InDepth

Struggle and Early Years in Bombay.... Naushad had quite a struggling start to his career in Hindi Film Industry. The early displeasure from his father notwithstanding, Naushad made a decision to come to Bombay to start his career as musician. The early days were tough as he had neither any prior experience in films nor he knew anyone in the music fraternity. It was 1937. As his very first assignment, he got a chance to play Piano with music composer Ustaad Jhande Khan. It is important to note that Naushad used to play Piano in his early days and knew about Western Classical Music. Bach, Beethoven were names he would admire! So much talent and skill at such an early age! This broad knowledge of music helped him - he had acquired the music of dehat (rural India) through his travels, had learnt Hindustani Classical Music and now could also play Western instruments. One of the biggest movie making houses of pre-independent India was called Film City . For records, before the Indian Film I...

Early life in Lucknow...... Naushad had quite a struggling start to his career in Mumbai. He had to spend many days and nights out in the open, sleeping on the footpath. But before traveling to Bombay (Mumbai these days), we must find out his childhood and boyhood. Let us try to divide his early life into some parts.  Naushad was born in Lucknow. Lucknow has been a city of culture, ethos, passion, craft and most importantly, of art. Even today, there is art in the air. The famous lawyer cum author A.P. Sen thrived in his pursuit of art and literature in the city of Lucknow. Like him, many have heaped praises on the beauty and auspicious nature of the city.  Naushad described some glimpses of his childhood in one of his interviews. It would be a house full of friends and relatives flocking every day. His father was a clerk and had good connections in the society - the family was a well-known one. The most beautiful part was the idea of assimilation of different cultures, faiths...

His most favourite singers..... Naushad had great working relations with Mohammad Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar. Together, this trio has created gem after gem. Year after year. What is spectacular about their association is to see the growth they achieved together. Rafi got his first breakthrough hit song " Suhaani raat dhal chuki.... " in the film Dulari released in 1949 . Three years later Rafi took the country and the musical world by storm singing the complicated classical tunes of Baiju Bawra (1952) . Lata Mangeshkar, on the other hand, went from one milestone to the other in almost the same way. Andaz was released in 1949 and Baiju Bawra in 1952 . Lata kept improving during these years until she found her own unique style and identity of singing. Naushad too kept improving on his orchestration, design and recording quality of his songs in these years. Rafi and Lata kept getting better in their throwing of words, voice modulation and above all, in coming out of influence ...

An intellectual who could understand the art of filmmaking... The study of Naushad's work should include some more aspects other than his sheer talent to experiment with ragas and folk ballads. He understood situations in a movie and had deep intellectual pursuit. However, he was simple in his thoughts and effective in his execution choices. And never biased or pre-meditated. He changed as per the demand of a film sequence. Furthermore, he understood many other details of filmmaking in general. For example, the personality of an actor, his diction, his way of presenting the character on screen and such things. Talking about actresses, he could make out what the role of a female character is trying to convey and most importantly, how.  I once heard Rajinder Kumar say that H S Rawail, the famous filmmaker, was not very pleased with the minimal orchestration of the fresh and breezy ghazal " Mere mehboob tujhe " (Mere Mehboob, 1963) . Rajinder Kumar was the lead actor in the...

Shri Naushad Ali. Naushad Saheb. An uncompromising and unflinching music composer of Indian Cinema. He utilized the semi-classical and classical roots of Indian music and mingled it with the very authentic folk music. Naushad never changed his style, mood and approach towards his music creation. He believed in his own style, and created several different compositions which stood apart from all his contemporaries. His songs became very popular among the common people (films became silver jubilee and golden jubilee hits).  In this multi-part series I will try to take the readers into the world of Naushad's music. Mixing Classical and Folk genres... Naushad was a genius who popularized three aspects - playback singing, classical music and folk tunes. He had tremendous belief in himself that he could do this. With great success, he blended thousand-year-old raagas and raaginis, rustic folk tunes of North India (coming from his own roots in Lucknow) and added his own touches. Not to for...

Life can be like a flight journey. Up in the air, it seems the plane is standstill. At the time of landing, it starts cruising. Suddenly, it whirls and takes a turn. Then again it starts cruising. Finally, it lands. It stays still for a while on the ground, then it takes off again. The same cycle starts all over. My life has seen many such cycles. Those famous Frank Sinatra lines “That’s life and I can’t deny it!” When the job offer from Germany came my way, I was going through one of the toughest periods of my life. The pandemic had been around for a while, my surroundings were falling apart, and my health was also not supporting me. My personal choices were all turning wrong. I needed a change. It was the 30 th of November 2020 that I had to travel to Munich via Amsterdam. An early morning flight from Copenhagen. I was nervous. A new job, a new place, and the chance of getting infected during the travel. There were restrictions all around and I remember to have taken 2 differe...