Presenting Naushad : Part 11 (Conclusion)

[Concluding part]

                            So, how can one assess Naushad-Sahab's work and what were the aspects that were his trademarks? Well, to start with, it was his knowledge about the various Indian traditional instruments. His orchestration inevitably contained flavours from these different instruments. While using these, he kept in mind the situational demand as well as the overall musicality of the song. To elaborate more on this, he never composed any song that had a musical instrument that felt out of place with the situation of the song. He never composed any song, the orchestration for which became over-the-top and killed the subtleness of its melody. Next, he had a terrific knowledge and conception on the Indian classical music. The fact that he understood the semantics of various raga-s was beyond any doubt but what strikes me more is the fact that he understood the mood, feel and complexity of the raga very well and he developed a tremendous acumen of picking the right raga for the right situation. Next, his sparkling success as a composer was largely made possible due to his great tuning with poet Shakeel Badayuni. Shakeel knew exactly how Naushad composed tunes; the meter, the rhythm, the feel, the sound and the melody were all known in and out by Shakeel. Next, he had great rapport with Mehboob Khan and the director never interfered with Naushad when it came to song writing. I heard once from Naushad-Sahab himself that barring their first collaboration, Mehboob never even asked him about what song he composed for a particular situation. 

When it comes to the style of music, I find one very striking aspect which I think is worth pointing out. This feature that I am going to talk about now was seen song after song - the feature is the so-called repetition of a particular line with different tunes. Examples - In the song "Dil mein baji..." there is the line "Aa gaye hum..." which is sung differently with two different tunes. There are ample such examples and each one created amazing impression to the ears of its listeners. 

Talking about trademarks, Naushad's another trait was prelude to a song. He was one of those composers who believed in the prelude concept and used it to perfection in several songs like "Pyar kiya to darna kya.." which has "Insaan kisise duniya mein" or "Zindaabad zindaabad.." has "Wafa ki rah mein..". To sum it up, here was one composer who knew the "sur"-s from "Sa" to "Sa" and who created tunes by stringing up the "sur"-s in a certain template or order. He was a tad orthodox when it came to style but he definitely cared for his numerous listeners and tried to offer them different sounds.

So what exactly does go behind making such a phenomenon called Naushad? Let us try our best to dig into this question and see if we can ever come close to find an answer for this. I think the first thing to contribute to make an artiste like him is his childhood. Naushad spent huge amount of time listening to orchestrated music accompanying silent films from a very early age. He was deeply attracted to the medium of films. 

Second could be, he was from an immensely cultural place like Lucknow. Born in 1919, Naushad imbibed in him a strong amalgamation of both Hindustani and the so called Lucknow-i gharana music. The synthesis was not just restricted to music alone; there was a continuous urge from his end to understand the socio-religious diversity that a place like Lucknow provided. 

Third, of course, was his own wisdom on music and an unending thirst for achieving musical perfection. The fact that he used to visit places to listen to great qawwal-s and musicians, the fact that he studied Hindustani music under Ustad Ghurbat Ali, the fact that he joined a theatrical club to tour different parts of India, which ultimately led him escape his parental home at the tender age of 18, are all testimonial of the fact that he was a true rebel who nurtured within him a sense of self-exploration and self-motivation which catapulted him becoming one of the topmost music composers of all times in Hindi cinema charging Rs 25000 per film in those days. 

I do not think even after spending so many words on this, I have managed to make the readers understand the real force behind the creation of Naushad. Let me say more - here was one person who spent days and nights in the footpath of Mumbai, he assisted Khemchand Prakash and learnt film music more, he heard Suraiya when she was just 13 and could hand-pick her for his film Sharda because he could find talent in her, he used to spend days and days on just one song perfecting it to take it to his highest creative satisfaction level, he was one who consistently made 1 or 2 films per year at the peak of his career and he was certainly one of the musical personalities who saw and went through the pangs and happiness that Indian independence had to offer to its citizens. To sum it up, he was an advocate of creation of genuine and honest art, a great human being with perhaps little egotism and a lot of heart and a true poster boy of India's age-old cultural traditions and moral ethos.

It has to be said that it was a pity that Naushad-Sahab was by and large under-utilized by the Hindi Film Industry post the 60s. One wonders why although Lata & Rafi were still at their prime form, and there were sensitive film makers still around, why this apathy crept in. Probably it was the business that got the better of this super-talented musician. It feels sad that although the gambit of music is so very vast that there is a place for all kinds of music on the layman listener's hearts, sometimes some irrationality takes precedence over simplicity and we end up losing a sweet dream that one or multiple men have set out to make true. 

From the early 70s there was hostility towards raga-based Hindi film music but to be honest no one knew exactly why. Almost all the leading music composers of that era had several popular classical or semi-classical hits under their belt but no one thought of getting Naushad into the scheme of things. He focused towards Malayalam cinema where he composed music for a film which received tremendous success; he also collaborated with noted vocalist Hariharan for a Ghazal Album. He made a brief comeback of some sort and composed music for Govinda-starrer  "Tere Payal Mere Geet" and then at a very late stage of his life he composed music for the film Taj Mahal, which was his last work. 

Naushad-Sahab had a particularly happy family life with sons and daughters, he held several positions in government institutions and was of course awarded with Dada Saheb Phalke Award by the Government of India.

The legacy of Naushad is something which young musicians should, in my highest opinion, keep dwelling on, since there is much to learn from that. As for countless music lovers like me, we will always remember him as someone who made us cry hearing "Gham diye mustaqil" or "Jab dil hi toot gaya" or made us laugh with "Aaj mere mein sakhi" or made us sway and dance with "Mere mehboob mein kya nehin".