O P Nayyar
Hit man of the golden era Till today, OP Nayyar does not follow rules: he sets his own. Consider, for example, how fashionable it is for seniors to run down their juniors and denigrate the deterioration in music. Nayyar is very clear on this point. "My contemporaries are plain jealous because at their peak they could charge only around a lakh of rupees. Today, AR Rahman gets a crore!" Never one to mince words, Nayyar thunders, "My learned colleagues who are running down today's music and western influences forget that there are just seven surs in the world, which have all emanated from God. Abusing these seven notes is like abusing God! Swar to Bhagwan hai! Why don't they say that it is the lyrics that have deteriorated, the costumes and choreography that are of poor standards? As intelligent men, don't they know this much? My dear friend, music cannot be spoilt!" He goes on, "At a recent function, Bappi Lahiri met me and fell at my feet. I told him, "Tumne to hum sab ko sula diya tha!" It's a fact. At Bappi Lahiri's peak, he had made stalwarts eat humble pie. He embraced me in gratitude. Everyone here is jealous of another man's success. They run down juniors even though they know their own time is over. What will they lose if they tell a junior, 'Wah wah! Beta, kya kamaal kiya hai,' and encourage him? And it's a myth that in our time music directors were great friends among themselves. How can dogs unite? They have to bark at each other! OP's healthy but unconventional attitude stems from his firm belief in two facts: one, the supremacy of destiny and two, the fact that a good song is one which appeals to the ear. "I knew that my time as a music director was running out. So I quit well in time, though Esmayeel Shroff convinced me to do two films, Nischay and Zid with him in the '90s. But the films were very bad, though he treated me the way I wanted to be treated - like a king!' But how did he know that his time was running out? "I am fascinated by astrology and I have studied it deeply. Though I say it myself, I am a very good astrologer. On the 16th of January 2000, I entered my 75th year, I know I have just two or three years to live. He smiles, his eyes beaming. It's been a good life. I have reached the sky!" Over the last few years, OP Nayyar has quit music completely. "The people with whom I stay as a paying guest heed my request that the moment my song comes on TV, they must switch the set off if I am around! Music is medicine for the soul. But now I am giving medicines for the body. It is equally fulfilling! Music and medicine go together.' For those who came in late, OP Nayyar has been an eminently successful homeopath of patients as charity. Today, my results are so amazing that I have an exclusive VIP clientele too. I have stopped travelling because of my age. OP (the man thinks so young that using the term 'Nayyar' sounds incongruously middle-aged!) is a born philosopher. "God has made OP Nayyar!" he says in a ringing voice. I am at the mercy of God! "Main to Bhagwan ke gadhon mein se hoon!" What else, he wants to know, explains how he began to play the harmonium as a child without ever being taught the rudiments of music or notations. I don't know how to read or write music. I have never studied raags or classical music even for a day. But I even taught music for a while at Patiala and Amritsar. From the age of 11 to the time I was 21 and a half, I was a singer with All India Radio, composing my own songs! I sound a bit incredulous, and I remember reading somewhere that OP's good friend Ustad Amir Khan was equally sceptical about the composer's lack of musical credentials. I want to know how he has composed all those exquisite classical numbers like Tu hai mera prem devata (Kalpana), Dekho bijli dole (Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon), and Aana hai to aa (Naya Daur) and all those seemingly simple songs which abounded in complex murkiyaan and sudden changes in octave and scale. OP replies, "Young man, I told you I am God-gifted! What more does one want? I was a musical prodigy. Tell me, were there medical colleges with systematised training 500 years ago? But yet there were doctors. Most of the greatest musicians were self-taught. Our Arya Dharma dates back to 5500 years, much before Islam and Christianity came in. Sufism brought in so much of our best poetry - are there schools which teach you how to write poems? Did Jesus Christ and Gautam Buddha learn their wisdom by going to a class? Still, I persist, composing cannot be actually taught, but what about the orchestration and the background music? Says OP, "I would of course have an assistant, but the orchestration would be mine, he would just follow my guidelines. For example, I would tell him where and in what way I wanted the saxophone or the violin. Background music was a technical job, not difficult at all. Would you believe that I have never seen any of my films completely? The background score is always done according to sequences - you can never gauge a complete film that way. But as a man born to romance, I would do the background score only for the romantic, emotional and dramatic scenes. Action was not my scene at all. I would leave those scenes to my assistant! I am a born romantic - sharaab, shabaab, kabaab and rubaab being my trademarks!" OP adds proudly that it was he who bought the sarangi, an instrument traditionally associated with the mujrewalis and kothas, into mainstream film music and gave it respectability. Wasn't he the man who also took singer Geeta Dutt the reverse way - from staid devotional numbers to the Meera naam chin chin choo image? "Well, I moulded her voice. I did the same for Asha Bhosle." Over to the multi-million-dollar question which he must have been asked a million times: "Why did he never use Lata's voice?" OP first commands me not to believe in the half-a-dozen versions that are floating around, some of them implying that OP was talking verbatim. "Journalists like to sensationalise these issues. It's just that there was no composition of mine that suited her. I also had a king-sized ego. I would take singers who came to me. Even Asha Bhosle was forced on me by Pyarelal Santoshi. Later I got involved with her and with Shamshad Begum's voice getting aged and Geeta's personal problems, I kept doing songs with Asha Bhosle. I respect Lata Mangeshkar as an artiste, and we would often meet and exchange pleasantaries whenever I went to Asha's house. Insiders have always hinted at Nayyar deserting Geeta Dutt, the wife of his mentor Guru Dutt, and his subsequent remorse about it. But what went wrong between Asha Bhosle and him? "Nothing. I came to know that my career was on a downslide. Astrologically, a split was on the cards too. So before she left me, I thought I should leave her. My last film with her was "Pran Jaye par Vachan Na Jaye" and she won an award for my Chain se humko kabhi. That apart, we were beginning to have problems with each other.' I put forward my own observation that a sizeable chunk of the Nayyar nuggets have been penned by small-fry lyricists like SH Bihari, Shevan Rizvi, Aziz Kashmiri, Noor Dewasi and others. On the other hand, he never worked with Shailendra, Shakeel or Anand Bakshi. Why was this? "Yes, I agree, and that's a very important factor in my music. You see, I have always been a worshipper of sunset. A man who worships nature worships sunset rather than sunrise. Sunset is beautiful, sunrise is not. You see, Urdu is my language, and I have always had a tremendous sense of lyrics. I found that these men were extremely talented but unsuccessful. Shevan Rizvi has written classics like Hamein to loot liya milke husna waalon ne, SH Bihari has written Na yeh chand hoga, Aziz Kashmiri has written Lara lappa, Qamar Jalalabadi and Raja Mehndi Ali Khan have done fantastic work but the film industry was not giving them their due." What about his work with Majrooh and Sahir? "You see, at my peak, the lines, "music by OP Nayyar" in a film's credits was enough to sell all territories on the day of their announcements. No one bothered about the banner, producer, director or stars, if any. When - after Pyaasa - Sahir came and pompously told me that he had made the career of S.D. Burman, I wondered what he would say to others after Naya Daur was released. I got him removed from 12 films of mine. OP Nayyar did not need anyone to sell or succeed!" Who are the composers he himself admires? OP refuses to answer this question unless I tell him what I think of him! That done, he mentions the greats from New Theatres - Timir Baran, RC Boral, Anil Biswas, Kamal Das Gupta, Kanan Devi and Saigal. He also lists Master Ghulam Haider and Khemchand Prakash, and among his contemporaries and juniors, likes the Burmans, Shanker-Jaikishan, C Ramachandra, Roshan and now Jatin-Lalit. "To me, the composition should be strong, which was the case with these composers. Any singer could have taken care of them. I do not think highly of composers who depended on singers to make their compositions popular. For example, a ghazal should sound as appealing with Shamshad Begum as with Lata Mangeshkar!" I tell him that there have been at least three big filmmakers who have told me that they left him because of his arrogance. "I was arrogant only with people who were arrogant with me. Besides, you know that individuality is an expensive commodity. But no one left OP Nayyar. OP Nayyar left them all. After Naya Daur, BR Chopraji wanted me to work with him again. He did not like the money I quoted as my price. I have never compromised on money, because everyone was cashing in on my name to sell the film. There were people like S Mukerji and Guru Dutt for whom I would not have minded working for Rs. 5, but why should I do it for others?" "V. Shantaram wanted to do a film with me in 1961. I quoted a figure that sent him reeling - he had offered me a pittance. I told him, "I'm a history by myself! Sohrab Modi approached me in 1958 when I was at the top. I told him "I sell all alone" and quoted twice my price, telling him that half this amount was compensation for turning me down as a struggler with the words, "There is no originality in this boy!" "You see, I never cared for anybody then. I even stopped working with Rafisaab because he had reported late for a "Humsaya" recording after I had fixed up the recording at his convenience. I gave hits in that period with Mahendra Kapoor in films like Kismet, Kahin Din Kahin Raat and Sambandh. But Rafisaab came and wanted me to forget what had happened. I embraced him and he was back with me, singing with me till Bin Maa Ke Bachche, which was released after his death.' OP never entertained any interference in his music, and had once made this point tellingly to Guru Dutt when the latter scoffed at his knowledge of camera angles. OP asked him what he knew about music and Guru Dutt never interfered again. "Guru could be very silly sometimes. He did not like the antaras I had composed for Babuji dheere chalna in Aar Paar. I told him to change the situation and I would be inspired to change them. He was adamant. Ten days later I took the same song to him with nothing changed. He said, 'Now, it's okay!'" But the composer does not understand when I ask him his opinion about the current system of sittings with the composers displaying his wares: "I don't know what you are talking about. The producer had to accept the song I give him." Does it mean that he offers just one tune per situation? "Of course! A situation creates a tune when lyrics are written to it. I have composed first but I prefer that the words are written first." I tell him I remember reading that he had offered 52 tunes to Shakti Samanta and that the filmmaker selected the nine best and wove a story around it for Kashmir Ki Kali. "Journalists are another name for sensationalism!" he declares. "You should not believe all you read or all they say. Without an inspiring situation, how can I compose? I don't believe in stock tunes. The film's story made me compose the hit music in it," says the man whose zingy tunes like Tumsa nahin dekha and Jawaaniyan yeh mast mast bin peeye first set Kashmir Ki Kali hero Shammi Kap-oor on the success trail with a definite rebel star image. Nayyar has been away from his wife and children for a decade now. "They took me to court as they never understood the person in OP Nayyar. I left them to be on my own. I have always been a lone wolf and a philosopher and thinker. I firmly believe that what we earn in life is immaterial. It's what we become within us that really matters in whether you have got something out of life." "I have never pretended to be anything other than what I am. Before I married, I told my wife that I would always remain a womaniser. She took a promise that I would never marry again. My life was fast - whisky and women were a compulsory part of my day after work. And OP Nayyar never bothered about anybody." Which are his own favourite compositions or scores? I refuse to discriminate between my songs and films. I did my best with the story and situations and the fact that I succeeded so well proves that every song and score was equally good, he signs off. The birth of a Legend
Omkar Prasad Nayyar was born in 1926 at Lahore. "I was called the khota sikka of the family as from the very beginning. I was not interested in studies. My passion was music and during college days I was once thrashed by my father - a superintendent in a government medical store - for spending my examination fees of Rs. 18 on whisky at an upmarket restaurant frequented by beautiful British ladies! Romance was in my nature itself." "There was no one remotely musical in my family. My father did not encourage me, but from the age of 11, I became an AIR artiste. My brothers and other close relatives were all highly qualified doctors or judges. At the age of 17, I had composed Preetam aan milo, with none other than Kundan Lal Saigal in mind. My friend S.N. Bhatia, who ran a chemist shop in Lahore, introduced me to C.H. Atma, who sang like him. HMV recorded the song in Atma's voice in 1945 and released the 78 rpm EP on Regal, the most downmarket among their three labels - His Master's Voice and Columbia being the better ones. On the reverse side was Kaun nagar tera door thikana. I was paid Rs 40." "Bhatia also took both of us to Dalsukh Pancholi, a top producer, studio and theatre-owner. He threw us out. Later he gave C.H. Atma a break in Nagina. Interestingly, my destiny was made in the toilet of the Regal cinema in Delhi where S.N. Bhatia met Pancholi at the premiere of his film! He told him, "I had brought two boys to you. You have given a break only to one." Pancholi told him that he did not know where I was. Bhatia sent me a message in Amritsar where we were based after partition. That's how I got Aasmaan, my first real break, though I had scored the background music of Krishan Kewal's Kaneez before that in 1949. I was paid Rs. 1,000 for it, but Pancholi signed me for Rs. 600 a month." But OP had miles to go. His next two films, Pyarelal Santoshi's Chham Chamaa Chham and Guru Dutt's Baaz like Aasmaan, were flops. "I was disheartened and decided to go back to Amritsar and probably become a music teacher. So I went to collect the money Guru Dutt owed me for Baaz - Rs. 3,000. He said that he had no money to pay me. I was married and had children already. I told him that he should sell his fridge or car but pay me and he was furious. Luckily, I knew Mr. K.K. Kapoor, the manager of Kardar Studios. He intervened, gave me Rs. 100, as I did not even have money to get milk for my children, and accompanied me to Guru's house in a taxi. Guru had married Geeta just a week earlier. Kapoor made a deal with him after he asked him his opinion about me and Guru said, 'He is a brilliant boy but temperamental!' Kapoor told him that if he signed me, he would finance his film, and also distribute it in the key areas of Mumbai, Delhi and UP. Dutt suddenly smiled at me and asked me, "Will you work with me?" He paid me Rs 2,000 that very day, Rs. 1,000 as signing amount and Rs. 1,000 as the first instalment of my previous dues. I felt like a millionaire! The film was Aar Paar. After its success, I never looked back." OP had admitted once that at one point he had even tried to become an actor and then a singer. I realised that they were not my field at all. But after his spectacular success and 10 years after he left home, he even went and met his father who proudly told everyone, "He's my son!"
THE BEST OF OP NAYYAR
Aana hai to aa - Naya Daur/Rafi
Chal akela chal akela - Sambandh/Mukesh
Deewana hua baadal - Kashmir Ki Kali/Rafi-Asha
Dekho bijli dole - Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon/Asha Bhosle-Usha Mangeshkar
Dil ki awaaz bhi sun - Humsaya/Rafi
Mera naam chin chin chu - Howrah Bridge/Geeta Dutt
Mere neendon mein tum - Naya Andaz/Kishore-Shamshad Begum
Savere ka suraj - Ek Baar Muskura Do/Kishore
Tu auron ki kyoon - Ek Baar Muskara Do/Kishore
Tu hai mera prem devata - Kalpana/Rafi-Manna Dey
Tukde hai mere dil ke - Mere Sanam/Rafi
Yehi woh jagah hai - Yeh Raat Phir Na Aayegi/Asha
Rajiv Vijayakar |
Anupamaa
Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon
