The Story of the 'Richly Evergreen'......(Part1)
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 parallel track that was taking shape in the form of a maverick called Omkar Prasad Nayyar who is better known as O.P.Nayyar. If I were to be a little more imaginative, I would say O P was a kind of alter-ego to the established Gharaana (legacy) of Hindi film music in those days. In other words, he approached music-making in a way different from the already chosen path. By this, what I am trying to refer to is the fact his music was not primarily guided by the intricacies of Raaga-s, rather, it was backed up by another very important aspect of music which is called rhythm. People used to call him a “Rhythm King”. As far as the listener in me is concerned, he was the only music composer who brought to the fore the essence of rhythm in Hindi film music and that is still today his most valiant and defining contribution. So, what exactly was O P’s music all about? Well, it was a product of lilting beats, soothing tunes - very well decorated with orchestration and presented by vocalists who understood the pulse of his kind of music.
Nayyar-sahab started his journey from the city of Lahore and made a great name for himself in Bombay. He worked as a background music composer before he got his break to compose music for a film called Aasmaan in the year 1952 as an independent composer. He composed music for a couple more films called Chham Chhama Chham (1952 ) and Baaz (1953 ) without creating any ripples whatsoever.
But that was just the beginning of a shinning bright newcomer. Guru Dutt, who was an actor and director in the movie Baaz, saw some spark in Nayyar-sahab and signed him again for his film Aar Paar (1954). The rest, as they say, was history. There were “Udhar tum haseen ho”, “Kabhi aar kabhi paar laaga teere nazar” and of course “Babuji dheere chalna”, the last one being a raging hit till today.
In a way, he announced his entry with a big bang. All prototypes were missing in the design of the songs and their presentation. The standard norm of sweet, serene vocals gave away to mesmerizing, sensuous throw of words and a 'giant-in-the-making' was born. It is so fascinating to think about the array of talent the Indian film industry has given India and O P’s arrival certainly ranks as one of the very sparkling elements within that array. Nayyar-sahab was boyish, full of joy and very fresh in his thinking and all those traits showed off in the various trendy songs of Aar Paar. Mohammad Rafi was utilized in a very good way and Geeta Dutt, Asha Bhonsle were very rightly selected as the female playback singers. These names became almost synonymous with O P Nayyar together with the unparalleled Shamshad Begum as all these talented people created a niche for themselves in developing foot-tapping and very popular, chart-buster songs - year after year.
Nayyar-sahab started his journey from the city of Lahore and made a great name for himself in Bombay. He worked as a background music composer before he got his break to compose music for a film called Aasmaan in the year 1952 as an independent composer. He composed music for a couple more films called Chham Chhama Chham (1952 ) and Baaz (1953 ) without creating any ripples whatsoever.
But that was just the beginning of a shinning bright newcomer. Guru Dutt, who was an actor and director in the movie Baaz, saw some spark in Nayyar-sahab and signed him again for his film Aar Paar (1954). The rest, as they say, was history. There were “Udhar tum haseen ho”, “Kabhi aar kabhi paar laaga teere nazar” and of course “Babuji dheere chalna”, the last one being a raging hit till today.
In a way, he announced his entry with a big bang. All prototypes were missing in the design of the songs and their presentation. The standard norm of sweet, serene vocals gave away to mesmerizing, sensuous throw of words and a 'giant-in-the-making' was born. It is so fascinating to think about the array of talent the Indian film industry has given India and O P’s arrival certainly ranks as one of the very sparkling elements within that array. Nayyar-sahab was boyish, full of joy and very fresh in his thinking and all those traits showed off in the various trendy songs of Aar Paar. Mohammad Rafi was utilized in a very good way and Geeta Dutt, Asha Bhonsle were very rightly selected as the female playback singers. These names became almost synonymous with O P Nayyar together with the unparalleled Shamshad Begum as all these talented people created a niche for themselves in developing foot-tapping and very popular, chart-buster songs - year after year.
[To Be Continued]
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