Mehekti Khushboo
Ideally, a musical biography will send you back to familiar recordings, to
rehear them with fresh knowledge and insight. Such was definitely the case with
me after I read Bollywood Melodies – A History of the Hindi Film Song by Ganesh
Anantharaman. As a connoisseur of Hindi music I thought I had heard and read it
all, over the years, as far as Bollywood music was concerned – right from
listening to recordings of Mortal Men, Immortal Memories and reading of
Yesterday’s Melodies, Today’s Memories. But this book was a
revelation. The author has delved deep into the very evolution of the Hindi
film song. His knowledge of Indian classical ragas has positioned him better to
relate many of the songs to the correct raga, which was of great interest to
me.
There are many fascinating details on quite a few of the great personalities
that made interesting reading. Like Madan Mohan’s addiction to
sophistication making him lose track of the appropriateness of the score he was
composing for the film. This made his songs seem out-of-sync with the
film’s storyline, though for sheer melody, they were a class apart. For
instance, the song ‘Dil Jalta Hai’, sung by Mukesh, was not
approved by the producer of the film Pehli Nazar. It was the
singer who pleaded that if the audience rejected the song, he (the producer)
could scrap it. The song created history and Mukesh emerged the winner after
four years of struggle. Or for that matter Gulzar’s unusual lines that
raised many a literary eyebrow when he wrote the song ‘Humne dekhi hai un
aankhon ki mehekti khushboo’ in Khamoshi, a film that launched
him as a lyricist. Dekhi hai…khushboo made little sense. Many more of such
anecdotes are scattered in the book which make very interesting reading.
The author is in awe of most of his subjects and it shows. There are some
interesting interviews with Dev Anand, Pyarelal, Gulzar, Lata and Manna Dey;
the last named is characteristically blunt when he says that
RD Burman was a more versatile and original composer and that many songs
credited to SD were actually composed by RD. At most points, I was so elated
reading it that I had a smile on my face. Overall, a must read and an extremely
useful book as a reference. – Anand Desai
(The author is an investment banker who learnt the tabla for many years
and is a great aficionado of Hindi film music.)
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