Five Decades Of BR Music
Rajiv Vijayakar
Volume One starts off aptly with BR Films' first venture, Ek Hi Raasta, which had music by Hemant Kumar and lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri in the only association for both with the banner (Hemant later rendered the epilogue for Laxmikant-Pyarelal's Dastaan). In this era of sequels, the classic 'Chali gori pi ke milan ko chali...' (sung by Hemant himself) has almost a sequel in thought in 'Kehta hai baabul...' - the Amitabh Bachchan-rendered song from Aadesh Shrivastava-Sameer's Baabul. Two more Baabul numbers come in, the semi-classical Sonu Nigam ace 'Baawri piya ki...' and the raag-suffused qawwali, 'Gaa re man piya piya...' (Alka Yagnik-Kavita Subramaniam-Sudesh Bhosle-Kailash Kher). We add six songs in this collection from other one-off associates of the banner that must come in - 'Aaj raat chandni hai...' (Kumar Sanu-Alka Yagnik-Sadhana Sargam), the saving grace of the Nadeem-Shravan-Sameer score in Kal Ki Awaz, the R.D.Burman humdinger 'Pal do pal ka saath hamara...' (Asha Bhosle-Mohammed Rafi) written as only BR pet Sahir could have penned it for The Burning Train, Laxmikant-Pyarelal's timeless tour-de-force with Sahir, 'Na tu zameen ke liye...' (Dastaan), Sapan Chakravorty's 'Zindagi hansne gaane ke liye...' (Kishore Kumar) and 'Tum bhi chalo...' (Kishore-Asha) with Sahir in Zameer (B.R.Chopra's son Ravi Chopra's 1975 directorial debut) and Ravindra Jain's 'Thande thande paani mein...' (Asha-Mahendra Kapoor-Sushma Shrestha) in BR's only association (another film did not work out in the '90s) with Anand Bakshi - the film Pati Patni Aur Woh. Volume Two would contain the only score of BR Films that has to be incorporated in toto, that of the 1967 suspense thriller Humraaz. The five songs that music director Ravi (the composer who had the longest association with the banner - 8 films and a tele-serial) and lyricist Sahir (who was as much a BR pillar as their writers and technicians) delivered are all perennials, with four classic Mahendra Kapoor solos, 'Tum agar saath dene ka waada karo...', the thought-provoking 'Na munh chhupaake jeeyo...', 'Kisi patthar ki moorat se...' and the cult 'Neele gagan ke tale...' and one Asha-Mahendra duet 'Tu husn hai main ishq hoon...' that endure to this day. The other five songs would come in from Nikaah, arguably one of BR's best and most successful films. With Sahir gone, Hasan Kamaal had to come in for the Muslim social when B.R.Chopra brought Ravi out of hibernation to score a whopper that included 'Dil ke armaan...' and 'Fazaa bhi hai jawaan jawaan...' (both by singing star Salma Agha), 'Dil ki yeh arzoo...' (Mahendra-Salma) and 'Beete hue lamhon ki kasak...' (Mahendra Kapoor). The fifth song here would be the vintage Ghulam Ali ghazal, penned by Hasrat Mohani, that was popularized by the film and used tellingly in the situation - 'Chupke chupke raat din aansoo bahaanaa yaad hai...'.
In Volume Three we take off with what is inarguably the finest-ever BR music score - Naya Daur, arguably also the career-best work of maestro O.P.Nayyar. How sad it is then that Nayyar's ego prevented more fruitful associations with this banner. With 7 magnificent compositions in eight, we are forced to incorporate the entire lot on sheer merit and excellence - 'Maang ke saath tumhara...', 'Saathi haath badhana...' and the bhangra 'Ude jab jab zulfein teri...' (all Rafi-Asha duets of completely varied genres but uniform excellence), the Rafi delight for Johnny Walker, 'Main Bambai ka babu...', the folk-rich patriotic perennial 'Yeh desh hai veer jawanon ka...' (Rafi-Balbir), Asha-Shamshad's tangy 'Reshmi salwar kurta jaali ka...' and finally the creative peak of Nayyar in the film, Rafi's devotional stunner, 'Aana hai to aa raah mein kuch pher nahin hai...'. We complete this volume with three songs from Baghban, the 2003 film that brought BR Films back to films after a hiatus of 11 years. Amitabh Bachchan took on the mantle of both actor and singer thrice, with the moving 'Main yahaan tu wahaan...' (with Alka), 'Hori khele Raghuveera...' (with Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan and Sukhwinder Singh) and 'Chali chali phir chali...' (with Alka Yagnik, Aadesh Shrivastava and Hema Sardesai) as composed by Aadesh Shrivastava and written by Sameer. Volume Four would begin with the hard-hitting and lump-raising Sahir Ludhianvi masterpiece composed by N.Dutta, 'Aurat ne janam diya mardon ko...', one of the few Lata Mangeshkar songs in the BR oeuvre. This was the entry fee that Sahir paid to become a near-permanent resident in the portals of BR till his death after completing the incisive but musically-mediocre Insaf Ka Tarazu in 1980. We complete the '50s run with the Yash Chopra debut, Dhool Ka Phool, that marked the milestone entry of Mahendra Kapoor into the BR family. N. Dutta's most popular film score ever boasted of Lata-Mahendra's 'Tere pyar ka aasra...' and the unusual and waltz-like 'Dhadakne lagi dil ke taaron ki duniya...' (Asha-Mahendra) that showcased the always-untapped talent of this Maharashtrian composer. But with Kapoor still struggling then, the cream went to Rafi in 'Na Hindu banega na Mussalman banega...' - and what a cream it proved to be, for it spotlighted the biggest blemish on India's face - communal hatred! We move on to another unusual N.Dutta-Sahir turn in the hard-hitting Dharamputra, 'Jai janani jai Bharat Maa...' (Mahendra Kapoor), while Asha Bhosle's 'Main jab bhi akeli hoti hoon...' proved once again how versatile this composer was. After this film, B.R.Chopra wanted to move on to S.D.Burman for Gumrah. But Sahir's ego had rubbed Dada the wrong way, and Chopra stuck loyally to Sahir, signing up Ravi (said to be a distant relative). At his peak then, the 'hit machine' of that time churned out evergreen charttoppers that stormed Mahendra Kapoor into the big league, with 'Inn hawaaon mein...' (with Asha), 'Chalo ek baar phir se...' and 'Yeh hawa yeh fiza...' leading a hit-list that was rounded off by 'Aap aaye to khayaal-e-dil-e-nashaad aaya...'. The final volume takes on some truly timeless numbers from the '60s and the '70s. It begins with the rambunctious qawwali immortalized by Manna Dey as singer and Balraj Sahni as actor, 'Ae meri zohra jabeen...' and the haunting Asha diamond, 'Aage bhi jaane na tu...' (a complete philosophy in itself) from Ravi-Sahir's Waqt. Here is where again Chopra wanted to work with Shankar-Jaikishan, but went back to Ravi when the duo insisted on Hasrat Jaipuri and Shailendra in place of Sahir. And so we move to another Asha sizzler, 'Zindagi ittefaq hai...', yet another philosophical nugget and the raison d'etre for the title of the quickie and quirkily song-less thriller that B.R.Chopra completed and released even while the big-star-cast Aadmi Aur Insaan was being made. This Ravi-Sahir vehicle also boasted of the placid Asha-Mahendra duet 'O neele parbaton ke dhaara...' and the Punjabi folk-studded Mahendra Kapor-Babbir-Joginder hit 'Dil kartaa o yaara dildara...'. Sahir repaid B.R.Chopra's loyalty by writing some of his best songs for this banner, and Chopra's literary standing ensured that this master lyricist outshone himself at philosophical truisms on Life. The Sahir falsafa dazzled in yet another song that took the film Dhund's title at a tangent for the Mahendra Kapoor winner, 'Sansaar ki har shay ka...', with Asha's poignant 'Uljhan suljhe na...' as a perfect foil. We round off the album with the first of the only three outside flings that the banner had without Sahir in the latter's lifetime - Chhoti Si Baat, with lyrics by Yogesh. Salil Choudhury had composed the brilliant background music for both the daring song-less forays of the banner in the '60s, Kanoon and Ittefaq, but here the maestro composed three songs that are not only musically-memorable but also have other points of 'note'. And so we have Asha-Yesudas's 'Jaaneman jaaneman tere do nayan...' (the Southern singer's entry in Hindi films) and Mukesh's only hit for the banner, 'Yeh din kya aaye...'. In the '90s, Lata had returned to the BR fold after a long absence by recording a Shiv-Hari song written by Anand Bakshi, but the film never took off. And so, as of today, our last song in this collection is Lata's typically-Salil 'Na jaane kyoon...', a full 30 years ago!
Edited by Barnali - 18 years ago
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
Mangal Lakshmi
