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Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung

(from Samuel Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’)

In a weak moment (among the sixteen thousand that I go through in a day), I grandiosely announced a couple of weeks back about my plans of taking, you, dear readers, through an unparalleled musical journey in Hindi cinema between 1949-1994. Caught in the vortex of exhilaration at having discovered an easy route to churning out articles, I aimed deserving potshots at other such purveyors of lifeless prose, namely, Shashi Tharoor. And I wrote the first part with self-proclaimed élan, confident that the rest shall follow in a similar vein (please see the first part of this series here http://passionforcinema.com/%e2%80%9949-%e2%80%9894-wheel-of-time-part-1/).

However, the zephyr of reality over the last few weeks has considerably cooled down my passion for such misadventure. How on earth will I keep unearthing interesting anecdotes or find newer insights on these past years? So, what do I find now? Like the Ancient Mariner in the verse above, I have got an albatross around my neck. Naak mein dum. Ek dum. Anyway, as Ratan Tata said, recently, on the launch of the Nano, a promise is a promise. That he filched that line from Mithun’s Kasam Paida Karnewale Ki is a different story. So here I go, this time, covering the years 1950 and 1993 in music.

The major event of 1950 in the political life of the country was we declaring ourselves as a sovereign republic on January 26. Apart from guaranteeing a permanent national holiday on our calendars for the foreseeable future, it also presented us with our constitution – an exhaustive document way ahead of the times it was written in through a great collaboration by some of the finest intellectual minds to have graced our political landscape. Congress, the Grand Old Party (GOP) of independence, was in throes of an acerbic power struggle. The right-of-centre ideology within the GOP was on ascendance with Sardar Patel as its patron saint. Purushottam Das Tandon, a protégé of Sardar, squared up against Acharya Kriplani (a close associate of Nehru) for the fight for the post of Congress President. Tandon won the bitterly fought battle leading to a precarious state of affairs for Nehru where he wanted to disown his own party (for more on this read Ram Guha’s India After Gandhi or Vikram Seth’s semi-fictional account of this fight in A Suitable Boy).

By now, some of you would have raised the rhetorical question – why should we be reading this stuff on a cinema blog? Allow me to reach there in a convoluted manner. While Sardar Patel, through a unique mix of guile, persuasion and strong-armed tactic ensured that the princely states joined the Indian Union, the question of national language was still open. Arguably, it was Tandon’s strong advocacy of the Sanskritized Hindi (as against the commonly spoken Hindustani) and his insistence on Devanagri script over Urdu script which led to the two being adopted, eventually, as the national language and script respectively. In that sense, 1950 and Tandon’s victory were important. We might have had a very different form of Hindi cinema had 1950 turned out differently.

While these political tugs and pulls were on in Delhi, Bombay was content with the battle which had started a year ago between Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand. However, 1950, undoubtedly, belonged to a person behind the screen, Kidar Nath Sharma, one of the original multi-skilled artists of Hindi cinema. Kidar Sharma acted, wrote, composed music, wove lyrics and directed with remarkable dexterity between the 30s and 50s. In between, he trained Raj Kapoor (who started his career as Sharma’s clapper boy), wrote heart-breaking lyrics for many Saigal movies (notably Devdas) and introduced a plethora of other actors (Geeta Bali, Mala Sinha) and writers for future.

In 1950, he directed Jogan with the two emerging stars, Dilip Kumar and Nargis. Dilip Kumar was already perfecting his tragic act during this time (refer to Mela in 1948 and Andaz in 1949) while Nargis was coming on her own as a fine actress. Jogan had Nargis playing a young sanyasin who wanders around the countryside singing Meera bhajans. In one village, she meets up with Dilip Kumar who is ambiguous about his faith but finds himself getting drawn into the Jogan’s world. The Jogan, meanwhile, is torn between her desire for worldliness as represented by Dilip Kumar’s muted love interest and her commitment to spirituality. It was a delicate story which required a mature hand and Kidar Sharma does that with aplomb. As would become routine with Dilip Kumar movies, the story has a tragic end with Nargis withering away by the end while Dilip Kumar pines for unrequited love. The music of Jogan, to put it mildly, was outstanding. Composed by Bulo C Rani, a Sindhi gentleman whose real name was Bulo Chandiram Ramchandani (as revealed by Kidar Sharma in a Vividh Bharati programme titled Ujaalen Unki Yaadon Ke), Jogan had two soulful Meera bhajans in the voice of Geeta Roy (later Dutt), the popular ‘Ghoonghat ke pat khol re’ and the divine ‘Main to Giridhar ke ghar jaaon’. Listening to Geeta in Jogan is a spiritual experience and the serenity stays with you. It’s a pity that later music directors rarely reprised this Geeta in their compositions. Talat Mahmood (another voice vying to be the natural voice of Dilip Kumar then) poured emotions and scorn in equal measure in ‘Sundarta ke sabhi shikari”.

Kidar Sharma then worked his magic in Bawre Nain with Raj Kapoor and Geeta Bali as the lead pair. A little known music director Roshan Lal Nagrath made his mark here with three fabulous compositions, the Mukesh and Geeta Dutt duet ‘Khayalon mein kisi ke’, Mukesh’s ‘Teri duniya mein dil lagta nahin, wapas bula le’ and Rajkumari’s ‘Sun bairi balam sach bol’. Roshan (as he and his next generations would be known by) was a Kidar Sharma discovery in the moderately successful ‘Neki Aur Badi’ but in Bawre Nain he found his true identity. The unique echo effect (listen to Khayalon mein kisi ke), the usage of sarangi, guitar and saxophone all marked the beginning of a new kind of music.

Dilip Kumar strengthened his position with S.U. Sunny’s Babul. Sunny had successfully helmed Mela with Dilip Kumar in his first big tragic role and he created another ‘star-crossed lover’ tale in Babul. Dilip Kumar comes together with Nargis again with Munawar in support in this tale of deceit, unfulfilled love and eventual death of Nargis. Talat continued to consolidate his position with ‘Duniya badal gayee’ and ‘Nadi Kinare’ while Shamshad Begum came back strongly with ‘Chhod babul ka ghar’.

The other big event of 1950 was Navketan’s first release, Afsar, with Dev Anand and Suraiya as leads. Afsar, like Barsaat in 1949, created the template for successful Navketan ventures of future. Loosely based on Daniel Kaye’s Inspector General, Afsar, brought together Director Chetan Anand, rising star Dev Anand, the music of SD Burman and a decidedly western way of story telling. Suraiya, the singing star, was the automatic choice and she had two big successes, ‘Naina Deewane’ and ‘Man mor huya matwala’.

Lata cooled off a bit from the highs of ’49 but was already creating a group of ‘bhakts’ among music directors, most notably, C Ramchandra. They paired up successfully in Sargam (‘Mombassa’) and Nirala (‘Mehfil mein jal uthi shama’). And, of course, that huge chartbuster from Samadhi, ‘Gore gore o baanke chhore’. Anil Biswas continued his faith in her in Aarzoo (Ismat Chugtai’s story directed by PL Santoshi, father of Rajkumar Santoshi) which had Dilip Kumar and his (possibly) fledgling love interest of then, Kamini Kaushal. The big disappointment of the year was Prithviraj Kapoor – Nalini Jaywant starrer Hamara Hindustan (also had Dev Anand in a cameo) which was directed by German Pau Zills. And, of course, no description of 1950 can be complete without discussing Cuckoo (not the bird) who became the first dancing sensation of Hindi cinema this year. From Aarzoo’s ‘Aao milke jawani ki looten bahaar’ (such lyrics were popular back then too) to her infectious numbers in Bawre Nain, Aankhen and Nili, Cuckoo gained instant celebrity status and became almost indispensable for most of the big production banners. A trend her protégé Helen continued with aplomb though the 50s and 60s.

The stand-out cinematic moment of 1993 was when Shah Rukh Khan pushed a garishly made up Shilpa Shetty off the terrace of a high-rise at the stroke on intermission in Baazigar. Reams have been written on SRK and how he came to symbolize the aspirations of a generation of Indians breaking free into a market-driven economy. The camera loved SRK and his two stand-out performances in the year in Baazigar and Darr had the audiences applauding an anti-hero who didn’t really reform in the end. SRK also had two cameos in Rakesh Roshan’s ‘King Uncle’ and Ketan Mehta’s ‘Maya Memsaab’. The other Khan, Aamir, had ‘Sound of Music’ inspired success with Mahesh Bhatt’s ‘Hum hain raahi pyaar ke’ and a royal dud with Yash Raj’s Parampara. Salman Khan’s meteoric rise was arrested and he was brought to earth with turkeys like Dil Tera Aashiq (with Madhuri Dixit) and Chandramukhi (with Sridevi). Saif Ali Khan made a quiet entry with Aashiq Aawara followed by a dud named Pehchaan while Sanjay Dutt got into the first of his fracas with law just as his Khalnayak was readying for release. Sunny Deol had a national award winning cameo in Damini and a surprise success with the slick Lootere from the Darshan camp while Jackie did a Mohanlal in Gardish, the Hindi version of Keerdam. David Dhawan, two Govindas, two Raj Babbars, two Kader Khans, one Chunkey and one Monkey made Aankhen among the biggest grosser of the year. Musically, it was a good year. A young composer from South captured the imagination of the nation with his refreshing tracks in Roja at the same time when that other genius, RD Burman, was taking a curtain call with Gardish and Gurudev. Nadeem-Shravan were scarping the bottom of their creativity barrel with Hum Hain Rahee.. and Damini. They sounded tired by the time we reached the end of the year with Rang and Sainik. However, the one composer who made the year his own was the resurgent Anu Mallik. From the Bhatt camp movies like Sir, Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayi and Jaanam to Mithun’s Phool Aur Angaar (Chori chori dil tera churayenge) and finally the blockbuster Baazigar, Anu Mallik was back. Alka Yagnik and Kumar Sanu continued to be the top singers of the year though Udit Narayan and SPB had their moments.

My picks of the year include ‘Is dil mein bas kar dekho to’ (Hridyanath Mangeshkar’s Maya Memsaab), ‘Ham na samjhe thae’ (RDB’s Gardish), ‘Mere dil ka pataa’ (Anu Mallik’s Jaanam), ‘Yeh haseen waadiyan’ (Rahman’s Roja), ‘Sapno mein aana’ (Nikhil-Vinay’s Chor Aur Chand) and ‘Dil deta hai ro ro duhaii (Anu’s Phir Teri Kahani…). And, how can I forget the two songs jinhone chain se sone na diya – ‘Atariya pe lotan kabutar re, gutar gutar (Bappi Lahiri’s Dalaal) and Choli ke peeche (LP in Khalnayak). Years have passed since but the homicidal instincts within me still rouse themselves whenever Ila Arun starts with any one of these numbers.

p.s: A few of the songs mentioned from 1950 can be found at this link (http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/hindi_bollywood/m/year.35/). For the rest, give me a call and I will hum them out to you (an experience not recommended for the faint at heart).