My friend, Anindya Roychowdhury, has, very kindly, allowed me to share this insightful article. Thank you, Anindya.
The Golden Hour
SD Burman’s twilight years (1970-1975)
Anindya Roychowdhury
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
Abraham
Lincoln
The game changer
1969 was perhaps the most tumultuous year
in post world war history. As the world gaped in amazement at the sight of a
man setting foot on the moon, a war raged on in Vietnam. Closer home in a
neighboring country an uprising was brewing – which would soon turn into a
full-blown war culminating in the liberation of Bangladesh two years later.
Musically, 1969 was the watershed that saw the legendary Woodstock concert in upstate
New York – a one-of-a-kind, uninhibited celebration of life through music, as
half a million young people sang and gyrated to living legends for four days. Meanwhile,
strains of the “flower children” movement that originated in America – where a
section of the youth was rebelling, challenging the establishment and the war –
travelled to Indian shores with the arrival of the first lot of “hippies” on
the western coast of Goa and Mumbai (Bombay).[1]
Amidst this backdrop, Shakti Samanta made “Aradhana”,
starring a newcomer whose previous few releases had been flops, though they did
receive some critical acclaim. The rest, as they say, is history.
The increasingly non-conformational Indian
youth, looking for a taste of something different, instantly made Rajesh Khanna
their new idol, as the film blazed away to its platinum jubilee and the songs
became anthem. Together with his “voice”, Kishore Kumar, who was reborn as a
singer with this film, Rajesh Khanna became the symbol of that transformational
generation.
“Aradhana” ushered in a sound so fresh and completely
distinct that it sharply divided the Hindi Film Music scene forever into two
eras – pre and post Aradhana.
The unlikely kingmaker behind the wings silently
orchestrating this coming of age of Bollywood and its music was a 63-year old,
dapper man in a dhoti kurta who, conventional wisdom would suggest, should have
already been in his twilight and well past the pinnacle of creativity.
Let us then take a look at those “twilight
years”, 1970-1975, when Sachin Dev Burman (SDB), defying all odds, completely
reinvented and contemporized himself to not only stay relevant, but to compete head-to-head
with the new generation composers (which included his own son), in the ensuing Rajesh
Khanna Kishore Kumar wave that was set in motion ironically by the man himself!
SDB turns back the clock
The five-and-a-half-year period (1970-1975
upto his death) was one of his most productive. During this phase, he composed
for 23 films[2]
which included some of his finest output, showing absolutely no deterioration
in quality. In contrast, he composed for 22 films during the entire ‘60s (1960-1969).
The man who hit paydirt and national recognition relatively late in life,
around 1950 at age 44, was once again turning the clock back, this time in his mid-60s,
when most of his contemporaries from the 1940s and 1950s were fading out one by
one, unable to adapt to the changing milieu.
|
Films composed by SD Burman from
1970 to 1975 |
|
|
1970 |
Prem Pujari |
|
|
Ishq Par Zor Nahin |
|
1971 |
Choitali (Bengali) |
|
|
Tere Mere Sapne |
|
|
Gambler |
|
|
Naya Zamana |
|
|
Sharmilee |
|
1972 |
Yeh Gulistan Hamara |
|
|
Zindagi Zindagi |
|
|
Anuraag |
|
1973 |
Abhimaan |
|
|
Jugnu |
|
|
Chhupa Rustam |
|
|
Phagun |
|
1974 |
Us Paar |
|
|
Prem Nagar |
|
|
Sagina |
|
1975 |
Chupke Chupke |
|
|
Mili |
|
1976 |
Barood |
|
|
Arjun Pandit |
|
|
Deewangee* |
|
1977 |
Tyag |
|
Posthumously released |
|
|
*One song, rest composed
by Ravindra Jain |
|
Though SDB was the one who helped catapult
Rajesh Khanna’s career into stratosphere, the next time he composed for him as
a hero was only in 1974, “Prem Nagar” - if one were to exclude his one-song
guest appearance in Shakti Samanta’s “Anuraag” (singing “Ram kare babua”) – and
only once thereafter, in the posthumously released “Tyag” (1977). Many of SDB’s
compositions during this period were for Dharmendra (5), Dev Anand (5, which
included a non Navketan film, “Ye Gulistan Hamara”) and, at the fag end of his
life, for the new, emerging megastar, Amitabh Bachchan. Like with Rajesh
Khanna, SDB had a hand in Amitabh’s rise to stardom with “Abhimaan” (1973), its
songs contributing in no mean measure to its success.
In his last five years, SDB gave us a
dazzling and contrasting array of the old world and the new sound, deftly and
seamlessly switching from one to the other as per the requirement of the soundtrack.
While he composed charming ditties that evoked the feel of the ‘50s, for films
like “Ishq Par Zor Nahin”, “Phagun” and “Us Paar,” whose old-fashioned storylines
were in sharp contrast to the new-age trend of the time, he belted out
boisterous foot tappers like “Meet na mila re” (Abhimaan) and “Bye bye miss
good night” (Prem Nagar) that gave the “Yahaan wahaan saare”s (Aan Milo Sajna –
Laxmikant Pyarelal) and the “Kitne sapne kitne armaan”s (Mere Jeevan saathhi –
RD Burman) a run for listeners’ mindspace and wallets; from jazzy Asha Bhosle cabarets,
“Reshmi ujaala hai” (Sharmilee) and “Mai hu chhui mui” (Chhupa Rustam) to the sensuous
thumri, “Bedardi ban gaye koi” (in Rajinder Singh Bedi’s “Phagun”) by Shobha
Gurtu, her only second outing in Bollywood after “Pakeezah” in the previous
year. In “Phagun”, he also got Usha Mangeshkar to sing the famous Meera bhajan,
“Mero toh Giridhar Gopal”, following in the illustrious footsteps of many
legends (including MS Subbulakshmi) who had recorded various versions of it
earlier. There was not a single genre that he was hesitant to delve into, even
if it were outside his usual comfort zone. As these songs testify, the final
output was always an aural delight.
His experimentations reach a new high
Ever the curious mind, he remained childlike
and adventurous till the very end, breaking form in traditional musical
construct whenever he saw an opportunity.
In a very popular song from “Ishq Par Zor Nahin”,
he constructed the entire mukhra by playfully permutating just five words - Ye,
dil, toh, deewana, hai – setting this otherwise completely indigenous tune
pattern to a slow waltz rhythm, and adding an Arabic-styled chant (“Kaisa
bedardi hai”), replete with a rabaab, in the antara.
For “Dil aaj shaayar hai” (Gambler), a
supple Bhairavi once again set on a waltz rhythm, he tuned each antara
differently, not repeating the wordings of the mukhra (“Dil aaj shaayar hai,
gham aaj naghma hai”) again in the song.
For “Phoolon ke rang se” (Prem Pujari) and
“Koyla jale” (Chhupa Rustam), he discarded the traditional mukhra-antara
construct for the western-style “verse” structure. In “Prem Pujari”, he also
gave us the delightful male duet (Kishore-Bhupinder), “Yaaro nilaam karo”, with
its constantly shifting genre, tune and rhythm patterns. “Prem Pujari” also marked
the beginning of his short-lived but sublime collaboration with lyricist Neeraj
(Gopaldas Saxena), who instantly adapted to SDB’s quirky ways, producing four
more gems – “Sharmilee”, “Gambler”, “Tere Mere Sapne”, and “Chhupa Rustam” - embellishing
these beautiful soundtracks manifold with his inspiring poetry. Neeraj’s
collaboration with SDB established him as a frontline lyricist[3],
if only for a few years.
In his early Bollywood years, SDB sometimes
used unintelligible, gibberish, or dummy words, usually in chorus, to magnify
the on-screen impact of the song. Example, the chorus line in “Aa gupchup
gupchup pyar kare” (Sazaa, 1951); this chorus line also had the catchy “dandar
dandar ….dan dar da” refrain which he used again as a hook line in the song
“Tere teero.n me chhupe”, in “Baazi”, released in the same year. Over the
years, he had gradually discarded this device, staying away from it even in
situational songs like “Hothhon pe aisi baat” (Jewel Thief, 1967) which might
have presented him with the perfect opportunity to do so. Like a child
indulging himself, he brought this device back in the 70s, in the songs of “Ye
Gulistan Hamara” (1972), where he vocalized those tribal chants himself in
“Raina soi soi” and “Kya ye zindagi hai”, and also in songs like “Thhandi
hawaao.n mein” (Prem Nagar), where he made the lead singers join in with the
chorus with dummy words.
In “Ye Gulistan Hamara”, he introduced
Danny as a singer, while for “Sagina”, he used Kishore Kumar as the voice of
Dilip Kumar, for the first and last time in Bollywood history, challenging box
office stereotype. The “Sagina” songs were melodious and received varying
degrees of success (as the film did not do well) but grew in listener-interest
over time; in one song, “Uparwaale dukhiyo.n ki”, he meshed Dilip Kumar’s
spoken words with Kishore’s singing voice so seamlessly (with Kishore pulling
out a perfect voice match), that it is nearly impossible unless one listens
very carefully to figure out where one voice ends and the other starts.
His experimentations with unpredictable
rhythm, tune and lyric patterns continued till the very end, with the
Kishore-Rafi duet from “Chupke Chupke” (1975), “Sa re ga ma, ma sa re ga”,
where he constructed the entire mukhra in a sawaal-jawaab mould using only the
seven notes of the sargam as the lyrics, with a seemingly disparate antara that
alternates between a delicate, almost-whispered tone and full-throated singing.
The song is a marvel, and reminiscent in its structure of the Kishore-Bhupinder
duet that he composed for “Prem Pujari” five years earlier. It may not be out
of place to mention here that Bollywood’s first sawaal-jawaab song, “Aankhon
mein kya ji (Nau do gyarah, 1957) – a template that is used by composers even
today - was SDB’s brainchild.
Back to his roots
Throughout this period, while jazzing up
his oeuvre on the one hand, he seemed to connect to his folk roots of yore more
deeply than he had ever done before in Bollywood, on the other. And more often
than not, he relied on Lata to vocalize them. These would be songs like “Das
gai sui” (Naya Zamana, 1971), which he recreated as “Dongshili tui”, in
“Choitali”, in the same year, the only (completed) Bengali film[4]
he composed for since migrating to Bombay in 1946; “Bolo pritam”, a beautifully
constructed, folksy ditty from Arjun Pandit (1976); the sprightly “Ab ke sajan
aangan mein” (Chupke Chupke, 1975); and “Meri paayaliya geet tere” (Jugnu,
1973) – with its brilliant rhythm pattern, a kind of a reprise of “Piya tose
naina laage re” (Guide), the song starting with Lata’s spoken words in the
backdrop of a dholak-madal jugalbandi followed by a deluge of percussions,
where, at one point, he has Lata even vocalizing the dholak-madal sound,
“Dhitang dhitang”.
The dholak remained his favorite percussion
instrument through the five decades of singing and composing; he used it as the
prominent rhythm instrument in countless songs, from the earthy “O roop nagar
ke saudagar” (Sazaa, 1951) to the racy “Hothhon pe aisi baat” (Jewel Thief,
1967), a veritable percussion fest. In the ‘70s, when the “western sound” of
drums and congas ruled the roost at the box office, SDB continued to place the
dholak in pole position, for example, in the monster hit, “Chale aana” from “Jugnu”,
or “Piya sang khelo holi” (Phagun, 1973), where the dholak bol (“dhin naki naki
tin dhidin ti naki tin”) forms the backbone of the song.
Twenty years earlier, he had immortalized
the dholak (dhol) in his seminal Bengali song, “Shei je dinguli”, (1951), a melancholic
yearning for his homeland Kumilla, which was now no longer a part of his
country (with the dhol beats he heard in his younger days used as a lyrical
metaphor for days gone by). In 1971, he re-imagined this lament into a joyous celebration
(though not altogether bereft of nostalgia-invoked pathos) of the impending
liberation of Bangladesh and also as an expression of deep gratitude to his
motherland, Bengal, as “Aami takdum takdum bajaai Bangladesher dhol”. Meera Dev
Burman re-worked the moving original lyrics by Mohini Chowdhury.[5]
Remarkably, he retained the same tune, rhythm pattern, and laya, to convey two
rather contrasting moods and emotions. In some ways, he had made this tune the
leitmotif of his musical career, recreating it again and again, as “Baje tak
dhum tak dhum baje” (Manna De, Bambai ka babu, 1960) and “Bolo kya humko doge
(Kishore-Asha, Chhupa Rustam, 1973), each time with a different antara.
Interestingly, his son reprised this tune again in “Onushondhaan” (1981), with
yet another antara, making this one of the most reused mukhra tunes in
Hindi-Bengali modern song history!
They say that as you approach your end,
forgotten memories from the distant past start coming back to you, like a
flashback. His ‘70s output is dotted with snatches of tunes from his Bengali
songs from years ago, that he masterfully re-arranged, almost subconsciously,
to create delightfully different-sounding tunes sung by others. Example, the
mukhra of “Tumi je giaachho bokulo bichhaano potthe” became “Kab maane ho dil
ke mastaane” (Phagun); “Radha-r bhaabe kaaala hoilo gora” became “Kore kaagaz
pe likhwaale” (Tyag)’, while “O kaalo megh bolte paaro” became “Shudhaai aami
ei pothh ta ke” (Choitali). This was in addition to the many Bengali songs that
he fully remade into Hindi (with relatively minor tune or rhythm variations),
as he had done through his Bollywood output – example, “Borne gondhe chhonde
geeti te”/”Phoolo ke rang se” (Kishore, Prem Pujari), “Bnaashi shune
aar”/”Chain churaaye” (Lata, Anuraag), “Na shoshi amaare cheyo na”/”Jaa mujhe
na ab yaad aa” (Kishore, Prem Nagar), and “Gaaner koli shurer durite” /
“Mehbooba teri tasveer” (Rafi, Ishq Par Zor Nahin).
His lead singers in the ‘70s
Except for a few years in the first half of
the ‘60s when he did not record with Lata, ostensibly for reasons other than
music, she remained his undisputed first choice among singers, male and female
combined. Although he created many masterpieces with Geeta (including providing
her the first major career break with “Mera sundar sapnaa beet gaya”, Do Bhai,
1947) and Asha, they were exceptions rather than the rule. Several of the
soundtracks that he composed in the ‘70s were dominated by Lata, who sang some of
her best songs for him during this period, example, “Ishq Par Zor Nahin” (four
solos and one duet), “Naya Zamana” (four solos), and Anuraag (three solos, one
duet). Even in “Abhimaan”, a film about two singers, he slips in as many as
three Lata solos (apart from three duets) – the resplendent “Piya bina”, Ab to
hai tum se”, delicately crafted in the folksy Raag Mand, and a vibrant Pilu,
“Nadiya kinaare” – against only one male solo[6],
while using as many as three different voices for the male protagonist.
He had an almost familial and deep seated
bonding with Manna De, who assisted him early on in his career, but he used him
rather sparingly and situationally as a singer, mainly for heavily ornamented, light
classical songs (a domain where Manna was invincible, and the default first
choice of composers) like “Poochho na kaise”, “Pyar ke aag mein”, “Banaao
batiya.n” and “Tere naina talaash kare”. Rafi, clearly, was his favorite male
voice through the ‘50s and ‘60s. Except as the voice of Dev Anand where, till
Aradhana happened, he used both Rafi and Kishore liberally, and in Kishore’s
own films as actor, it was mostly Rafi at other times. That balance shifted after
1969.
SDB had given Kishore his first break in
Bollywood in 1946 in multi-singer songs in “Shikari” and “Eight days”[7];
Khemchand Prakash gave him his first solo (Ziddi, 1948), followed by another
magnificent song in Rimjhim (1949), which made the audience sit up and take
notice. SDB then harnessed and finessed the raw, throaty energy in Kishore’s voice
in its formative years, getting him to discard his Saigal-influenced style and
gradually come into his own. However, despite the occasional “Dukhi mann mere”
and “Woh dekhe toh unki inaayat” (a stunning potpourri of melodious ragas like
Gaur Sarang, Kedar and Bihag, that Kishore, along with Asha, executed to
perfection), their output was largely limited to the fun-song or light-song genre,
in keeping with his on-screen stereotypical image, which did not do justice to
his abilities though it entertained the masses and helped build his popularity.
Post “Aradhana”, Kishore became SDB’s lead male singer, though he still
produced occasional gems with Rafi, like the classy “Mera mann tera pyasa”
(featured on Dev Anand, in Gambler, where Kishore sang all the other songs).
SDB leveraged his protégé’s newfound confidence to craft intricate and nuanced
tunes, like “Khilte hai gul yahan” (in raag Bhimpalasi) and Kaise kahe hum (in raag
Tilang), both from “Sharmilee”, or “Dil aaj shaayar hai” (Gambler). And the
dark and desolate “Badi sooni sooni hai” (Mili, 1975), their last - Kishore’s mournful
rendition was perhaps heightened by the sorrow of his mentor’s slipping into a coma,
from which he never recovered, soon after they had together rehearsed the song;
the song was eventually recorded in absentia by SDB’s team. Earlier, SDB
had also recorded an exquisite, sadly forgotten song, “Dil mera udaa jaaye”,
for Arjun Pandit, which had a delayed release (1976) – an unusually tuned,
layered ditty with a faraway, dreamy feel that invokes the fragrance of lush,
rain-drenched meadows; it was as if the prodigal son’s perennially caged soul finally
found its escape back to the green acres of Kumilla through this song and
Kishore’s voice.
The changing face of his arrangers
During Vijay Anand’s “Tere Mere Sapne”, the
second Hindi film to be based on an AJ Cronin novel (Citadel) - the first being
Raj Khosla’s “Kaala Paani” (based on “Beyond this place”). which too was an SDB
soundtrack – he had a parting of ways of sorts with the Burmans’ hitherto
fungible assistant-arranger team of Basu, Manohari et al. His able and talented
wife (also a fine singer and lyricist in her own right), Meera Dev Burman
(MDB), moved in to fill that void, and is credited as the Assistant in most of
his films from this point on. Did the “sound and feel” of his output change as
a result of this significant personnel-change?
Probably not, or, even if it did, it was so
deceptive that it is impossible to tell by just listening to the music.
For example, in “Tere Mere Sapne”, where
eventually only MDB’s name was credited as an assistant, from the time the
title credits roll, with its folksy music interspersed with SDB’s mellifluous voice,
which takes an abrupt turn into a full-blown western ensemble to finish off the
credits, to the quintessential, minimalist arrangements in “Mera antar ek
mandir” or “Jeevan ki bagiyaa.n”, to the congas and madal-sustained rhythm (a
style one has come to associate more with the Pancham-Basu-Manohari-Maruti-Kancha
team) of “Maine kasam li”, and the spirited “Phurh ud chalaa”, with its heavy
western style orchestration, he keeps the listener guessing. The same could
also be said of the arrangements and instrument-usage in the songs of “Prem
Nagar” (Assistant: MDB, Arrangers: Anil-Arun and Maruti), especially “Ye laal
rang”, “Bye bye miss good night” or “Thhani haawao.n mein” or, indeed, its
jazzy title music.
The reverse was true as well – the
arrangement and the over-all feel of the music of “Ishq Par Zor Nahin” are in
sharp contrast to what Basu-Manohari-Maruti (the assistants credited for this film)
were churning out for the junior Burman soundtracks those days.
For “Choitali”
(Bengali) – RD Burman is given full-screen and solo credit as the assistant
music director. While the songs from this pleasant soundtrack (written both in
Bengali and Hindi) were quintessential SDB, the arrangement (including the
title track) reflected the “Pancham sound” of the 70s, as we know it, in a
seamless fusion of two styles. A remarkable manifestation of not only their
individual and combined powerhouse of talent and creativity, but of the
beautiful relationship the two shared all along. A lot of what is written in
the media about the father-son’s apparent “rivalry” in the ‘70s is a figment of
imagination of overzealous and unscrupulous scribes looking to sell copy.
From this, one can conclude that the
“sound” of the soundtracks was – over and above anything or anyone else -
always the “SDB sound”, which varied markedly based on the requirement of the film,
but was assistant-arranger agnostic.
The banyan tree of the industry
Padi muskaati re
In his last few years, the industry appeared
to congregate around him to accord him the status of a maverick and a
father-figure – in ways that were quite unique and exclusive.
In the arty title credits of “Ishq Par Zor Nahin”,
which fade in and fade out against the backdrop of magnificent landscape
paintings done in a fusion of impressionistic style and the rich and colorful
style of the period paintings of Indian masters like Raja Ravi Verma, SDB’s (and
only his) name appears alongside a full-screen painting of him. A rare
occurrence in the hundred years of Indian cinema of a composer being given such
a sole honour in the title credits.
Title credits of “Ishg par zor nahin”
In “Arjun Pandit”, his name appears as the
last name on the credits after that of Hrishikesh Mukherji, the director, instead
of the other way round as is the general tradition; this could have been a
change made later, as a tribute as he had departed by the time the film was
finally released.
Gulzar, in his songless 1973 film, “Achanak”,
which had music by Vasant Desai, used “Suno mere bandhu re” (sung by SDB in Bimal
Roy’s Sujata) to telling effect in the background in the climax sequence.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee too used this very song, and in the same year, in SDB’s
own Abhimaan, in an important scene in the film. This was perhaps their joint tribute
to their mentor (Bimal Roy) through what they considered was the most
appropriate melody vehicle.
Imitation is the sincerest form of
flattery, as the saying goes. Right from the ‘60s, SDB inspired many music
composers who, consciously or subconsciously, imbibed his style in some of
their songs. Kalyanji Anandji’s “Kankariya maar ke jagaaya” from “Himalaya ke
god mein” (1965), a film that got them their first Filmfare nomination, is one
of the earliest such examples. The ‘70s saw both established and upcoming
composers “doing an SDB” at times – example, “O ghata saawari” (Laxmikant-Pyarelal,
Abhinetri), “Tera mera saathh rahe” (composed in keertan style by Ravindra
Jain, Saudagar) and “Nahi chhodoge tum mera saathh” (Bappi Lahiri, Bazaar Bandh
Karo).
Singers reflecting the style and mannerisms
of the composers is not uncommon, perhaps a natural osmosis that occurs intuitively
during the rehearsal process. In the case of SDB, his powerful and mesmerizing intonations
came through in the final product articulated by his singers a lot more than
they did in the case of others. Some of the best examples from the late ‘60s
and the ‘70s where it almost seemed like SDB’s soul had transcended on to the singers, would be “Khaayi hai re
hum ne kasam” (Lata, Talaash, 1969, a remake of an SDB Bengali song), “Mai toh
tere rang raati” (Lata, Ishq Par Zor Nahin), “Tai thhai ta ta thhai” (Asha,
Tere Mere Sapne) and “Tu ne hum-e kiya diya ri” (Kishore, Zindagi Zindagi). “Piya
tu ne kya kiya” (Us Paar) was a song that Yogesh wrote for SDB, but being the perfectionist
that he was, SDB felt that his own frail and ageing voice would not be able to
do justice to it, and thus gave it to Manna, who sang it exactly the way the
composer would have. These remain beautiful, albeit involuntary, offerings of
love from his favorite singers to their mentor. In “Chhupa Rustam”, of course,
SDB got Kishore to mimic him in a self-deprecating parody of his own non-film
song of yore, “Dheere se jaana bagiyan mein”[8].
This was a poignant example of the indulgent and humorous side of a man with an
otherwise dead serious image in the industry.
The swan song
Through the ‘50s and ‘60s, directors had
judiciously used the wailing pathos and texture of SDB’s unique voice to helm
their films – these songs would typically play in the background like a Greek chorus
to convey the despondency of the on-screen characters, or in the title credits
(often reprised in the end). In contrast to his extensive output in Bengali, he
did not sing much in Bollywood films, but whatever he did - songs like “Suno
mere bandhu re”, “O maajhi orey maajhi”, “Wah kaun hai tera” and “Safal hogi
teri aradhana” - has entered the annals of folklore.
Though he continued to sing for films almost
right till the end, such outings unsurprisingly became few and far between in
the ‘70s. The most memorable of them would be the lingering title songs of “Prem
Pujari” and “Zindagi Zindagi”; astonishingly, old age did not seem to have an
iota of effect on his tunefulness and vocal control.
SDB finished his distinguished on-film singing innings with a flourish, ironically, singing someone else’s tune (something that he had generally stopped doing in the ‘40s after he turned full-fledged composer[9]). This was the gooseflesh-inducing “Chhote chhote sapne hamaar”, from Tapan Sinha’s “Sagina”, a near frame-by-frame remake of his epoch-making Bengali original, “Sagina Mahato” (based on a real-life story by renowned journalist, Gourkishore Ghosh). The original song, written and composed by Sinha himself, and sung by Anup Ghoshal and Arati Mukherji, has become a part of the Bengali psyche. On Sinha’s request, SDB reprised this tune (Majrooh’s lyrics, too, closely followed the original written in dialected Bengali), singing just a few lines almost a cappella, and taking it to an exalted height. The song plays during title credits and is repeated in the end; it is a song of despair and shattered dreams. This author remembers the unforgettable experience of watching the film in the theater, as a boy. As the train slowly pulled away, SDB’s voice soared like a falcon to slowly engulf the whole theater, as the audience sat silent and misty-eyed, stunned by the impact of what they just experienced. The film was released in July 1974. Fifteen months later, he was gone. Leaving his countless fans tearful and shell-shocked, just like he did with his swan song.
___________________________________________________________________________
[1] Bollywood was to epitomize this “counterculture”, as it was called, in Dev Anand’s “Hare Rama Hare Krishna”, released two years later in 1971
[2] including “Deewangee”,
for which he could compose only one song, with Ravindra Jain replacing him
after his demise to complete the soundtrack
[3] Together with his megahit “Ae bhai zara dekh ke chalo”, for Shankar
Jaikishen’s “Mera Naam Joker” (released around the same time as Prem Pujari). Recognition
was hitherto somehow eluding Neeraj, despite his having earlier penned the
seminal “Sapne jhare phool se” (Roshan’s “Nayi umr ki nayi fasal”)
[4] In 1957, Guru Dutt attempted to make his first Bengali film, “Gouri”,
starring his wife, Geeta, with SDB as the composer. The project was aborted; a
few songs were recorded and are now available in the public domain
[5] The flip side of this single had “Ke jaash re”, which he remade
soon in Hindi, as “Sun ri pavan” (Anuraag, 1972)
[6] Abhiman also introduced Anuradha Paudwal – reciting a poignant
shloka - to the Indian audience.
[7] These were also SDB’s first Hindi films; both the films were
produced by Filmistan, which was founded by the Bombay Talkies breakaway trio
of Ashok Kumar, Gyan Mukherji and Raibahadur Chunilal (composer Madan Mohan’s
father)
[8] Kishore had mimicked him in this song earlier too, in “Paanch
rupaya baraah aana” (Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi)
[9] He
did sing “Doli me bithhayi ke” (Amar Prem), under his son’s direction, but the
tune was a transcreation of his own Bengali song, “Kaalshaape dongshe amaaye”
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