InDepth

Shakti Films and O.P.Nayyar Incidentally, Kashmir Ki Kali was not the first film where O P Nayyar collaborated with Shakti Samanta. There was previously another film,  Howrah Bridge (1958) , a thriller where O P gave music to Shakti Samanta. Ironically, Howrah Bridge was also the first film under the banner of Shakti Films -  a production house that Shakti Samanta launched and which, with the passage of time, and thanks to various sparkling hits that came in the years to follow -  became a big brand within the Indian Film Industry. Today, it is needless to say how much O.P contributed to the initial days of Shakti Films. The film was a runaway hit and Shakti Samanta started to make his mark among the other star directors of that era. I have mentioned about “Aaiye meherbaan” already before but there were other lilting tunes in the soundtrack of Howrah Bridge. One of them was the beautiful “Yeh kya kar dala tune” sung by Asha Bhonsle; a breezy tune that grows i...

O.P.Nayyar's amazing run at the box office was somewhat halted by the Shakti Samanta failure “Kashmir Ki Kali” . Despite the fact that the movie had some of the most exquisite songs ever composed for Indian cinema, it failed to do well on the business front [Contrary information also exists which states that the movie was rather a big success].  The songs have a very special place in my heart. Back in my childhood days, I had a friend in my school who was a big fan of Rafi and he used to tell me about songs from this film. I, on the contrary, was growing up more listening to Bengali songs and some Bhajans (devotional songs) and had little exposure to Rafi’s song until one day the Doordarshan (India's national TV channel, and the only one present those days) decided to telecast the movie Kashmir Ki Kali on TV! I watched the entire movie and liked all the songs in that.  The effect that those songs had in me was just fantastic. I kept on humming the song “Kisi na kisi se kabhi ...

Nayyar-sahab followed his tremendous success of “ Aar Paar ” with another gem of a soundtrack in the film “Mr and Mrs 55” . I think I should write some more words about the songs of these two films. “Babuji dheere chalna” was my mom’s favorite song for a long time. It was one of those songs that had my most favorite actress of all time, the great Madhubala and it was sung by my grandmother’s most favorite playback singer, the late Geeta Dutt. I have been hearing Geeta Dutt since my childhood. Listening to her songs has given me immense satisfaction. Over here, in this song, several great things come together. First, it is the masterful presence of Madhubaala and her acting on screen. Next, it is the excellent piece of cinematography by V K Murthy, a legend in his field. The camera captures the mood of this song in the absolutely correct way. Then, it is this amazing orchestration that is so intelligent and way beyond its time. Finally, it is the cupid-struck facial expressions of G...

                   Music is definitely one way to attain self-containment and it does have some kind of spiritual quality to emancipate oneself from the shackles of prosaic, incumbent surroundings. I have no doubt in my mind that the strongest motivation behind the creation of all these century-old Indian Raaga-s comes from the fact that the saints and hermits in those days wanted to attain some kind of “Nirvaana” in an uncomplicated way and hence they selected music as an instrument. What fascinates me more is the fact that these Raaga-s (a patterned collection of certain notes) are very well thought out and designed to accommodate several aspects of human life like laughter, anguish, pain, sorrow, joy etc.  Musicians like Naushad utilized this inner core quality of Indian Raaga music in the best possible way together with such minds like Mehboob Khan and K Asif. While all this was happening across the music scene, there was a par...

In today’s edition I take great pleasure in opening a few rather unknown chapters of a book named “Indian Film Music”. The chapters are quite interesting. In these chapters, I will tell a little story, mention about a few incidents, and put forward a few views. The end is going to be abrupt because there is no need to draw any deep inference – they are just for reading and feeling good. Chapter 1 In his entire career the seminal music composer Sachin Dev Burman used very little voice of singer Mukesh. Mukesh was S.D. Burman’s choice and voice in such films as  Bambai Ka Babu  ( Chal ri sajni…. ),  Bandini  ( O jaanewale ho sake to laut ke aana… ). Clearly, as we can see, only these two come to my immediate recollection. There were a few others during the same time – in films like  Dr Vidya . So far so good. But this chapter is not meant for the S.D-Mukesh combination, it is rather for the S.D-Mahendra Kapoor one. The ace playback singer Mahen...

Mysteries are man-made in most cases. Mysteries that are solved are remembered across generations, but those that are not become a part of legend. In due course of time, unsolved mysteries acquire the status of folklore. They mirror a simple fact – man was not able to solve a problem created by man himself. Today’s theme focuses on the notoriety, and very often the cruelty, that an unsolved mystery thrusts on a normal human society. The theme is carried forward through two instances – a Japanese movie Rashomon made in 1950 and an Indian movie Talvar released in 2015. Though the age-gap between the two is more than sixty years, yet Rashomon and Talvar are similarly mounted, crafted, and executed – at least thematically. Rashomon: The story of the movie goes like this: a murder happens in broad daylight, in the middle of a jungle, and there comes three or four different versions of what led to the murder. There is a woodcutter, a priest, a commoner, a bandit, a samurai and a qu...