Day: February 27, 2022

Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music – Volume X – February 2022 edition

Welcome to February 2022 edition of Xth Volume of Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music.

Lata Mangeshkar (1929-2022): Nightingale has fallen silent – India has lost one of its most prolific and significant artists – the last of her kind. She leaves behind not just her vast oeuvre, but a legacy of a voice that could bridge differences and bring together people with its sublimity.

Till the end, Lata Mangeshkar remained her own person – Mrinal Pande – Her long and distinguished career is not a tragic tale of continuing to shoulder the burden of someone else’s idea of how a woman should sing. She was a genuinely many-voiced singer who considered it an asset to be able to sing for over three generations of stars…..Still it would be wrong to pin her down to a single identity, of a grand dowager queen of music, all white sarees, and an isolation of fervent religiosity and meditational silences. …. But she was very much her own person.

Lata Mangeshkar was India’s inner voice – Pratap Bhanu Mehta – If Lata Mangeshkar became representative of India, it was because the lyrics she sang, and the forms in which she expressed them, contained all of India in them: All of its languages, cultural registers, even its conflicts. It was not benchmarking India to a single measure; it was rather connecting its superabundance.

How Lata Mangeshkar learnt to read and write (despite having gone to school for only a day) – In the edited excerpts from a Nasreen Munni Kabir’s conversation book, Lata Mangeshkar: In Her Own Voice, the acclaimed singer remembers her formative years.

‘Close to the sublime’: Why no book on Hindi film music is complete without Lata Mangeshkar – Ganesh Anantharaman presents excerpts from his book, Bollywood Melodies.

During the support commentary that Harish Bhimani was providing during the live broadcast of Lata Mangeshkar’s funeral procession, he recalled that on one occasion he had asked her about her one song that spontaneously comes to her mind. This was the song that Lat Mangeshkar recalled:

Bairan Neend Na Aaye – (Chacha Zindabad -1959) – Lyrics: Rajinder Krishna – Music: Madan Mohan

On being asked the same question to him by Lata Mangeshkar, Harish Bhimani recalled

Man Mohana Bade Jhoothe ..- Seema (1955) – Lyrics: Shailendra – Music Shankar Jaikishan

If I apply the same test to me, the two Gujarati songs that pop up are:

Have Sakhi NahiN BoluN NahiN BoluN Re – Lyrics: Dayaram – Music: Purushuttom Updhyay

Rk RajkaN Suraj Thavane ShamaNe UgamaNe JaI UDe – Music: Harindra Dave – Music: Dilip Dholakia

As can be expected, homages have been showered by almost every newspaper, journal and other social (digital) media. We will confine ourselves to homages from our regular blogs for our present episode.

We also lost Sandhya Mukherjee this month.

Though He Actually Never Met Her… – Gulzar voices his “deepest regard” for Sandhya Mukherjee, the Geetasri who never needed any Padma to become the voice of romance for generations. Ratnottama Sengupta explores how Gulzar connected with the iconic actor-singer foursome of Bengali cinema – Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Hemant Kumar and also Sandhya Mukherjee.

We also sadly bid farewell to Bappi Lahiri who passed away on 15th February 2022

We now move on to the other tributes and celebrations for the month –

Remembering Zohrabai Ambalewali, for her full-throated voice, which had cast its own spell furing’40s.

When ‘villain of the millennium’ Pran shocked the audience as he played a noble soul in Manoj Kumar’s Upkar – Pran, despite of several outstanding path-breaking roles he played there after, is still remembered as the quintessential villain of Hindi cinema,

Shailendra Sharma @ Golden Era of Bollywood has posted following memorial tribute posts:

From Rangeela to Pinjar, Urmila Matondkar’s effortless evolution on screen whilst also pulling off the complexities of Rangeela’s Mili and Pinjar’s Puro

In the series of articles on Sahir’s Songs of Romance, commemorating Sahir Ludhianvi’s birth centenary,  we now take up Sahir Ludhianvi’s Eighteen-films association with S D Burman.

February 2022 episode of Fading Memories, Unforgettable Songs takes up Talat Mahmood: Duets with Shamshad Begum.  To commemorate the memory of Talat Mahmood in the month of his birth by taking up the theme of his rare duets, till now, we have explored –

In 2017, an overview of Talat Mahmood’s duets receding from the memory.

In 2018, Talat Mahmood’s duets with rare co-singers,

In 2019, Talat Mahmood’s duets with Mubarak Begum and with Madhubala Jhaveri,

In 2020, Talat Mahmood’s duets with Geeta Dutt, essentially from 1950 to 1952, and

In 2021, Talat Mahmood: Duets with Geeta Dutt, from  1954 to 1957, with one duet even in 1972.

Here is a photograph of Madhubala on the 53rd anniversary of her death (23rd February) posted on BollywooDirect:

Madhubala’s films opposite Bharat Bhushan – Madhubala has done four films with Bharat Bhushan – Gateway of India was a one-woman show with the story revolving around the character of Madhubala and the other actors forming the supporting cast, Kal Hamara Hai saw her play the lone double role of her career, Phagun had her in a triple role and Barsaat ki Raat is one of the greatest musicals ever to have been made in our film industry.

We now move on to posts on other subjects –

The Other Songs of Kavi Pradeep, a.k.a. Ramchandra Narayanji Dwivedi (06/02/1915 – 11/12/1998) – the songs essentially which are neither patriotic nor inspirational.

Manna Dey: A Story of Amazing Versatility – In a career spanning 60 years, Manna Dey excelled across a variety of genres – film songs, ghazals, bhajans, classical and pop – he regaled generations of listeners with his romantic ballads, zany rock and roll numbers, playful qawwalis and intricate raga-based songs. In Part 1, Bipin Parekh presents a detailed study of Manna Dey’s musical life and discography to understand and appreciate his massive repertoire and career graph. Part 2 presents analysis of Manna Dey’s association with 195 music directors and his output of 1363 Hindi songs spread over 932 films.

From Bollywood Rewind – Sampada Sharma – Indian Express’s weekly column:

In continuation to our tradition of ending the post with a few songs of Mohammad Rafi that are relevant to the topics covered in the present episode, we will institute a series where in we wiil listen to Mohammad Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar’s duet with a music director for the first time in a Hindi film, every month for the rest of the 2022,:

Chalo Ho Gai Taiyaar Zara Thehro Ji – Shaadi Se Pahle (1947) – Lyrics: Mukhram Shaarma – Music: Paigaonkar-Karnad

YuN To Aapas Mein Jhagadate Hai Khafa Hote Hai – Andaz (1949) – Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri – Music: Naushad Ali

Apni Nazar Se Door Voh, Unki Nazar Se Door Ham – Bazaar (1949) – Lyrics: Qamar Jalalabadi – Music: Shyam Sundar

Ab Haal-e-Dl Ya Haal-e-Jigar Kuchh Na Puchhiye – Ek Thi Ladki (1949) – Lyrics: Azeez Kashmiri – Music:Vinod

Zara Tumne Dekha To Pyar Aa Gaya – Jal Tarang (1949) – Lyrics: Kaif Irfani – Music: Husnlal Bhagatram

I look forward to your inputs to enrich the contents of Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music.

Disclaimer: This monthly series of posts is my best-effort-based compilation of posts on Hindi film songs that I normally visit regularly. As I record my sincere thanks to all the original creators of these posts, any other posts that I have nor covered herein shows my lack of awareness of existence of such posts and is by no means any disrespect to their work. The copyrights to the posts, images and video clips remain the properties of the original creators.