"He Said He Was Mozart Reborn"
What is surprising is that Salil Chowdhury gained popularity without even being really understood.
Papa's girl sings to his tune
He was a naughty man – my father! My brothers are married, so it was mum, my sister and me with dad - three women against one man, he would say and we never let him be. He loved Pan Parag and we would get after him to leave it so he would eat it on the sly.
Aaja ri aa nindiya tu aa…, Jhilmil sitaron se utar aankhon mein aa,
sapne sajaa… - If dewdrops could be rendered in human voice, Lata Mangeshkar did it with this lori she sang in Do Bigha Zameen. And who else but Salil Chowdhury could harvest these dewdrops, weave them into his music strings to form a piece of eternity – yet delicate, so ephemeral that the melody tapped your soul provocatively and vanished before you could even touch it?
The maestro was born in 1925 and would have been all of 75 this year. But he bid his goodbyes on September 5, 1995, and left his musical legacy to wonder at, or analysed and dissected.
Salil Chowdhury, unfortunately, was far ahead than his times permitted. Little wonder, his music bears analysis today and will continue to do so till his listeners can assimilate the subtle synchronisation of western classicism with the most ethnic of Indian melodies and the wonder their merger could produce.
What is surprising is that he gained popularity without even being really understood. Even Lata Mangeshkar has gone on record to exclaim, "I required Mannada (Manna Dey) to help me with Salilda's tunes!"
Today his daughter Antara makes her debut as a solo singer with an album titled Madhur Smriti in which she has most appropriately chosen to sing her father's tunes. Here she walks down memory lane to speak of her illustrious father and his influence over her life.
"Daddy used to say jocularly that he was Mozart reborn, he loved his music so much! It was from him that I got my love for Beethoven and Chopin. For me, he was naturally more a father than a composer. He was a naughty man – my father! My brothers are married, so it was mum, my sister and me with dad - three women against one man, he would say and we never let him be. He loved Pan Parag and we would get after him to leave it so he would eat it on the sly.
He loved to cook and quite impulsive as well. Suddenly he'd say one day, 'Today I'm going to cook!' and we'd say 'Oh God! Now the kitchen will be a mess!' He drooled over non-vegetarian and generally loved to eat. He made deadly biryani and mutton curry. That's what I remember the most about him.
He would go berserk when one of us fell ill - he would keep bringing in one doctor after the other till we became well. But food… that was his single most important obsession! Fried stuff was banned for him. But he wouldn't listen and dug into his favourite fried potatoes with absolute abandon. We have this thing in Calcutta called muri which is dipped in chane ka aata (gram flour) and eaten. He loved it and he'd have this flour and mirchi all over his face – just like a child but he didn't care. He would gorge into till as long as he wanted to.
He was so ordinary in his behaviour that it wouldn't occur to us that there was anything special about him. He loved to hang around in his shorts and he had a little paunch and he looked so sweet. One day he was in his shorts outside the house washing the car. A producer came and asked for him. He got a little cheeky and said: 'Oh yes, he must be inside!' So the man came in and we told him dad was outside. You can imagine his embarrassment seeing dad only in his shorts washing the car but dad just laughed!
Today when he is no more I wish so much that I had spent more time understanding his music - his thoughts and what made him compose the way he did. I knew he was a genius but it didn't mean so much when he was around. Now, I wish I could have learnt more from him. I now realise people will take another century to really understand his work.
Dad loved Rabindra Sangeet too and he was so upset when the poet passed away that he didn't eat for a whole month and walked without chappals. He enjoyed the music of Vanraj Bhatia, Iliyaraja and Madan Mohan. I believe a huge portrait of my father hangs in Iliyaraja's house. Such was his openness that he enjoyed listening to all kinds of music – some years ago the number Ek do teen char… from Tezaab, became very popular and we kids were criticising it when he said 'Listen to it… Why has it become so popular? There's a fabulous rhythm and scanning there… hear it and see how attractive it is!'
He taught us to recognise and understand what made something so popular.
For him Lata Mangeshkar was like Ma Saraswati – he didn't have to worry about scales and pitches when he was composing for her because he knew she could sing anything. I personally think the song she sang for dad in Annadaata is just fabulous - Raaton ke saaye has beautiful arrangement – and has been rendered equally well. I think the way dad has used Lataji's voice was simply wonderful. Like in the Half Ticket, he used her to do the interlude which just has her crooning hahahaha.... He adapted this bit from a Russian dance and she sang it to perfection.
Yesudas sang a lot for dad and he made sure he gave him a range that suited him. Once Kishore Kumar was got a little upset when dad asked him for his pitch. But dad just said a song could sound marvellous if one sang within one's pitch and gave him the Guzar jaaye din din din….
Dad belonged to IPTA (Indian People's Theatre Association) and composed a lot of music for their movement, their freedom struggle etc - so there are sections to his music he enjoyed composing for choir music and you'd see him a lot on Doordarshan conducting the CPC choirs. He often said that if he wasn't married he'd have been able to do so much more and I'd say but then you wouldn't have had us! And he would agree saying 'you're my ribs!'
He wanted me to sing and taught me to aim high. He loved sports and often mouthed Mohammad Ali's famous line –'I'm the greatest!' He believed that you could achieve anything if you believed in yourself. He also taught me to compose in case I got the opportunity. So, I composed with him for a couple of TV serials like Daraar and Kurukshetra etc. I played the keyboards and learnt a lot from him. I learnt only then how much creativity and imagination it takes to compose to a given scene so as to uplift and highlight it. It is a lot more difficult than singing. It was a lesson for me to see him put his heart into composing even for a small budget serial.
He even sang well and was a great admirer of Ustad Faiyyaz Khan - I remember him getting up early in the morning and singing. I shared a wonderful relationship with him - I could confide in him and tell him anything. But he could be strict too - he'd make sure I got up early and did my riyaz and went for a walk. He called me Manna and even today I feel he's with me.
Unlike composers of today, dad did his own musical arrangements. In Western music, he'd moved beyond the major and minor chords. Just before he passed away, he was experimenting with chord 11 and 13 etc. He loved the complexity of it all. But in personal life, dad was utterly simple - you'd never know he was such a genius."
Edited by Qwest - 19 years ago
Anupamaa
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