SOUND OF SILENCE - Talat Mehmood remembered

[neha...@hotmail.com]

For you perusal, brought from : http://www.filmfare.com/site/july98/home.htm
There is also another article on LP there titled 'Cant Stop the Music'.

SOUND OF SILENCE

Talat Mehmood remembered
-Sathya Saran

Hain sab se madhur woh geet jinhe,
hum dard ke sur mein gaate hain...

Talat Mahmood is dead. The song keeps replaying in my mind.
Perhaps it's my way of coming to terms with the loss.

While others in my school swooned over Sunil Dutt singing Jalte hain
jiske liye (Sujata), my fantasies revolved themselves around the voice
that sung the ditty. Even when it was blared over the Durga Puja pandal
microphones, there was a soft sensitivity that assured me the song was all
my own, meant for my ears. I had no clue, then, about what the singer
looked like. But through school in my diary that catalogued my favourite
actor,colour, actress and voice, my entry under singer unfailingly read
Talat Mahmood.

After Jahan Ara, Talat disappeared from the scene. And my life.

His songs would float through the ether and knock me down with the
power of nostalgia. But my fickle-fan mind was enslaved by the velvety
seductiveness of Talat's longer lasting competitor.

It swayed towards Mohammed Rafi's powerful voice that ranged across
three octaves, and subsequently towards Kishore Kumar's vocal
versatility.

REDISCOVERY
Then as a cub journalist, I covered a star studded evening, and came face
to face with the man whose voice had embroidered my girlhood dreams.

I interviewed Talat Mahmood, awed at coming face to face with the star
singer. He sang a few numbers, and though the audience roared its
appreciation of Shailendra Singh, who was belting out Main shair to
nahin, from the just released Bobby, it was Talat's Jayen to jayen
kahan and Main dil hoon ek armaan bhara which stayed with me.
Next, I acquired a cassette of his songs.

Since that first meeting, Talat Mahmood and I became friends. It was a
strange friendship. He appreciated my admiration of his artistry, his talent.
His contribution to the golden age of Indian film music.

I was not alone in my admiration, he knew that there were enough and
more fans out there, from autorickshawallas to old timers, to the
in-between generation I belonged to. But whenever chance or reason got
me to his flat on Bandra's Perry Cross Road, he knew I came as a friend
as well as a die-hard fan.

THE MAN
He was the quintessential romantic. His gentle good looks, his soft
manner of conversing and his quiet reclusivity had all the elements of high
romance. Somewhere, I felt, there must be a turmoil; a pain, a sorrow that
had eaten into his heart, to leave him so mellow, so resigned, so
completely content to be out of the limelight.

Ae dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal jahan koi na ho...

I remember the sharp pain of journalistic disappointment, the feeling of
being let down when in an interview that spanned his career and life, he
admitted that his life had been one happy song, sung in low key. His
marriage, his family, his career, nothing had caused him anguish. The
voice that was steeped in sorrow was in complete contrast to the joys his
life had held.

When Talat Mahmood won the Padma Bhushan, along with Naushad, I
spent the day meeting the music director first, and the singer, second.
Naushad, who I also knew from my cub reporter days in Nagpur, while
answering my questions had lashed out at the film industry which he
insisted had deteriorated to din.

Talat, on the other hand, though enfeebled by his heart attack, and the
fact that his breathlessness had added an extra tremor to his voice, spoke
with wistfulness and nostalgia of the glory days. If he was remembered
during his lifetime, despite his retirement, he was the happier for it.

He was gratified by the fact that his concerts, at home and abroad, had
kept him in public memory. Without any ado, he was working on a new
cassette of ghazals.

The cassette proved to be Talat's swan song. Neither the music nor the
rendition matched up to the old magic. Silently, my heart bled for the end
of an era of melody.

HIS MUSIC
But his vintage songs were still there, in cassette after cassette, courtesy
HMV. I discovered long forgotten duets: Seene mein sulagte hain
armaan, Pyar par bus to nahin hain, and the eternal mood-lifter sung
with Rafi -- Gham ki andheri raat mein.

When a TV show, recently, asked me to name my favourite male singer
whom I could interview, I said Talat Mahmood without a second thought.
Fortunately, the programmers did not ask, as many post-Bappi Lahiri kids
might, Talat who? They agreed gleefully.

But son Khalid Mahmood regretfully informed that his father was unwell,
and that his memory was given to lapses. He didn't want to subject his
father to the stress of a TV recording.

I think I came closest to tears that day.

Dekh li teri khudai...
bus mera dil bhar gaya,
teri rehmat chup rahi,
main rote rote mar gaya..

REAL ENDINGS
Today, I received a letter from Khalid Mahmood. Please clarify if you
can, he writes, that press reports which have said that my father suffered
from Parkinson's Disease or any such nervous ailment, are completely
false. He died of a heart attack.

Otherwise he was in good health, considering his age.
I take heart at that. And at the fact, that though I will never bask in the
softness of his smile, if I visit Perry Cross Road again. Death cannot rob
me of his voice.

Dhoond laaya hun wohi,
geet main tere liye

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From: neha...@hotmail.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.misc
Subject: SOUND OF SILENCE - Talat Mehmood remembered
Date: 1 Jul 1998 08:16:24 -0700
Organization: http://pubnews.zippo.com
Message-ID: <6ndjs8$l...@pdrn.zippo.com>