean operations rage has taken hold? That’s not easy to pinpoint. One reason may be that users who are aware of his philosophies aren’t willing to accept product that’s “good enough.”

What came to be known as the Shainin System (SS) was developed for problem-solving in medium to high volume processes where data are readily available, statistical methods are widely used, intervention in the process is difficult, and ‘conformance to specification thinking’ was expected.

A hidden benefit of SS just might be that it prevents a lot of impulsive, poorly designed experiments which are wasteful and expensive. One reason why certain problems are unsolved is because people often take ineffective approaches. Their approach is usually based on a set of assumptions, tools and techniques that are less effective for solving tough, chronic quality problems.

In the current environment, the tendency is to focus on the complexity and not simplicity, The Shainin System, however, focuses on simplicity. We may be statistically more sophisticated, but is that what we really seek? I think not. As Leonardo DaVinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

We conclude our discussion with a video clip we have an interview by Dr. ReVelle , of Continuous Improvement TV, of the founder and principal of Shainin Consultants, Inc., Dorian Shainin, about “Statistical Engineering,” his simple but extremely effective full factorial design of experiments.:

Gaining World Class Quality with Statistical Engineering

We will now turn to our regular sections:

For the present episode we have picked up Josh Steimle’s article Focus On Outputs, Outcomes And Obstacles@ the column Measuring Performance (People & Enterprise) @ Management Matters Network, which discusses on the effect(s) of focusing on outputs, outcomes and obstacles as an integral part of the performance management system.  .

We now watch one of the latest ASQ TV  episodes:

Utilizing 5S in Everyday LIFE; ASQ member Alexander Tucker is a Chemist at Capsugel. While quality is important on the job, he has been using the 5S tool in his home life. You won’t stop smiling as he humorously recounts the ways he has organized his bathroom, planned trips to the grocery store and even trained his dog to be a quality canine.

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems postings for January, 2018 are:

  • Thoughts Influence Your Future:  No matter what you truly believe, when we focus our thoughts, we unleash tremendous energy working to achieve what we think about. When we choose to respond in positive and productive ways, it is relatively easy to predict or influence a positive, productive future – a future that we can essentially predict on a day-to-day basis.
  • Self-Awareness: The first thing is to realize that all meaningful and lasting change starts on the inside and works its way out! Therefore, if you want to be different than the way you are now, you must work on changing your self-awareness. You can use positive affirmations and visualizations to help, and once your self-awareness changes, you don’t have to work so hard to behave differently and success will come easier.

I look forward to your inputs / criticisms/ observations to enhance the utility of our Quality Management Blog Carnival.

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

Fading Memories…. Unforgettable Songs: February, 2018

Talat Mahmood’s Duet Combinations with Rare Co-singers

For most of the lovers of Hindi Film Music, Talat Mahmood is remembered almost every day through his 800 + songs. So, we need to devise an apt expression to remember him in the month (24th February, 1924) of his birth anniversary.

We have taken up refreshing our memory of some of the duets that seem to be receding from our memory. Last year, when we penned down such duets, we had had a panorama of such duets with a wide spectrum of co-singers. The great bulk of his duets obviously remain with Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle and to some extent with Geeta Dutt and Shamshad Begum. His duets with other singers like Suraiya, Mubarak Begum or Sudha Malhotra or Madhubala Zaveri are relatively few in numbers. So is the case with his duets with other male co-singers. In some of cases like, Rajkumari, Surinder Kaur, Sulochana Kadam, Meena Kapoor, Nirmala Devi or Amirbai Karanataki the song was only one of its kind.  Talat Mahmood’s duets with other male singers also range from very popular to quite obscure songs. His presence in Triads / Triads + songs also remains noteworthy.

(L to R) Meena Kapoor- Geetadutt- Talat Mahmood-VanShipley

For the present episode we will focus on Talat Mahmood’s duets with co-singers who can be considered as ‘rare’ combinations.

Purwai Pawan Laharaye – Tum Aur Main (1947) – with Syperwa Sarkar – Robin Chaterjee – Zakir Hussain

One can find Talat Mahmood – Superwa Sarkar duets in a couple of more films, till 1949. The music directors of these films are from Bengal. Was this the hangover effect of Talat Mahmood’s Calcutta days?

Dil Mera Tera Diwana – Apni Izzat (1952) – with Madhubala Zaveri – Hansraj Bah – Pt. Phani,

Madhubala Zaveri has around 110 songs, spread over a span of 1951 to 1958, in 55 Hindilms plus 27 Marathi and 3 Gujarati films. Incidentally, her debut song – Tum Kaun Ho Rajkumari Ye Chanda Sa Mukhda Idhar To Karo (Rajput, 1951) in Hindi films was under the baton of Hansraj Behl, a duet with Talat Mahmood. She was just 16 years old at that time.

Ghir Ghir Aaye Badarwa Kaare – Daak Babu (1954) – with Mubarak Begum – Dhaniram – Prem Dhawan

Talat Mahmood – Mubark Begum Duets is a good study in the very contrasting qualities of voice.  Though not ‘many’ in numbers, there are a few very evergreen songs to the credit of this duo, but that is perhaps a subject of an independent post in the future.

BTW, the song would have been portrayed on screen by Talat Mahmood himself as well.

We find two versions of the song on YT. This one has Mubarak Begum accompanying Talat Mahmood.

And this version has Talat Mahmood almost in solo mode.

Jab Yahaan Se Jaaunga Main Aur Kya Le jaaunga – Hatimtai Ki Beti (1955) – with S. Balbir – A R Quereshi – Shewan Rizvi

Talat Mahmood does not have many really joyous boisterous songs to his credit. But, whichever few such songs one gets to listen, he does not dissatisfy his fans.

Ek Bar To Mil Lo Gale Bichchad Hum Chale, Na Koi Fariyad Rahe – Andheri Nagri Chopat Raja (1955) – with Sudha Malhotra – Avinash Vyas – Bharat Vyas

Sudha Malhotra is one of many playback singer stars who got overshadowed by the full-moon glory of Lata Mangeshkar sisters.

Main Hun Alibaba – Char Chand – with Asha Premlata – (Shaukat Dehlvi) Nashaad – A Karim

We find one more of a light-toned, dance song, which may not be very difficult to recall by the core Talat Mahmood fans- even if they do not recollect who his co-singer was.

Tum Pe Quaraban Dil Tum Pe Sadake Nazar – Sakhi Lutera (1959) – with Usha Balsavar – B N Bali – Aziz Ghazi

The ‘rare’ co-singer, ‘rare’ music director, an obscure forgotten film and light-hearted tune would possibly make up an ideal recipe for the delicious dish to get deep into the recesses of the memory.

Mere Shareek-E-Sahar – Wali-E-Azam (1965) – with Hemlata – Chitragupta – Ahmed Wasi

Several indications mention this as possibly the last film song that Talat Mahmood recorded.  It seems that the shoe-string budget of the film has landed the music director and the co-singer with Talat Mahmood’s the then recently found popularity with ‘Jahanara’.

An interesting aside:

The official Talat Mahmood site has a handwritten note which Talat Mahmood had written down on a letterhead of Chitragupta at the time of recording the song.

No article on Talat Mahmood would be complete without mention of his Non-Fim Songs.

Wo Jo Roothhen To Manaana Chaahiye   – NFS(1969) – with Mukesh – Murli Manohar Swaroop  -Jigar Muradabadi/ Mirza Ghalib,

Talat Mahmood and Mukesh have collaborated in several triads / triads + songs in films like Pagle, Biwi Aur Makan, Love and God etc. However, we find their duets only in the NFS domain.

The wholly Talat Mahmood devoted site – talatamahmood.net – has mentioned a few more duets of Talat Mahmood that we would have loved to cover in this episode. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a soft to link audio link of these songs:

  • Ab Mushkil Ha Phir Se Milana Bhul Jao To Achha Hai – Saaya – with Ashima Banerjee – Ram Ganguli – Verma Malik
  • Auron Ke Liye – Taxi 555 – with an unidentified female singer – Sardar Malik

Talat Mahmood and Mohammad Rafi have several duets – and most of them very popular then and remembered now. So their duets cannot really be listed under ‘rare’ tag. But every rule has an exception. And we have one here, a Talat – Rafi duet, which is relatively less remembered, that helps us to comply with out other tradition of end our episodes with a Mohammad Rafi Song.

Bhar De Jholi Allah Naam – Laila Majnu (1953) – Mohammad Rafi – Ghulam Mohammad – Shakeel Badayuni

The song perhaps epitomizes two distinct phases of Shammi Kapoor’s career. His pre-Tumsa Nahin Dekha phase hadTalat Mahmood was his default playback singer. Here,  the initial part of the songs, mostly by the fakirs on the screen is in the voice of Mohammad Rafi.  When Shammi Kapoor gets to sing the second interlude, it is Talat Mahmood who takes over @ Jaan-e-tamanna jalwa Dikha De…

We will continue remembering Unforgettable Songs that seem to Fading away from our Memories every second Sunday of the month……..

Disclaimer: All images are sourced from net. All copyrights of the respective image remain with the original owner of the image.

“The Micro View of the Songs of 1948 @ SoY – MY Top Music Director(s)

Having gone through the exercise of micro-reviewing the songs  for the six years – in this case from 1955 backwards to the present 1948 – I have observed that the task of choosing MY TOP of Music director every year has become more tough as year goes down. That is mainly because older I go into the timeline, less I was found conversant with either the film itself or the context in which the song was played (situational context vs.song composition relevance) or even the popularity /approval of the film’s song as a whole from listeners  / critics respectively.

So, I kept on devising some or other tests to come up with rational judgement to moderate my inherent biases.

The first of such test is the logo picture posted by SoY at the very opening of the overview post, which invariably places six films in the frame. For the present case, ‘Best songs of 1948: And the winners are?’, Naushad has two films – Mela and Anokhi Ada whereas Anil Biswas (Anokha Pyar), C Ramchandra (Nadiya Ke Paar), Ram Ganguli (Aag) and Ghulam Hiader (Shaheed) have one film each.

I then run through posts relating to Male Solos, Female Solos and Duets to make amental note of music directors whose songs continues to strike chord even now. I observe that Naushad’s songs in Anokhi Ada and Mela or Anil Biswas’s songs in Anokha Pyar, Gajre and Veena, those of C Ramchandra in Nadiya Ke Paar and Khidk’ or those of Husnlal-Bhagatram in Pyar Ki Jeet or certainly Ghulam Haider in Shaheed, to a great extent Ram Ganguly in Aag or Khemchand Prakash in Ziddi standout for the everlasting songs. For the year, Ghulam Mohammad in Grihasthi and Pugree, or Shyam Sundar in Actress have also pitched in well.

Then I have out the songs that appeared in the respective category of MY Top listings. The number of songs composed by differenet music directors appears as given herebelow:

Music Director Male Solos Female solos Duets Total SoY

Total
Hansraj Behl 1 1
Husnlal Bhagatram 1 2 3 3
Naushad 1 1 2 4 10
Ram Ganguly 1 1 1 3 2
Anil Biswas 1 3 1 5 1
S D Burman 1 1 1 3 1
Khemchand Prakash 1 1 1 3 2
Ghulam Haider 1 1 2 3
Avinash Vyas 1 1
C Ramchandra 1 1 2 3
Snehal Bhatkar 1 1 1

If we place the results of the Total in the descending order, then Anil Biswas comes at the top, followed by Naushad and then Husnlal Bhagatram, S D Burman, Khemchand Prakasha and Ram Ganguly share the next spot, followed by Ghulam Haider and C Ramchandra.

Apart from the simple quantitative perspective, one of the most noteworthy feature of Ghulam Haider’s songs in Shaheed and those of C Ramchandra in Nadiya Ke Paar is that they have used relatively not very popular singers like Surinder Kaur or Lalita Deulkar for a very popular heroin Kamini Kaushal. And yet the songs did attain very high acceptance- both the by the critics as well as by the listing public in general.

SoY, @ Best songs of 1948: Final Wrap Up 4, also adopted a smilar matric for quantifying the process of evaluating the share of different music directors in the Top lsting of songs under different categories. The last column in the foregoing table reflects the Total score. Based on this evaluation The Songs of Yore Award for the Best Music Director of 1948 has been conferred on Naushad.

How would have you analyzed the Songs of 1948?

I am sure you will certainly join me to take up a similar detailed Micro View when SoY takes up 1947 next in this Best songs of year series.

P.S.

All the posts that have appeared on this subject can now be accessed form one file @ The Songs of 1948 @SoY

Business Sutra |5.2| Crossing the Vaitarani: Passing Knowledge to Next Gen

Business Sutra |5| Education

We have covered four episodes of Devdutt Pattanaik’ TV serial on CNBC 18:  Business Sutra.

The first presented to us the most visible form of the business – the corporation: its meaning, its purpose and its action perspective. In the second episode Devdutt Pattanaik discusses Leadership: Role of the leader, Context of the leader and Leadership in different business cycles. The third episode relates to the Business Ethics and Morals:  business ethics and dilemmas, relationship between owner and the organization  and The Right (Dharma) – the Ramayana way and the Mahabharata way. The 4th episode deals with Conflicts, of the Board and the CEO and that of the means vs. ends.

The present episode takes unto the realm of Education, for which we have covered  the basics of education to the (potential) leaders in Ram’s Education  in the first part.

The second part now deals with coaching and the next, the third one with student motivation.

Business Sutra |5.2| Crossing the Vaitarani: Passing Knowledge to Next Gen

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

The change that is under the scanner here is the change in the role of a manager in his / her progression up the organizational ladder.  In all the real life situations, the present set of competencies may not be fully relevant for the success at the next stage. Therefore, in practice, the incumbent is trained / coached/mentored during the transition stage of changeover from one stage to the another,

In Coaching through transition, not just through change, Susan Grandfield notes that ‘for change to be effective and achieve its goals, a transition needs to occur and that takes time. Change can be fast (i.e. a new process for doing X is rolled out across the business) but transition is slow (i.e. people fully engaging with the new way of working).

Time is precious, and managers are under pressure to deliver results as quickly as possible. So, the danger is, that they don’t give themselves, or the people they manage, sufficient time to make the transition. Which requires them to “let go” of the past first, before they can fully embrace the future.

It’s not that when change happens we should forget the past and cut all ties with it. After all, it is the past that has got us to where we are now. So, there are elements of what we did well in the past that should be brought with us into the future. However, if clinging on to the way things were done in the past means you have one foot in the past as you step into the future, it is unlikely that you will be able to fully make the transition into the new way of doing things.’

One can find volumes of literature in the Western Management theory and practice related to planning / training / coaching /mentoring during the succession transition. It is not feasible to cover references to all such material in this article.

Devdutt Pattanaik uses the metaphor of river Vaitarani, the mythological river that separates the mortal world and the world of bliss that an individual has to successfully navigate through, in order to reach the higher plane of the life after the end (death) of the present life on this mortal world.

In the Segment 2 of the episode 5 Devdutt Pattanaik takes the Indian mythology’s perspective of this transition phase of Crossing the Vaitarni : Passing Knowledge to Next Gen

From a corporate or an organization or an enterprise’s perspective that is almost   one most important thing, and that which enterprises are constantly working to  achieve, is that the people who are currently in positions of power train and impart their knowledge and their understanding to those who are their likely successors.  That exchange of information / knowledge / experience transfer is not almost always perfect.

If you say the purpose of an organization is growth, the growth being the primary word. How do I grow? Normally growth is seen physically, in economic terms in terms of growth of Lakshmi. So my salary has to increase: my top line and bottom line at the company level have to increase. But, let us take another currency which also exists in India. Lakshmi is not the only currency; there is other currency as well – the Saraswati, the knowledge. So every person who walks into an organization is suddenly exposed to a whole load of knowledge as he does his work.

Now he says I want to go to the next level. What is going to the next level mean? If you look at from an Indian mythological perspective, we are saying that you know what the role that I’m performing I have done the best I can, I have lived it.  Now I want to take up a new role. in a way, I have to shed the old role and take up a new role. The shedding of the old role can be equated with death. So when you die, in India you cross a river called of Vaitarani. So when I am saying I have been a good executive, so I die as an executive so that I can be reborn as a manager. But why should I be allowed to move on to the other Shore unless I have created a replacement for myself, because otherwise you are indispensable? Just as you were made an executive by someone else you shall make someone else an executive before moving on to the next role as manager.

So if you look at an organizational hierarchy, it is really one generation after another generation, and each generation is obliged to the previous generation and to the next generation. So there is a telescoping of ambitions across generations. This is what one is trying to achieve and this is how the ashram a system came into being.

In Ancient India they’d said that if you would go to live for hundred years, divide your life into four phases. The first phase is when you are a student. In the next stage you are a householder and in the third phase you are retired. Then, in the fourth phase you’re a renunciant – you’re a sannyasi . Now look at it metaphorically what it says in the first phase you gain Saraswati, in the next phase you use the knowledge of Saraswati that have got to gain Lakshmi. Having done the householders’ life, what do you mean by retirement, because that is a 25-years-span which is result of dividing 100-year life into i four equal phases. The retirement is not walking away from everything. It means passing on the Saraswati that you have gained to the next generation. Only then you can move on to the next phase of renunciation. Renunciation is moving onto whatever you want to do.  It is kind of a cyclical process which is happening. In this retirement stage, I am talking to the next generation, preparing them to grow.  I give Saraswati and move on to the next stage.  So who grows? The new trainee is growing and in turn I am growing because otherwise I can go on not take the next position. This is like a perfect wave that is happening where if Saraswathi has been given Saraswati is being taken.  That is what has been called the growth. As  a result, Lakshmi is also being generated.  There is growth at an intellectual level as well as in an economic level.  That is what organization aspires.

I mean the whole idea of creating a separate training department is absurd because who has the knowledge?  It is the person in the field who has the knowledge, not someone sitting in the classroom.  Coaching is intrinsic to growth and that is what the Vishwamitra story in a way. He says that he has been a great king called Kaushik.  He now wants to be Vishwamitra, a friend of the world. So he is saying that I will pass whatever I have learned to this young promising Prince called Ram and then move on.

But not all of us can be Vishwamitra. You call this a perfect wave. But the thing about corporate power or power in the workplace is that the more you know the more power you have, in turn, more indispensable you are or less dispensable you are. Therefore the incentive to pass this on to successive generations and empower them as well is very very low, because then it makes me less important.

Absolutely. The whole idea is we think knowledge is power. So I don’t want to give it. The reason I give it away is because in the process of giving it away I learn many more things. Saraswati is wonderful, unlike Lakshmi.  if I have one rupee coin and I give it to you. Now you have one rupee coin. We exchanged one one rupee coin and both of us are still left with one rupee coin. But if I have an idea and you have an idea and we exchanged two ideas we both have two ideas. So, the wonderful thing about Saraswati is it doubles.  So if I want to increase my understanding of Saraswathi the best way to improve my understanding of any subject is to teach. What happens is in the process is I figure out human dynamics, we figure out why does a person not want to study, because it’s so obvious. This is the way you negotiate and you will realize that the person in front of you is not learning. The teacher, by observing the student and his resistance to learning, figures out human dynamics;  he understands how difficult it is to teach to someone who  not obliged to learn. So you have to work very hard to make the subject attractive.

It is incumbent upon the teacher to  find ways to help the student learn, as much as it is incumbent on the student to find ways to learn.

Let me rephrase this slightly. What I will say is that in the process of giving Saraswati I figure out the art of becoming attractive. Per force I focus on creating the honey and the students will come like the bees. The focus is on creating the honey and not in attracting the bees. The bees will come. Now that is the growth that I get when I am passing on my knowledge to the other. You gain and I gain. You gain some knowledge, you get the data but I gain the wisdom ……..

At this point, the discussion moves on to the subject of the next segment.

The essence of the discussion is that by training / coaching / mentoring your next generation during the transition phase, you are also destined to gain the wisdom, that in turn will help you to move on to your next stage higher echelons of management ladder and enhance my competence to face the future challenges more effectively..

In our continuing journey of Education in Devdutt Pattanaik’s TV serial Business Sutra, we will move on to the 3rd part of 5th episode – Vikram and Vetal.

Note: The images used in this post are the irrevocable property of their respective creator. They have been taken up courtesy the internet, so as to illustrate the point under discussion.

“The Micro View of the Songs of 1948 @ SoY – My Top Duets

I do seem to have a predominant bias for liking the Duets. Considering the motivation that such a bias would generate, I did try hard to look beyond the obvious choices of the duets for including them in this list. It seems the proximity that too frequent listening of some of the songs all these years across all the media playing platforms like radio, records, tapes, CDs or internet was too deeply etched to overcome the force of this motivation.

Given this bias, I present the choice of MY TOP duet songs for 1948, in no particular order:

Mukesh + Lata Mangeshkar – Ab Yaad Na Kar Bhool Ja Aye Dil Wo Fasana – Anokha Pyar – Anil Biswas – Shums Azimabadi

OR its other version, as well:

Mukesh + Meena Kapoor – Ab Yaad Na Kar Bhool Ja Aye Dil Wo Fasana – Anokha Pyar – Anil Biswas – Shums Azimabadi

Mukesh + Shamshad Begum – Dharati Ko Akash Pukare Aaja Aaja Prem Dware – Mela – Naushad – Shakeel Badayuni

Mukesh + Suraiya  –Laayee Khushi Ki Duniya Hansati Hui Jawani – Vidya – S D Burman – Anjum Pilibhiti

Mohammad Rafi + Lalita Deulkar  – More Raja Ho Le Chal Nadiya Ke Paar – Nadiya Ke Paar – C Ramchandra – Moti B A

Shamshad Begum + Surendra – Kyun Unhe Dil Diya, Haye Ye Kya Kiya – Anokhi Ada – Naushad – Shakeel Badayuni

Shamshad Begum + Shailesh – Kahi Ka Deepak KAhin Ki Baati, AAj Mile Hai Jeevan Saathi – Aag – Ram Ganguli – Saraswati Kumar Deepak

Shamshad + Geeta Roy – Meri Dhadakano Mein Sakhi Kaun Samaya – Suhag Raat – Snehal – Kedar Sharma

Mohammad Rafi, Khan Mastana, Chorus – Watan Ki Raah Mein Watan Ke Naujawan Shaheed Ho – Shaheed – Ghulam Haider – Raja Mahendi Ali Khan

Mohammad Rafi, Chitalkar, G M Sajan, Chorus – Aji Khushiyan Manae Na Kyon Hum , Ham Kise Se Kyun Dare, Kismat Hamare Sath Hai, Jalanewale Jalanewale Jala Kare – Khidki – C Ramchandra – P L Santoshi,  and  its equally popular all-female version – by Shamshad Begum, Lata Mangeshkar, and Mohan Tara, too

If do not make a little conscious effort to go beyond the obvious, MY THE TOP DUET song for 1948 would easily be:

Watan Ki Raah Mein Watan Ke Naujawan Shaheed Ho (Shaheed – Mohammad Rafi, Khan Mastana, Chorus  – Ghulam Haider – Raja Mahendi Ali Khan).

If I add a Male-Female Duet too, here then that would be:

Kyun Unhe Dil Diya, Haye Ye Kya Kiya  (Anokhi Ada – Shamshad Begum + Surendra – Naushad – Shakeel Badayuni)

SoY has also voted for Kyun Unhe Dil Diya, Haye Ye Kya Kiya as the Best Duet of 1948 in the sum post Best songs of 1948: Wrap Up 3.

We will sum up our Micro View of the Songs of 1948 @SoY in our next episode with the post MY TOP Music Director.

P.S.:

All the duet songs presented through different posts on Micro View of the Duet Songs of 1948 @SoY are available @ “Duet Songs” .