Recognition often eludes composers of hit tunes

Some of the most beautiful tunes in Hindi films are created by people whose names few music lovers are familiar with

Recently, 15 lyricists wrote a combined entreaty number, ‘Credit de do yaar’. Their demand is indeed valid because right from the beginning, lyricists never got the recognition they deserved, as singers hogged the limelight.

Composers have suffered even worse. Ask even ‘knowledgeable’ followers of Hindi film music about the composers, and they will not be able to go beyond Naushad Ali, S D Burman, R D Burman, Laxmi-Pyare and Shankar-Jaikishan. Names like Chitragupt Srivastav, Ravishankar Sharma, Roshan Lal Nagrath, Usha Khanna (despite being the only female composer among her peers), Muhammad Zahoor Khyaam Hashmi, N Dutta (Dutta Naik), to name but a few, are completely alien even to lovers of old Hindi songs.

World-renowned American film critic David Edelstein, writing for New York magazine, delved into the songs and music part of Hindi cinema. According to him, “A song in a Hindi film is a combined and cumulative endeavour that gets culminated in a song through various stages of musical development. Since the end result is delivered by a singer, his or her identity is remembered and the initial efforts of a lyricist and composer are often forgotten. The worst fate befalls a composer.’ So very true.

The most deplorable fate befalls a composer despite his tune being instrumental in the success of a song. A film song is a combination of WTV (words, tune and voice; necessarily in that order). A composer’s music provides everlasting sustainability to a song.

That’s the reason S D Burman refused to team up with Sahir Ludhianavi despite the grand success of Pyasa (1957). The duo gave a series of unforgettable songs in a number of movies, but when Sahir haughtily declared that it was because of his fabulous lyrics that ‘Pyasa’ had achieved iconic success, Burman severed all ties with the brilliant, maverick Sahir. Burman was absolutely right in putting his foot down. His euphonic tunes added lustre to Sahir’s epic creations and made them hummable. It was a team effort.

Now the point is: Why do composers seldom, if ever, get recognition? There are many factors working against them. The intangibility of composition often robs him of the credit. To elaborate, a composer works with arrangers and instrumentalists (sazinde) and chooses a tune out of a pool of compositions. In that process, a number of arrangers also help and contribute. For example, Ali Sardar Jaffri’s film 'Gyarah Hazar Ladkiyan' (1962) had an immortal song: 'Dil ki tamanna thi masti mein manzil se bhi door nikalte' (Rafi solo/Rafi-Asha duet). It was attributed to N Dutta (or Dutta Naik). But the actual composer was Baburao Hindlekar, Dutta’s assistant. He was an arranger-cum-musician. The tune was suggested by him when many attempts failed to put music to this song. But Baburao never got recognition.

The meandering process of making a tune takes a toll on the composers and the final credit often eludes them. The best example is Rafi’s immortal and the rarest of rare songs ‘Sabhi kuchh lutakar hue hum tumhare’ (from the Bangla film Indrani, 1958). Penned by Shailendra, this was composed by Bengal’s legendary composer Nachiketa Ghosh, who based it on Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, 3rd movement. But no one remembers Nachiketa Ghosh, at least for this number.

This is really sad. The fans of Mukesh remember his immortal song ‘Woh tere pyaar ka gham, ik bahana tha sanam' (film: My love, lyricist Anand Bakshi and composer Dan Singh, 1970). Hardly anyone has ever heard the name of Dan Singh, who gave music for three films and went back to Jaipur to work as the deputy station director, music section, AIR, Jaipur.

Do we ever remember Chitragupt Srivastav’s magnificent composition: 'Jaag dil-e-deewana, rut jaagi vasl-e-yaar ki' (Oonche Log, lyricist: Majrooh Sultanpuri, 1965)? Roshan Lal Nagrath is seldom remembered for his numbers like ‘Man re tu kaahe na dheer dhare' (film: Chitralekha, Lyricist: Sahir), 'Kaarvaan guzar gaya ghubar dekhte rahe' (Nai Umar Ki Nai Fasal, Gopaldas Saxena ‘Neeraj’) or ‘Mile na phool toh kaanton se dosti kar lee' (film: Anokhi raat, Lyricist disputed: Kaifi Azmi or Indeevar). Sahir took away all the credit for the songs of the film Tajmahal and its composer Roshan hardly got any comparable recognition. Composer Jaidev Verma composed all eight songs for Muzaffar Ali’s ‘Umrao Jaan’ but Ali again got them composed by Khayyam.

No one remembered Jaidev who died a pauper in a room in Mumbai. Imagine the same Jaidev composed the music for 'Hum Donon' and Sunil Dutt’s Mujhe 'Jeene Do or Maan Jaiye' (Ye wahi geet hai jisko maine dhadkan mein...., Naqsh Layalpuri, Kishore Kumar, 1972). The same dismal fate descended upon Ravi who composed the music for innumerable films and songs like ‘Jaane-bahaar husn tera bemisaal hai' (film: Pyaar kiya toh darna kya, Shakeel Badayuni, Rafi, 1963) or 'Ye zulf agar khul ke bikhar jaaye...’ (film: Kaajal, Lyricist Sahir, 1964) or 'Ye vaadiyaan ye fizaayein bula rahi hain tumhein' (film: Aaj aur kal, 1963).

Usha Khanna never got the kind of name and fame Shammi Kapoor, Asha Parekh and Rafi got for the songs in her debut film ‘Dil Deke Dekho’ (1959). She was hardly 18 when she composed those immortal numbers which are still hummed by music lovers.

Have you heard the name of Dattaram Wadkar who composed the music for the song, ‘Hum aapki mahfil mein bhoole se chale aaye’ (Jab se tumhein dekha hai, 1963)?

S N Tripathi, S Mohinder, Snehal Bhatkar, Shyamal Mitra (films: Amanush/Zameer) or Ghulam Mohammed (Naushad’s assistant, who gave music for Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah), among others, are totally forgotten but they created lovely and lilting tunes that stay in our musical consciousness till the wrinkled eve of our lives.

The list is endless. Composers have always got a raw and rough deal despite giving finesse and fluidity to film songs. Don’t they also deserve to be remembered?