Remembering RD ...
raju_bathija
Hi,
The following article appeared in the Sunday Times of India, January 5,
1997, on the occasion of 3rd death anniversary of R D Burman.
-- Raju Bathija
======================================================================
Remembering RD ...
Raju Bharatan
Sunday Times, Bombay, January 5, 1997
======================================================================
Three years ago, on January 4, at 3:58 a.m., Rahul Dev Burman passed
away, leaving behind him a whole generation of his admirers, shocked
at the sudden loss. Panchamda was no more.
Soon after his death came the Filmfare award for his brilliant score
of Vidhu Vinod Chopra's 1942 -- A Love Story. 1942 ... also won
Kavita Krishnamurthi her maiden Best Singer award for her compelling
rendition of Pyaar hua chupke se.
If there was no argument regarding that posthumous award, there was no
end of argument in the prestigious Sur Singar Samsad council in 1967
when it came to awarding Pancham for the best Classical Song of the
Year. As the convener of the Sur Singar committee set up to pick that
year's Best Classical Song, I can state that Pancham lost that award
in peculiar circumstances.
This was after he had shown his paces in Teesri Manzil (1966). Teesri
Manzil won spot recognition for him as a musicmaker with his own style
--- distinct from that of S.D. Burman --- but the same music typecast
him. His O Ganga maiya, paar laga de meri sapno ki naiya ... set in
Raag Jogiya and sung by Lata Mangeshkar for the film Chandan Ka Palna
was a strong contender for Sur Singar's best Classical Song of the
Year award for 1967. He himself had high hopes for the song. O Ganga
maiya was shortlisted among the four songs in the final context that
year, the other three being Lata Mangeshkar's Maine range li aaj
chunariya composed in Raag Pilu by Madan Mohan for Dulhan Ek Raat Ki,
Asha Bhosle's Saawan ke raat kaari karri in Raag Malkauns by Ravi for
Meherbaan and Lata's Dar laage garje badariya set in Raag Surdasi
Malhar by Vasant Desai for Ram Rajiya.
Brijnarain, who headed the Sur Singar Samsad, called me frantically on
the morning after we had bought R D Burman's O Ganga maiya into the
reckoning. "Are you out to destroy the classical reputation of Sur
Singar?" he asked. "How could you as convener possible permit a song
by R D Burman even to get a look-in at my Sur Singar?". The award
eventually went to Madan Mohan.
The way Pancham came to be jettisoned for that Sur Singar citation
gives me the opportunity to draw attention to `the other side' of
Pancham. If he was beat-based, he was also melody-based. In fact, by
the time Sankarabharanam (from the South) came to make cinematic
waves, Pancham longed to break out of the tight circle of the trendy
music he was acclaimed for composing. His point was that if he had
indeed set a trend in the early '70s, it was for the younger composers
to take over the baton in the mid-'80s. He himself, by 1985, yearned
to compose melody-based music, as he had for Gulzar's Aandhi, Kushboo,
Kinara and Namkeen. "I love doing soft themes," he once confessed.
In Gulzar's Ijazaat, Pancham's Mera saaman mujhe lauta do (a
song-lyric that he had at first refused to touch as a "metreless"
piece of rhyming by Gulzar) went on to win, deservedly for Asha
Bhosle, the National award for Best Song. Yet Pancham always
regretted the fact that a few other beautiful songs that he evoked
from Gulzar's poetry never reached the people in his lifetime. Like
his stunning Lata Mangeshkar solo from Libas --- a film that was never
released --- Sili hawa chhu gai, sila badan chhil gaya or her Kuhu
kuhu koyaliya in Devdas. Then there was Bahut raat hui by Kishore
Kumar in Musafir.
The point here is that Pancham, though tuned in with such melody-based
themes, was stuck with his modern image. His Saare ke saare gama go
lekar gaate chale by Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle and chorus in Gulzar's
Parichay is one such a take-off. Yet Saare ke saare ... carries a
whiff of Raag Bilawal, which is the Hindustani parallel of Raag
Sankarabharanam.
Indeed Pancham was my recommendation to director K. Vishwanath for sur
Sangam, a classical remake of the film Shankarabharanam. But R D
Burman's name was rejected the moment it was mentioned to
distributors. Sur Sangam was finally scored by Laxmikant-Pyarelal.
It was this tinsel-tag that he was stuck with after having already
composed so much meaningful music, that distressed and disheartened
Pancham. Initially, he has deliberately cultivated that image in an
effort to sound different from his father. Even as he finally broke
away from being S D Burman's assistant, his parents remained
justifiably proud of him. "Tell me," said his mother Meera who
assisted S D, "Is there a composer in our films today who could have
done the classy music of Amar Prem along with the jazzy music of Hare
Rama Hare Krishna?"
S D Burman shared his wife's pride --- he had refused to go along with
Dev Anand's idea of him doing the traditional tunes of Hare Rama ...
and Pancham the Dum Maro dum song in the film. "Never mix our musical
identities," S D Burman had told Dev Anand. "Leave Hare Rama ... to
be wholly scored by Pancham. I have trained my son to do both
traditional and modern music."
Pancham had, in fact, given the very first hit of his career --- Ghar
aaja ghir aaye sung by Lata Mangeshkar for Mahmood's Chhote Nawab ---
which was set in Raag Maalgunji. It has he who gave us classical gems
like Vinati karun Ghanashyam in Raag Jogiya (Lata Mangeshkar in Pati
Patni), Bada natkhat hai re in Raag Khamaj (Lata Mageshkar in Amar
Prem), Aayo kahan se Ghanashyam also in Raag Khamaj (Manna Dey in
Budha Mil Gaya), Karvate badalte rahen in Raag Pahadi (Lata
Mageskhar-Kishore Kumar in Aap Ki Kasam), Mere naina sawan bhado in
Raag Shivranjani (Lata Mageshkar-Kishore Kumar in Mehbooba), Jamuna
kinare aa jaa in Raag Maru Bihag (Lata Mangeshkar in mehbooba), Meri
bheegi bheegi si (Kishore Kumar in Anamika) in Raag Kirvani, Beeti no
betayi raina (Lata Mageshkar-Bhupendra in Parichay) in Raag Bihag,
Huzoor is tarah se no itrate chaliye (Bhupendra-Suresh Wadkar in
Masoom) in Yaman Kalyan. Even Asha Bhosle-Mohammed Rafi qawali Hai
agar dushman dushman in Hum Kisse Kum Naheen has R D imparting a
typical light touch in Raag Kalavati.
And wasn't Pancham merely returning to his Rabindra Sangeet roots with
1942 -- A Love Story when he came to be halted in mid-stride at a time
when he was in the truly creative phase of his career? The end came
too soon; time stood still --- much like his lyrical Samay ka yeh pal
tham sa gaya hai...
Hema
RD has given music for some other Hindi movies also in 90's before
1942-ALS in movies like Gardish, another movie starring Urmila and
what's that guy's name-the hero of "Shiva", that I remember off hand. i
particularly like the songs of Gardish. "ye mera dil to pagal hai" is a
very good SPB solo. It was picturized on the lines of "November Rain"
by Guns and Roses. "ham na samjhe the" was very popular. Asha sings "o
mere sona re" before the song "ai mere deewaano". The song itself is
good but IMO, she shouldn't have sung "o mere sona re" before that
because naturally it sounded not as good as the one she sang back in
60's. Then there was one which Jackie sings in the bar with Shagufta Ali
which was good, I don't remember the lyrics off hand. But the one I
liked the best was the one picturised on Dimple (who looks awesome,
thanks to the wonderful light effects) in rain. I don't recollect the
entire song right now but I am posting the mukhda. Its a nice song by
Asha. Here's the mukhda:
badal jo barse to bheege tum aur bheege ham
tap-tip tap-tip goonj rahi hai boondon ki sargam
And whenever I think of Gardish, the movie "Angar" comes to my mind
(don't know why, maybe because of Jackie). Who was the MD for that
movie? The song "mushkil mein hai" is too good. I like SPB version
better than Lata's. It's a wonderful tune.
Hema.
katra katra milti hai katra katra jeene do
Asha in "Ijaazat"
ravi_krishna
In article <344FD3...@pitt.edu>, Hema says...
>RD has given music for some other Hindi movies also in 90's before
>1942-ALS in movies like Gardish, another movie starring Urmila and
>what's that guy's name-the hero of "Shiva", that I remember off hand.
That movie was Drohi , released in the fag end of 1992. The best song of
that film was "tadpa ke tu dil meri aayi tu "(SPB and Chitra). In this
song RDB's orchestra was almost 100% replica of Ilayaraja / A R Rahman
style. The orchestra was heavily leaning towards fusion music. I however
think that the interludes of the song was very close to "ek hasina thee,ek
dewaan tha" (Karz). This is not the first time RDB has been 'inspired' by
LP.
>And whenever I think of Gardish, the movie "Angar" comes to my mind
>(don't know why, maybe because of Jackie). Who was the MD for that
>movie? The song "mushkil mein hai" is too good. I like SPB version
>better than Lata's. It's a wonderful tune.
The MD was Laxmi-Pyare. Give credit to Remo Fernandez from whose album
LP copied the beautiful flute music in Angar.
-- RaviK.
Neeraj Deshmukh - The Falcon
Hema <hnk...@pitt.edu> writes:
> Ravi, Krishna wrote:
>
> > The MD was Laxmi-Pyare. Give credit to Remo Fernandez from whose album
> > LP copied the beautiful flute music in Angar.
> which album (Remo's) was that?
The opening flute notes for 'mushqil me.n hai.n...' are taken
from Remo's 'Bombay City'. The album name is the same.
Ciao,
ND
____ Neeraj Deshmukh __________________ desh...@isip.msstate.edu ____
Institute for Signal & Information Processing 100 Logan Drive #D
P.O. Box 9571, Mississippi State, MS 39762 Starkville MS 39759
W: (601) 325-8335 Fax: (601)325-3149 H: (601) 323-2819
----------------- Disk space - the final frontier... -----------------
Ashoke Kumar Sinha
On 23 Oct 1997 15:14:34 -0700, Ravi Krishna wrote:
>In article <344FD3...@pitt.edu>, Hema says...
>
>>RD has given music for some other Hindi movies also in 90's before
>>1942-ALS in movies like Gardish, another movie starring Urmila and
>>what's that guy's name-the hero of "Shiva", that I remember off hand.
>
>That movie was Drohi , released in the fag end of 1992. The best song of
>that film was "tadpa ke tu dil meri aayi tu "(SPB and Chitra). In this
>song RDB's orchestra was almost 100% replica of Ilayaraja / A R Rahman
>style. The orchestra was heavily leaning towards fusion music. I however
>think that the interludes of the song was very close to "ek hasina thee,ek
>dewaan tha" (Karz). This is not the first time RDB has been 'inspired' by
>LP.
>
=================
"Tadpa ke mere dil mein ayi tu" was not sung by SPB but by Vinod
Rathore.
I am interested to know in which songs RD was inspired by LP.
Ashoke.
>>And whenever I think of Gardish, the movie "Angar" comes to my mind
>>(don't know why, maybe because of Jackie). Who was the MD for that
>>movie? The song "mushkil mein hai" is too good. I like SPB version
>>better than Lata's. It's a wonderful tune.
>
>The MD was Laxmi-Pyare. Give credit to Remo Fernandez from whose album
>LP copied the beautiful flute music in Angar.
>
>-- RaviK.
ravi_krishna
In article <34573140...@nntp.eur.nl>, ash...@tir.few.eur.nl says...
>"Tadpa ke mere dil mein ayi tu" was not sung by SPB but by Vinod Rathore.
It is SPB.
>I am interested to know in which songs RD was inspired by LP.
Two songs comes to my mind.
1. Kis karan .. (Asha and Suresh Wadkar - Dacait). The opening lines (mukhda)
is very similar to a song from Mera Goan Mera Desh Kush kehta hai yeh sawan.
2. The title song from a unreleased film Tadap (staring Chunkey Pandey and
Meenakshi Seshadiri). The audio of that film was released way back in 1988.
In this title song (Amit Kumar and Lata M) , the interludes (antra) is a
complete copy of the interludes of Milan (Sunil Dutt-Nutan) song "hum tum,
yug yug se .." (Lata and Mukesh). When I say it is complete copy , it is
COMPLETE.
Plus there is one more controversial song. The Ajnabee song "beeghi beeghi
raat" (KK and Lata) is quite similar to Lata song from Abhinatri "O ghata savare
chori chori ..". The similarity is too obvious to be ignored and IIRC LP did
make a noise of it at that time. I like both the songs very much , even though
Ajnabee song is more sophisticated.
-- RaviK.
Renu Thamma
Ikram Ahmed Khan (iak...@bigfoot.com) wrote:
: Further correction - The song is 'dhaDkaati mere dil ko hai aa'ii tu'
: by VinodR and Chitra (who does mainly humming).
:
: Drohi was probably a bilingual release (wasn't the Telugu version
: called Antham? MD - MMKreem aka MMKeeravani). I have also heard
: that the music for this film was a joint work between RDB and
: MMK. Also, as is generally the case, claims of 'the best song of
: that film' are arguable. Mon favorite - panchhii gaye re. But
: the songs imo were worth the listen... Some of the telugu songs
: were better than the Hindi versions, methought.
The Telugu version of Drohi was Antham and AFAIK, it was a bilingual
release. I am not 100% sure though. The movie had three MDs --- RDB,
Keeravani (MMKreem) and Ravi Verma. If 'dhadkaati mere dil ko hai aai tu'
is the one in which the female vocals are just restricted to humming alone
(picturized on Urmila in a black saree with Nagarjuna ogling her :) ) then
that has music by Keeravani. The rest of the songs are by RDB excepting
one 'chilikki undanuko..'. This is some kind of a jungle song I would
assume with some tribal mumbo jumbo thrown in. This one is MDed by Ravi
Verma. Is all of Drohi by RD ?
Speaking of RD in Telugu, what other movies did he give music for? I know
he was the MD for 'chinni krishnudu' which has two very nice songs. The
first one 'ee galivaanalo na talli koyila' is a recyle of the 'jahaan pe
savera ho' tune from Basera. SPB is in his element here and makes the tune
so much more glorious, unlike Lata who screeches away in the Hindi
version. The other song an Asha-SPB duet 'jevitham sapta saagara geetam'
was re-used later by him in Mardon Waali Baat as 'oh sanam..' The Telugu
version is sooooooooooooo much better though.. The lyrics incidentally are
a guided tour of a the US. It starts from the Statue of Liberty and ends
at Disneyland in LA. :)
Renu.
ravi_krishna
In article <63a9gg$82e$1...@NNTP.MsState.Edu>, rth...@Ra.MsState.Edu says...
>eaking of RD in Telugu, what other movies did he give music for? I know
>he was the MD for 'chinni krishnudu' which has two very nice songs. The
>first one 'ee galivaanalo na talli koyila' is a recyle of the 'jahaan pe
>savera ho' tune from Basera. SPB is in his element here and makes the tune
>so much more glorious, unlike Lata who screeches away in the Hindi
He He He.
>version. The other song an Asha-SPB duet 'jevitham sapta saagara geetam'
>was re-used later by him in Mardon Waali Baat as 'oh sanam..' The Telugu
The Mardon wali Baat duet itself is a recyle of a bengali song of RDB, called
Pooja songs , sung by AshaB.
IIRC RDB has recycled couple of his bengali pooja songs in Dil Padosi Hai ,
his good non filmi album with Gulzar and AshaB.
-- RaviK.
Arunabha
>
>>version. The other song an Asha-SPB duet 'jevitham sapta saagara geetam'
>>was re-used later by him in Mardon Waali Baat as 'oh sanam..' The Telugu
>
>The Mardon wali Baat duet itself is a recyle of a bengali song of RDB, call
Hi Ravi,
I think I know the Pooja song album you are talking about. As I do not know the
Hindi song O Sanam in question, could you tell me its Bengali counterpart, if
you happen to know the name ? Thanks in advance.
Arunabha
Anil Hingorani
Renu Thamma wrote:
>
> The Telugu version of Drohi was Antham and AFAIK, it was a bilingual
> release. I am not 100% sure though. The movie had three MDs --- RDB,
> Keeravani (MMKreem) and Ravi Verma. If 'dhadkaati mere dil ko hai aai tu'
> is the one in which the female vocals are just restricted to humming alone
> (picturized on Urmila in a black saree with Nagarjuna ogling her :) ) then
> that has music by Keeravani. The rest of the songs are by RDB excepting
> one 'chilikki undanuko..'. This is some kind of a jungle song I would
> assume with some tribal mumbo jumbo thrown in. This one is MDed by Ravi
> Verma. Is all of Drohi by RD ?
>
has done an excellent job of a very ABish song. But, Asha has her
trademark 'dooba dooba nashe mein..' song too - which I am sure is
an RDB tune. BTW, does anyone know who does the 'rap' part in this
song?
Cheers,
Anil
--
ANIL P. HINGORANI
e-mail: hingora...@jpmorgan.com
ravi_krishna
In article <63bno0$l...@drn.zippo.com>, Raju says...
>3. 1990 Poo Mazai Pozhiyuthu (T-Series)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This movie is a tamil movie. Can't u see that the title is in tamil. How
can it be a telugu movie. Also the year of the movie is incorrect. It is
1987.
-- RaviK.