He was never considered the most gifted, in fact he was often accused of being too simplistic, borrowing too much from classical, semi-classical and folk repertoires, and of laboring over his compositions, and yet, Naushad managed to write himself in the psyche of the Indian people as the pre-eminent composer of the golden era of Hindi films. His name almost became synonymous with great music in the minds of lay-listeners. Even in those days, he was always thought of as the ‘first among the equals’ - by masses at any rate.
Why was this the case? What follows is at once the expression of my thoughts and an exploration of the possible answers to this question.
Let me start with a personal experience. I was a little boy in the fourth grade when my father took me to see Anadaz. The movie was decades old even then, having been released in 1949. I knew nothing about it, not even the meaning of the word Andaz – save its meaning in Marathi ('guess') which is vastly different from its meaning in Hindi. It was a night show, starting at 9.00 PM, in some really lousy theatre in the crowded part of the old Pune city.I remember the dark theatre and the larger-than-life screen. I have vague memories of random scenes from that viewing – many of them blurred into confusion now after seeing that movie several times since then. I no longer remember which memories are from which viewing. But I so very distinctly remember Dilip Kumar singing ‘तू कहे अगर’.
There are times in an artistic experience, when something clicks, and some hitherto unknown door opens for you to meet someone. You connect with that person’s artistic existence. There is nothing sweeter than this sort of an accidental introduction for it comes as a surprise and therefore without any pre-conditioning or expectations. No amount of art appreciation lectures can help one know an artist as intimately as this sort of chance introduction does. To quote the great Marathi saint-poet Dnyanadev – this is ‘ये हृदयींचे तें हृदयी’ – or transferring the contents of one’s heart directly into another’s heart, without the need for any speech, analysis or explanation.
Mukesh was singing – और आग मै अपने दिल की, हर दिल मे लगाता जाऊँ - almost echoing Dnyanadev.
It was nothing short of magic. Time has taken nothing away from that experience still. Even now, when I listen to that song, Mukesh’s voice resonating to Naushad’s tune blows me away. His voice in that song is so gentle, so soft, so sensitive, so forgiving and yet so manly that I couldn’t help but think that if some divine yaksha ever sang, he might sound like that!
That day, with that song, three such doors opened for me - Dilip Kumar: the actor, Mukesh: the singer, and Naushad: the composer. In fact, that was my introduction to the Hindi Film Music itself, and beginning of a lifelong friendship.
When I think about that experience and the years that followed it, I wonder what was it, in that music that so captivated me at that tender age, and has remained so captivating since then? After all, I could barely understand the language, was too young to understand the complexities of the relationships in the movie or the lyrics and had no training in music.
Was it just my tender age? The surprise of that experience? The magic of films? Even if we were to say that, the question still remains, what made it magical? Did Naushad's music had any role to play in it? If yes, how much?
A 'Composer' and a 'Music Director'
A 'Composer' and a 'Music Director'
As far as the magic of Andaz was concerned (and by extrapolation that of his other soundtracks), could the answer lie in the 'simplicity' of Naushad’s music? In its ability to have a heart-to-heart dialog with a layman?
Let’s look at this - a Hindi film song is a product of influences from all over the world… the Hindustani Classical Music, semi-classical music, folk music from all over India, music from other parts of the world like Africa, the Middle-East, Europe; and the concept of Harmony from the Western music. On top of this, the product must be accessible to a common moviegoer in India, without requiring any initiation or training in any of these forms of music. It is no mean task, for example, to take a folk song from Assam, combine it with the orchestration that is based on the Western harmonics but using Indian and Western instruments, use all this to put a Hindi poem to music and make this concoction accessible to a listener in Pune!
In addition to all this juggling, a song, as a part of the movie and must fit into that context of its narrative as well. It must take the story forward and heighten its impact. The composer must live in this schizophrenic world, where on one side his work must move the story (that is governed by the movie’s script) along, as his 'work' is to be a part of the larger reality that is the film, and on the other hand, he must fulfill his creative aspirations. Unless a composer works with a movie director who can understand the language of his music and possesses the ability and the will to depict it on the film, the song often ends up with two lives – one for the movie - imagined by the film director, and the other imagined by the composer. They sometimes coincide, but more often, they do not.
Many great composers like Sajjad Hussain were often unable to be commercially successful. Could this be because the musical identity of their songs was too complex for its successful translation into its film identity? For example, take his song from Sangdil – ‘दिल में समा गये सजन’. It had two top-notch singers like Talat and Lata, at their creative peak. It is a song of pure happiness. Two romantic lovers have finally come together against all odds. What Sajjad does in this song reminds me of what Van Gogh did in his painting ‘Starry Night’. He does not paint the calm starry night that hundreds of other painters have painted. He paints how it appears to him, and in the process, we end up feeling at least a fraction of what he must have felt at that point. It doesn’t just communicate the situation or the moment; it communicates the emotional state of the artist during that situation, and enables us to feel at least a glimpse of it. Not an easy thing to do.
Similarly, Sajjad does not simply tell you the story of two lovers coming together, he gives us the experience of their emotions and makes us almost live that moment vicariously through them. He does not put to music a story that leads to happiness; he puts the happiness itself to music. The singer, the orchestra, the lyrics, all become parts of this grand endeavor of the composer. You can feel her innocence in Lata’s voice, his anxiety in Talat’s, and the shear happiness in both. The composition of the song binds all this together, even makes it dramatic at times (listen to the section after - ‘तुम भी कहीं से आ गये’).
But for whatever reason, the song did not catch the imagination of an average moviegoer. The director of the film had two phenomenal talent like Dilip Kumar and Madhubala to portray it on the screen. Yet the song failed to be commercially successful or to appeal to the masses. Even today, the picturization of that song appears quite ordinary, and nowhere near approaching the creative heights of the audio. Its enjoyment remains limited to a small group of somewhat initiated listeners of film music.
On the other hand, take Naushad’s mughal-e-aazam song – ‘प्यार किया तो डरना क्या’ for example. That song has become as much a part of the movie as any famous scene or dialog in it, and yet it also remains a wonderful song in its own right. When one is listening to it in an audio-only format, one does not miss the video; but when the video is present, the song adds immensely to it. One could say that the dramatic situation in the film, where the song appears, deserves the credit for this. Perhaps. But then what about the pure audio experience of the song? An average listener like me can still relate to it. And of course, there have been other composers who were able to achieve this effect in their respective work as well. Naushad was not the only one. O.P. Nayyar with Guru Dutt; Shankar Jaikishan with Raj Kapoor and Sachin Dev Burman with Bimal Roy, Vijay Anand and Guru Dutt were also able to achieve this. However, in these examples, they each had a great director with tremendous instinct for filming a song to guide them. Their work with other directors often does not live up to these standards - it is almost always musically top-notch, but may not always function effectively cinematically. And though in case of Mughl-E-Azam, even Naushad was working with a wonderful director, what separates him is that he was more consistently able to create songs that had musical and cinematic value, and with a much larger number of directors he worked with, including directors who were themselves not known for a great cinematic prowess.
I am not saying here that a successful composer must dumb down his compositions for the films or make them populist. We often use popularity as an antonym to brilliance. In many cases it could be, but it is certainly not the rule. This kind of rhetoric often appears when referring to some artist who has been extremely popular and is primarily used to discredit his or her creative achievements by labeling them as a mere ‘crowd-appeasers’. This is certainly not always true, and as Naushad so ably demonstrated, there is more than one way to make a great song.
There are singer’s songs - songs that we remember for the exceptional rendering by some extraordinary artist (e.g. Saigal’s 'बाबुल मोरा'). There are lyricist’s songs which touch our hearts through their poignant and evocative words (e.g. Sahir's ‘जिन्हे नाज़ है हिन्द पर’ or Neeraj's ‘कारवा गुज़र गया’). Then there are composer’s songs, that demonstrate the brilliant creativity of the musical mind that conceived the melody and the orchestration of the song (e.g. Sajjad's 'दिल में समा गये सजन' that we talked about earlier). And then there are listener's songs - the songs that listeners could identify with to such an extent that they become their songs. Naushad's strength (and perhaps also the limitation) was that he would most consistently strive to create a listener’s song.
It has been said that Naushad did not possess the uncompromising melody of Anil Biswas or Roshan, or the exquisite pathos or carefree abandon of C.Ramchandra, or the mastery of orchestration shown by Sajjad, or the brilliant intellectuality of Salil Chowdhury or the haunting sentimentality of Madan Mohan. These charges indeed hold water. It will be untenable to claim that Naushad was the ‘greatest composer’ of his time. He clearly was not. His reputation as the savior of the Hindustani Classical Music (which he painstakingly maintained) notwithstanding, he was no such messiah either and a huge majority of his work has little to do with the promotion of classical music. He has copied the folk tunes (e.g. 'मोहे पनघट पे नंदलाल छेड गयो रे'), western tunes ('जब नैन मिले नैनोसे.. लारा लू' from jadoo or 'आवाज दे कहाँ है' from Anmol Ghadi), used sloppy lyrics ('आनेवालो को आना होगा, जानेवाले को जाना होगा') and has often copied himself, using the variations of a same tune in multiple songs. So if we speak purely from the composer’s point of view, there are many others that stand far taller than him. And yet, the listeners could not only identify with his songs more easily than some of these tall masters, but could make those songs their own – may it be 'मिल के बिछड गयी आँखियाँ' or 'तू कहे अगर' or 'प्यार किया तो डरना क्या'.
(Perhaps a disclaimer might be warranted here. When one says that there were other taller composers, one must recognize that the comparison here is between the giants. The intention is not to trivialize or belittle Naushad or anyone else. Many of my tribe would agree that even the ‘B’ work of these composers, is far ahead of the ‘A’ work of most of later years' composers.)
It is, of course, not easy, if at all possible, to pinpoint what it was in his music that made it so accessible but one can indeed experience it when listening to his songs.
His songs were usually ear-pleasing and appealed to the heart of the listeners. Despite their outsized success, his songs were not disposable. They were not merely the 'flavor of the month'. They were lovely songs whose emotional appeal has endured for decades. Even the most ardent purist critic must concede that his body of work has stood the test of time.
The cinematic value of his songs could perhaps be demonstrated by the fact that out of his 65+ films, almost 35 celebrated at least a silver jubilee. If one looks at his work of two decades between 1943 to 1963, almost every film he composed for, enjoyed significant commercial success. His percentage of box-office success in this period far surpasses any other composer of that era. As this was in an era where personal music players were not around and even radio wasn't universally accessible, this meant that more people watched his movies and heard his songs. And this, in turn, goes a long way in explaining why Naushad, even after arriving on the scene later than Rai Chand Boral, Anil Biswas and Ghulam Haider, and in spite of the presence of people like Sajjad, Salil Chowdhury, C. Ramchandra and others, was able to write himself into the psyche of Indian people as the pre-eminent composer of the golden era.
The Early Years (1940-1945)
Naushad began his career as an independent composer with Premnagar in 1940.
(According to some Naushad’s first song was ‘बता दो कोई कवन गली मोरे श्याम’ from Kanchan. The music for this film was composed by Gyaandutt whom Naushad assisted. However, this song is supposed to have been composed by him independently and before Premnagar though Kanchan was released a year after Premnagar in 1941.)
The first phase of his career, starting from Premnagar in 1940 and culminating with Ratan in 1944 was rather un-remarkable one, compared to his later work, and of course with the exception of Ratan. It includes films such as Premnagar, Station Master, Kanchan, Kanoon, Sharda, Pahale Aap, Sanyasee, Geet, Nai Duniyaa, and Ratan.
There are some gems in this phase too – a brilliant duet ‘अंबुवा पे पंछी बावरा’ from Namaste by Parul Ghosh and G M Durani; celebrated debut of Suraiyya – ‘पंछी जा पीछे रहा है बचपन मेरा’ from Sharada; or Joharabai’s very Ratan-like ‘चले गये चले गये' from Pahale Aap come to mind. But on the whole, and compared to his later work, the most memorable output of this phase was its end-marker – Ratan.
Ratan was, and after all these years, remains, one of the supreme achievements of Naushad. What began with Premnagar/Kanchan as a rather run of the mill music became more and more refined with every movie and culminated into the brilliant simplicity of Ratan. The lyrics were simple, orchestration was rather primitive, and the lead male singer was Karan Diwan! Yet (or perhaps because of it?) 'सावन के बादलों', 'आखियाँ मिला के जिया भरमाके' or 'मिल के बिछड गयी आखियाँ' are as fresh and enchanting today as they were almost 80 years ago. It was not the most polished or most refined of his soundtracks. It did not have the erudite poetry of Shakeel. It was rather average as a movie and there was nothing spectacular about the filming of its songs. But that freshness, that innocence, freshness and that masti that we find in Ratan, will not be seen in Naushad’s music again.
I have met many people from the older generation, who are often nostalgic about the music from 40’s, or essentially from the pre-Lata/Rafi period and claim that it was even better than the music of 50’s and 60’s. We could simply discard this as a nostalgic rhetoric, after all everyone has a golden age in their youth, but though I do not completely agree with it, I must concede that the argument is not entirely without merit. There was a sort of freshness, an honest simplicity, a bright optimism in that music which indeed, albeit gradually, went away in 50’s and 60’s. The music became more refined, more ambitious, more demanding, but with it more complex and more intellectual. It became a job for the professionals. Hindi film music has always been India’s ‘popular music’, and even the modern India's 'folk music'. However, if it is indeed possible for a popular/folk music to become more classical, then that is what happened to the film music from early 50’s onwards. In this regard, Ratan, along with some other soundtracks such as Roti, Aurat, Basant, Kismat, Jwar Bhata, Milan (all by Anil Biswas) and Khazanchi (Ghulam Haider) and others, remains as one of the great relics from this era before the loss of innocence.
I have met many people from the older generation, who are often nostalgic about the music from 40’s, or essentially from the pre-Lata/Rafi period and claim that it was even better than the music of 50’s and 60’s. We could simply discard this as a nostalgic rhetoric, after all everyone has a golden age in their youth, but though I do not completely agree with it, I must concede that the argument is not entirely without merit. There was a sort of freshness, an honest simplicity, a bright optimism in that music which indeed, albeit gradually, went away in 50’s and 60’s. The music became more refined, more ambitious, more demanding, but with it more complex and more intellectual. It became a job for the professionals. Hindi film music has always been India’s ‘popular music’, and even the modern India's 'folk music'. However, if it is indeed possible for a popular/folk music to become more classical, then that is what happened to the film music from early 50’s onwards. In this regard, Ratan, along with some other soundtracks such as Roti, Aurat, Basant, Kismat, Jwar Bhata, Milan (all by Anil Biswas) and Khazanchi (Ghulam Haider) and others, remains as one of the great relics from this era before the loss of innocence.
The Purple Patch (1945-1952)
What followed after Ratan was the most extraordinary string of greatly successful soundtracks that no composer before or after was able to replicate.
Shahjahan, Anmol Ghadi, Anokhi Ada, Mela, Dard, Dillagi, Chandani Raat, Andaz, Dulari, Dastan, Jadoo, Baabul, and Baiju Baawaraa! What a list! This string (with the addition of a later film, Mughl-e-Azam) is essentially what cemented Naushad’s reputation as the preeminent composer of the golden era.
Even creatively as a composer, this was the period of greatest achievement for him.
This was the time when he got to work with almost every great singer in the industry, including Saigal and Noorjehan. The list included Umadevi, Amirbai Karnataki, Johrabai, Shamshad, Suraiyya (whom he introduced in his film Sharadaa), Mukesh, Rafi, Talat, Surendra and more. One can find perhaps some of the most sensitive usage of Mukesh's voice in Mela, Anokhi Ada and Andaz, emergence of Rafi that started from Shahjehan and continued through Anmol Ghadi, Mela, Dillagi and Andaz; amd evemtually dominated Naushad's work in Chandani Raat, Dulari, Dastaan, Jadoo, and Baiju Bawra, a cameo appearance of Talat in Babul and even that of Hemant Kumar in the version songs of Babul (e.g. ‘मिलते ही आँखे’). Shamshad was a common presence throughout this phase and this was also the golden period for Shamshad – Naushad collaboration until she was rather unceremoniously relegated to a subordinate position from Andaz onwards. Lata makes her first appearance in Chandani Raat and quickly becomes the dominant female voice of Naushad's soundtracks almost throughout his career. Asha makes a cameo in Amar and remained limited to cameo appearances througout his work.
This was the period when he found Shakeel and the association that began with Dard continued till Shakeel’s death.
Stylistically speaking, there was a folk-based soundtrack like Ratan; melodic soundtracks like Dulari, Chandani Raat, and Anoki Ada; Western-influenced soundtracks like Dastaan and Jadoo; a typically Saigalesqe Shahjehan, a classic Noorjehan soundtrack in Anmol Ghadi, and then there were Andaz and Baiju Bawra, the two soundtracks that would go down as Naushad’s best known works.
This was without a doubt the best period for Naushad - the composer.
The Master Music Director (1952-1960)
His work from 1952 onwards is marked with a different style, one that I personally like somewhat less than his work from 1945–1952. His music always remained simple. I use this word both as a descriptor and as a compliment, with a realization that making a wonderful song also simple is an exceptional achievement for a composer. But it seems to me that from 1951-1952 onwards it became more technical and at times even predictable in nature. This might have a lot to do with his reputation as the ‘Savior of classical music in Hindi films’ that started with Baiju Bawra. His music from this point onwards seems to attempt to use classical music wherever possible rather than wherever needed, and ends up creating some artificial sounding compositions. I personally do not think that Baiju Bawra, as a whole, was Naushad’s best work. In fact in my reckoning; it may not even make it to his top 3 soundtracks. He has made Rafi sing in an overly melodramatic fashion, particularly in ‘ओ दुनिया के रखवाले’ and in ‘इन्सान बनो’. At the same time, ‘झूले मे पवन के’ and ‘तू गंगा की मौज’ are wonderfully sweet; ‘मोहे भूल गये साँवरिया' is brilliant.
Baiju Bawra was certainly the watershed moment in this transformation of his music. But it was not just the fascination of classical music, but also the emergence of Lata and Rafi as his primary singers, that brought about this transformation. His singer-pool narrowed down from a broad range of singers, including Shamshad, Mukesh, Surendra, Suraiyya, Talat, Johrabai and others, that appeared in his earlier work, to mostly Lata and Rafi, with an occasional Shamshad song. As a composer, he must have realized, like most other composers of that era, that, with Lata and Rafi available to sing, their creativity was limited only by their own imagination. They had two singers who could reproduce virtually anything they could imagine. But that also meant that the great variety of talent that we saw in their work before this period, simply would not be seen any more. What an unfortunate price we had to pay for the Lata, Rafi gems of the later period.
Look at a selection from some of his earlier compositions:
मिल के बिछड गयी आँखिया Ratan Johrabaai 1944
जब तुम ही चले परदेस Ratan Karan Diwan 1944
आग लगी दिल मे प्यारी प्यारी Shahjahan Naseem Akhtar 1946
क्यूँ याद आ रहे है Anmol Ghadi Surendra 1946
आवाज दे कहाँ है Anmol Ghadi Noorjehan,Surendra 1946
मुरलीवाले मुरली बजा Dillagi Suraiyya 1948
तू मेरा चाँद Dillagi Suraiyya, Shyam 1948
गाये जा गीत मिलन के Mela Mukesh 1948
कभी दिल दिल से टकराता Anokhi Ada Mukesh 1948
अफसाना लिख रही हूँ Dard Umadevi 1948
दिलवाले Natak Umadevi 1948
कैसे बजे दिल का सितार Chandani Raat Shamshad 1948
तू कहे अग़र Andaz Mukesh 1949
चाँदनी आयी बन के प्यार Dulari Shamshad 1949
मिलते ही आँखे Babul Shamshad, Talat 1950
What an excellent selection of songs. Any so-called technical limitations of these singers (in comparison with Rafi and Lata) do not seem to have limited in any way the appeal and the longevity of these songs.
जब तुम ही चले परदेस Ratan Karan Diwan 1944
आग लगी दिल मे प्यारी प्यारी Shahjahan Naseem Akhtar 1946
क्यूँ याद आ रहे है Anmol Ghadi Surendra 1946
आवाज दे कहाँ है Anmol Ghadi Noorjehan,Surendra 1946
मुरलीवाले मुरली बजा Dillagi Suraiyya 1948
तू मेरा चाँद Dillagi Suraiyya, Shyam 1948
गाये जा गीत मिलन के Mela Mukesh 1948
कभी दिल दिल से टकराता Anokhi Ada Mukesh 1948
अफसाना लिख रही हूँ Dard Umadevi 1948
दिलवाले Natak Umadevi 1948
कैसे बजे दिल का सितार Chandani Raat Shamshad 1948
तू कहे अग़र Andaz Mukesh 1949
चाँदनी आयी बन के प्यार Dulari Shamshad 1949
मिलते ही आँखे Babul Shamshad, Talat 1950
What an excellent selection of songs. Any so-called technical limitations of these singers (in comparison with Rafi and Lata) do not seem to have limited in any way the appeal and the longevity of these songs.
Of course, this consolidation to Lata and Rafi happened in case of other composers too, albeit differently. Most A-listers were unable to resist Lata, with the notable exception of OP Nayyar. In case of Rafi, the outcome was mixed. Mukesh, Kishore, Talat were all able to maintain a significant presence despite domination by Rafi. However, in Naushad's case, we see near-total domination by Lata and Rafi in his later phase. This transition to Lata and Rafi began with Andaz (in case of Lata) and Chandni Raat (in case of Rafi). It became definite for both, with Baiju Bawra.
In case of most of these composers, their work clearly improved with the domination of Lata and Rafi. It became more ambitious and exquisite, albeit also more complex and intellectual. However, the same cannot be said in case of Naushad. His work from this period onwards, though commercially highly successful, cannot be called creatively better than his earlier work. Of course such statements are always subjective and this one is no exception.
His work from this point onwards appears to have become decidedly more classical-focused. But while so becoming, its balance between the proverbial heart and head, one he had maintained so masterfully until this point, began to tip in favor of the head. This would be a slow transition, but the songs became somewhat less accessible from this point onwards.
It was particularly sad to see this happen in the light of the fact that some of his earlier songs with other singers, like those in the list above, were not only among their most memorable songs, but also among the most memorable of Naushad. The loss of Saigal was beyond anyone’s control, and that of Noorjehan was her own doing. But the disappearance of Shamshad, Mukesh, Talat and others from Naushad’s music was truly unfortunate.
Talat appeared only once, in Babul.
Naushad-Mukesh association is a different story. He was Naushad’s lead singer in three of his films early on (and then again in Saathi and Aadmi in late 60’s - early 70’s). And these were not just any three films – Anokhi Ada, Mela and Andaz contain some of the greatest hits of Naushad. It is clear from these songs that Naushad had understood the timbre of Mukesh’s voice as well as Roshan, Khayyam, Salil Chowdhury, Anil Biswas and other ‘sentimental’ composers that are normally associated with Mukesh. I have not forgotten Shankar Jaikishan here and have deliberately left them out of this list. Their work with Mukesh is as great, but of a different character than that of the composers listed above. Naushad, in my opinion, belongs to this list more than he does with Shankar Jaikishan. Khayyam was quoted recently as saying that in his opinion, ‘what Naushad did with the voices of Lata and Mukesh in Andaz was something that only Naushad could have done’. Coming from a no-nonsense composer like Khayyam, it’s quite a complement.
Here are some of the songs they did together -
भूलनेवाले याद न आ Anokhi Ada
कभी दिल दिल से टकराता तो होगा Anokhi Ada
भूल गये क्यूँ दे के सहारा Anokhi Ada
मै भँवरा तू है फूल Mela
मेरा दिल तोडनेवाले Mela
गाये जा गीत मिलन के Mela
झूम झूम के नाचो आज Andaz
टूटे ना दिल टूटे ना Andaz
तू कहे अग़र Andaz
हम आज कही दिल खो बैठै Andaz
These songs are in every way in the same league as Anil Biswas’ ('दिल जलता है’, ‘ऐ जान-ए-जिग़र') or Roshan’s (‘हमें ऐ दिल कही ले चल’, ‘सतायेगा किसे तू आँसमा’, ‘तेरी दुनिया में दिल लगता नही’) work with Mukesh. I am not talking about the general mood of the songs, or that they all became famous. I am talking about a subtle and thorough understanding of the character and strengths of Mukesh’s voice and the ability to bring-out that character in the songs, and although Mukesh would go on to create many more such songs with other composers, male songs of such peculiar sensibility became increasingly rare in Naushad’s repertoire from this point onwards. Andaz would be the last great male-dominated soundtrack of Naushad. Most of Naushad’s soundtracks would be female dominated from this point onwards, in spite of Rafi’s presence in every one of them.
It is sad that the Naushad-Mukesh association ended so abruptly and without any apparent reason after the tremendous success of Andaz. They would work together again in Saathi and though even those songs were really good, they had both passed the period when they both possessed the Midas' touch.
What happened to Shamshad-Naushad association was equally tragic. But at least she retained some presence in his body of work all the way into 1960’s and in that we can find some solace.
But Naushad was not alone to go through this transition. For comparison, it might help to look at the work of the grand old man – Anil Biswas. What separates these two from the other composers of their generation is that they both had a substantial body of work before the arrival of Lata Mangeshkar. As a result, we can compare their styles before and after. The others like C. Ramchandra, S D Burman, and Shankar-Jaikishan almost always had Lata available to them. C. Ramchandra does have a more significant body of work before the arrival of Lata and his early works like Safar. Saajan, Shahnai, Khidki etc leave a great impression of his pre-Lata period. But Lata was already beginning to appear in Shahnai and Khidki and the rest of his pre-Lata work was unable to catch people imagination to an extent the pre-Lata work of Naushad and Anil Biswas did.
In case of Anil Biswas, we see a similar transition. His work from pre-Lata period – Kismat, Basant, Milan, Jwaar Bhata, Roti, Aurat, Alibaba is so creative, so genius, so groundbreaking and so spectacular that one wonders why did he think of changing his style from 1948 onwards. And the answer is once again the same – there was a new singer on the scene called Lata Mangeshkar. It must have been impossible for a composer like him to manage with the limitations of mere mortals thereafter.
But looking back, and this is a purely subjective opinion, I do feel that the price we, the music lovers, paid for this near-total domination by Lata, was rather too high.
Anyway, let’s go back to Naushad. This second phase of his music continued till the next watershed moment in his career – Mughal-E-Azam. This was the period of total domination by Rafi and Lata – Aan, Shabab, Deedar, Diwana, Amar, Udan Khatola, Mother India and Mughal-E-Azam. Now you can see why I was so cautious in saying that I like this phase only comparatively less than the earlier one. Many composer would have been ecstatic to have only a couple of these films to his credit and would have happily retired after that! This phase alone would allow Naushad to qualify as one the greats of the golden era. And once again, at the end of this phase, Naushad mastered the changing trends and came up with a spectacular success in this form of Mughal-E-Azam.
But one can also see from the list above that with the exceptions of Amar and Mughal-e-Azam, the other soundtracks from this phase were full of songs that are increasingly melodramatic, particularly in case of Rafi, and increasingly stylized (in case of both Rafi and Lata).
No doubt Mughal-E-Azam was a great movie and had a great cast, great dialogs, great sets, great direction, great screenplay, but what perhaps tied all of them together was Naushad’s music. What a soundtrack!! This soundtrack, more than any other, demonstrates Naushad’s ability to understand the cinematic context of his films.
There is a fable - During the recoding of his songs for Saathi, the producer of that film asked Naushad to make his song more modern. Naushad is said to have responded – “Just get rid of that idol of Lord Krishna and move the wedding that happens during the song in the film to a church from the temple and I can easily replace my Sitar with a Saxophone.” This may or may not be true, but like all fables, it had a point. This deep understanding of the cinematic context of the film where the song appears contributed a great deal to his commercial success. Many other great composers like Sajjad, one could argue, focused purely on their own creation, without much care for the movie that the song was to be part of. They ended up creating great songs, when one looked at that song purely from the audio standpoint but ones that may not have been the best compositions from the perspective of the commercial success of the film. In other words, they succeeded spectacularly as composers but failed as music directors. Naushad on the other hand almost always succeeded as a music director whatever one might feel about his success as a composer.
In Mughal-E-Azam, Naushad also demonstrated his deep awareness of the importance of the lyrics. In most cases, his songs were written for that situation in the film. They were not created as multipurpose lyrics in search of a scene. The product may not always have been of the highest literary merit as per the puritanical composers and lyricists, but the audiences loved them none the less. In Mughal-E-Azam one could see this ability of Naushad at its peak. And it was not just the ‘प्यार किया तो डरना क्या’, but also ‘तेरी महफिल मे किस्मत आजमाकर’, ‘जब रात है ऐसी मतवाली’, ‘बेक़स पें करम कीजिये’, ‘खुदा निगेहबान हो तुम्हारा’, ‘प्रेम जोगन’, and even ‘ऐ मुहब्बत ज़िंदाबाद’. They are all born with a purpose, and fit that purpose exceedingly well. This is a work of a man in complete control of his craft.
Mughal-E-Azam also marks the beginning of the third phase of Naushad’s musical life that includes films like Ganga Jamuna, Leader, Kohinoor, Mere Mehboob, Saathi and finally Pakeeza. In these films, one can see his music trying to adapt to the changing times and the changing trends in the market for music. One could almost see these calibrations in his music with every soundtrack. You can see him accepting and adopting to the literal and symbolic transition from Dilip Kumar to Rajendra Kumar. There are flashes of brilliance in this phase too. ‘नैन लड जै है’ from ‘Gunga Jamuna’ would stand out as a great song in any era, again in spite of the fact that the original germ, even the tune was borrowed from the folk repertoire of north India. Equally commendable was the thoroughly modern appearance of Mere Mehboob.
What is truly remarkable in all these phases and transitions in his career is that every time, he ends this phase with a spectacular success – Ratan in 1944, Baiju Bawra in 1952, Mughal-E-Azam in 1960.
Even in Pakeezah, though his contribution to the success of that soundtrack was quite secondary to that of the main composer Ghulam Mohammad, there are signs of Naushad’s continuing process of adapting to the changing trends. In the three thumris and the title song that he composed for that film, one could see some precursors to the Jaidev, Khayyam style of music of the mid and late 1970’s. I am in no way suggesting that Naushad created this style of music, or even that there is such a style as ‘70’s music’. I am simply saying that just as Khayyam and Jaidev managed to locate the pulse of that decade through their music, Naushad showed some remarkable signs that perhaps he was also on track to finding it as well. Unfortunately, his output dwindled down to almost nothing after Pakeezah and we never got the chance to test this hypothesis.
Throughout all these phases, one can see the constant emphasis on making his music accessible to the people, and a constant striving to calibrate it with the changing times and the changing trends in the industry so that it remained accessible. This accessibility and the direct reach of his songs allowed him and his songs to remain relevant for decades and live in the conscious and the subconscious of the masses as the flagship product of the golden era of Hindi films.
A great example of this subconscious existence came in 1982.
It was when Noorjehan was finally allowed to visit India for the first time after the Partition, and even that, on a condition that she was not to sing!! A grand gala was organized by the Indian film industry in her honor. Who’s who of the music world was there. The Times of India carried out a front page feature that day, with a picture of Noorjehan. It was titled – ‘Will She Sing?’
Every great singer and composer who was alive at that time was invited to come to the stage and sing a song. It was a walk down the memory lane. At last, it was time for the guest of honor. Dilip Kumar, her co-start from her last Indian film ‘Jugnu’, introduced her. He said, ‘Noorjehanji, jitney saal aapne hum sab se door bitayeN hai, theek utnehee saal hum sabne aapka intijaar kiya hai!” Then she arrived - took the microphone in her hands - and started singing ‘आवाज दे कहां है’! With those lines composed by Naushad, she responded to the tremendous affection showered on her by her Indian brothers and sisters, and also answered the cruel ban put on her singing by the heartless politicians of her country. There was no need for an emotional speech for the prior or a grand protest for the latter. That song had lived in the subconscious of the Indian subcontinent from the moment it was born in 1946 and all she had to do that was to reach out and touch it. It was more powerful than a million speeches and a thousand protests in shouting to the world ‘We are One People!’ That romantic longing – ‘आवाज दे कहां है’ assumed a political, even a mythical dimension that day!!
Of all the great compositions she had sung in the pre-partition era, for all the great composers like Sajjad, Ghulam Haider, Shyamsunder , K Dutta and others, she chose a Naushad song. Quite simply because it happened to be her most popular song from that era and was still popular, 35 years later, when she was about to sing it again. That was the appeal Naushad’s songs have had for the people of the subcontinent.
In many ways, Naushad was the first commercial music director of Hindi films. But his commercial acumen was always accompanied by a high quality of music. He never lost the sight of the fact that a film song is for mass consumption and has to reach a very diverse audience.
Later on, with changing times, and with each successive generation of composers, this art of mastering the context of the movie and the pulse of the public degenerated into the manipulation of the audience through formulaic calculations, borrowed rhythms and borrowed tunes. Of course, there were exceptions, but they were just those, exceptions. For Naushad, his emphasis on the craft of a music director was always complimented with a perfectionist approach to give his best output. It may not have produced the greatest compositions for the purist connoisseurs, or may have sounded like a labored manner of creating a song, but no one could ever accuse him of being lazy or dishonest with his work. He was there to compose great music for commercial films and he did just that, to the best of his ability and with great success.
Unfortunately, many from the subsequent generations chose only to inherit his commercial acumen and neglected to inherit his artistic honesty and devotion or his professionalism and his perfectionist attitude. In his work the composer always worked hand in hand with the music director. In the subsequent generations, the composer was made irrelevant and was forced into the retirement.
If one wanted to pay a true homage to this great man in today’s day and age, it would be to remember and to try to replicate his honesty towards his music, even as one exploits all formulas and manipulations to become commercially successful. As Naushad’s commercial success in his own time and his reputation thereafter has proved, being honest to one’s craft is in fact as good a formula as any, to achieve that illusive commercial success they all seem to be striving for.
The famous screenplay writer Salim Khan is attributed to have once said of Naushad “ab unke marne ki umar chalee gayeeN hai!” Although figuratively we all would agree with it, in the literal sense it was not to be. We have now lost this grand old man of Indian film music. The last living composer who composed for the great Saigal is now no more. It is neither my age nor my nature to lament how the world used to be, and yet one has to recognize that we have lost a man the likes of whom we shall not see again.
Naushad lived a full life. He lived to be 87 years old and no doubt must have felt lonely seeing his contemporaries like Anil Biswas, C Ramchandra, Sachin Dev Burman and others depart one after the other. In one of his last interviews he had quoted one of his own verses…
सब कुछ सर-ए-बाजार-ए-जहाँ छोड गया है ।
यह कौन खुली अपनी दुकाँ छोड गया है ।
Well friends…
Now that shop has also closed down!
Well friends…
Now that shop has also closed down!
But what he gave us from that is so much and so dear to our hearts that it will last us a lifetime. There are no words powerful enough to express the feeling of gratitude we have for him.
To him and to all others from that era, all we can say is - Thank You!
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For information, write Sushrut Vaidya at sushrut.vaidya@gmail.com.
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