Staying power of Kalyanji-Anandji
KALYANJI- ANANDJI has been a name synonymous with consistency of output. They have scored music for about 300 films and come out with popular tunes from “Chhaliya”, “Pyase Panchhi”, “Bluff Master”, “Dulha Dulhan”, “Ishaara”, “Ji Chaahta Hai”, “Himalaya ki God Mein”, “Jab Jab Phool Khile”, “Preet Na Jaane Reet”, “Aamne Samne”, “Dil Ne Pukara”, “Jab Jab Phool Khile”, “Mahal”, “Upkar”, “Purab aur Paschim”, “Sacha Jhootha”, “Haseena Maan Jayegi”, “Maryada”, “Saraswatichandra”, “Safar”, “Gopi”, “Kora Kagaz”, “Johny Mera Naam”, “Blackmail”, “Victoria No 203”, “Banarisi Babu”, “Zanjeer”, “Muqaddar ka Sikander”, “Don”, “Laawaris”, “Qurbani” and “Tridev” to name a few.

 

ART & CULTURE

by Suparna Saraswati New aspects of contemporary art “ARS Gratia Artis” meaning arts for art sake is the immediate reaction generated by the exhibition titled “Anyatha”, a joint venture of five artists belonging to the Indore School of Arts, namely, Akhilesh, Vishal, Dinesh Siraj and Mohan; held at Alliance Francaise Art Gallery from August 18 to 26. At an interaction with the artists, the writer came across new aspects on contemporary art.

‘KBC’ quiz show

Staying power of Kalyanji-Anandji
By Devinder Bir Kaur

KALYANJI- ANANDJI has been a name synonymous with consistency of output. They have scored music for about 300 films and come out with popular tunes from “Chhaliya”, “Pyase Panchhi”, “Bluff Master”, “Dulha Dulhan”, “Ishaara”, “Ji Chaahta Hai”, “Himalaya ki God Mein”, “Jab Jab Phool Khile”, “Preet Na Jaane Reet”, “Aamne Samne”, “Dil Ne Pukara”, “Jab Jab Phool Khile”, “Mahal”, “Upkar”, “Purab aur Paschim”, “Sacha Jhootha”, “Haseena Maan Jayegi”, “Maryada”, “Saraswatichandra”, “Safar”, “Gopi”, “Kora Kagaz”, “Johny Mera Naam”, “Blackmail”, “Victoria No 203”, “Banarisi Babu”, “Zanjeer”, “Muqaddar ka Sikander”, “Don”, “Laawaris”, “Qurbani” and “Tridev” to name a few.

Kalyanji, who was earlier known as Kalyanji Veerji Shah, started his career in 1954 when he played the mesmeric “been” on the claviolin for the Vyjayanthimala-Pradeep Kumar film “Nagin” the music of which was scored by Hemant Kumar. Film stories have it that snakes slithered into the theatres on hearing the call of Kalyanji!

After that it was only a matter of time before Kalyanji was snapped up as a composer by the Hindi filmdom. Kalyanji, joined by his younger brother Anandji, started off their film odyssey with their debut film “Samrat Chandragupta” in 1958. It was a small-budget costume drama, the kind of film that just comes and goes. But Kalyanji gave it everything he had to turn it into a melodious musical. Lata-Rafi heart-stealers Chahe paas ho, chahe door ho ... and Bhar bhar aaye ankhiyan ... left an impact of their own.

Maybe “Samrat Chandragupta” would have been dismissed as a flash in the pan if Kalyanji-Anandji had not proved their mettle with their very next film “Post Box 999” which had no less appealing score topped by Lata-Hemant’s melodious O, neend na mujhko aaye, dil mera ghabraye..., Lata-Manna’s Mere dil mein hai ek baat... and Asha-Rafi’s Bichhde huye milenge phir....

It is a pointer to the staying power of Kalyanji-Anandji that though the absolute top-class films eluded them, they continued to compose catchy tunes in film after film. Films like “Bedard Zamana Kya Jaane”, “Chandrasena”, “O Tera Kya Kehna” etc had no big starcast, but are remembered to this day for the effervescent quality of their music scores.

In the big set-up, Kalyanji-Anandji’s breakthrough film maybe said to be Manmohan Desai’s “Chhalia” in which Raj Kapoor played the title role. The very fact that Raj Kapoor should have agreed to the new young duo doing the film’s music was a big plus point for Kalyanji-Anandji. Maybe Raj Kapoor was influenced by the fact that Kalyanji-Anandji’s early scores showed the impact of Shankar-Jaikishan’s style. (In fact, they were sometimes referred to as S-J xeroxes). But the fact remains that the songs of “Chhalia” — among them Chhalia mera naam ..., Dum diga diga, mausam bhiga, bhiga ..., Mere tute hue dil se ..., O baaje payal chhun, chhun hoke bekrar ..., Teri rahon mein khade hain dil tham ke ... — identified Kalyanji-Anandji as composers in the top bracket. And Mukesh songs of “Chhalia” sat pat on Raj Kapoor.

Another interesting fact is that with “Chhalia” Manmohan Desai kicked off his career. Kalyanji-Anandji’s next film “Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere” was Arjun Hingorani’s debut film. Manoj Kumar’s first film “Upkar” also had music by the duo and slowly they began to the viewed “lucky” for newcomers. Prakash Mehra’s “Haseena Maan Jayegi”, Narinder Bedi’s “Bandhan”, Feroz Khan’s “Apradh”, Anil Ganguli’s “Kora Kagaz”, Govind Saraiya’s “Saraswatichandra” and many more films, it was felt, became successful because of the “lucky” twosome.

After “Chhalia”, films like “Ishaara”, “Phool Bane Angare”, “Bluff Master”, “Majboor”, “Ji Chaahta Hai”, “Preet Na Jaane Reet” saw Kalyanji-Anandji rise steadily on the popularity chart. Soon they were assigned bigger films like “Dulha Dulhan”, “Himalaya ki God Mein” and “Saraswatichandra”.

One look at the names of these films and what strikes you is the consistent quality of the music that Kalyanji-Anandji created for them. “Dulha Dulhan”, a Raj Kapoor-Sadhana starrer had a highly popular score Mujhe kehte hain kalloo kawwal... Bane to ban jaye zamana dushman.... “Himalaya ki God Mein” saw the duo probably for the first time in their career till then make a conscious effort to merge their tunes with the thematic needs of the movie. So we had hits like Unche Himalaya ke neeche ..., Ek tu jo mila, saari duniya mili ..., Kankariya maar ke jagaya ..., Ek tu na mila ..., Chand si mehbooba ho meri kab ..., Main to ek khwab hoon .... In fact, senior music men decided to give Kalyanji-Anandji the “best music directors award” for “Himalaya ki God Mein”. “Saraswatichandra” of course marked the high point of their achievement in this artistic direction. The film won Kalyanji-Anandji the National Award for “the originality of its score”. Who can forget its romantic Chandan sa badan ..., the garba song Ho, main to bhool chali babul ka des piya ka ghar pyara lage... and the haunting Chhod de, saari duniya kisi ke liye...?

Kalyanji later stated that it was easy to compose music for films like “Saraswatichandra”. But in action films where music didn’t play an important role, composing was a challenge. The mid-’70s saw the emphasis shift from music to action. Kalyanji-Anandji spent a lot of time for films like “Qurbani” and “Don”. These discussions proved fruitful as the popularity of songs like Laila main laila ... and Khaike paan Banaras wala ... proved.

Kalyanji-Anandji were known to be the most accommodating pair of composers in Bollywood. They were open to suggestions from the singer or the song writer who asked for a slight modification to their tune if it was “for the betterment of the overall effect of the song”. Thus, when Feroz Khan got Biddu to do Aap jaisa koi meri zindagi mein aaye ... for “Qurbani”, they did not mind it.

To the Kalyanji-Anandji duo goes the credit of having introduced that phenomenon called Amitabh Bachchan on the stage. His popularity was never confined to India. So they came upon the idea of turning his instant appeal into live shows under their baton.

Belonging to the Kutch side of Saurashtra, they also came under some Arabic influence which was discernible in some of their “Muslim songs” like Yaari hai imaan mera ... in “Zanjeer” and Qurbani qurbani qurbani ... in “Qurbani”.

The duo cherished the National Award for “Saraswatichandra” and the Filmfare Award for “Kora Kagaz”. They were also proud of the fact that they were the first music directors to receive the platinum disc from HMV for the super success of their “Muqaddar ka Sikander”.

They claim credit for having introduced a number of singers like Kamal Barot, Kanchan, Hemlata, Manhar, Alka Yagnik, Sadhana Sargam, even Runa Laila.

The credit for the score of “Tridev”, with its chart-buster Oye oye ..., went to Kalyanji’s son Viju Shah, while K-A took a backseat. Kalyanji wanted to experiment with him before he became a solo music director.

And it wasn’t just Viju Shah they wanted to promote. Kalyanji-Anandji’s Kalavir Akademy holds workshops to polish singers for a career in playback singing. Johnny Lever and other artistes trained in different skills like mimicry at the academy. Among the artistes being readied for the future are their “Little Wonders”. It’s immensely popular with children from all over the country participating in it.

Funds collected from their shows are given to charity. A village in Gujarat was named after them after they performed in the village to help flood victims.

Though during the past few years they had not been working round the clock, they had a few films waiting to be released. Among them was the much-publicised “Kalinga”. (It’s now probably shelved). But Kalyanji-Anandji will always be remembered as a pair that sustained in the top echelons of musicdom from the ’60s to the ’80s, and that too without strategic business practices and having very few loyalist producers. Chandan sa badan ..., Zindagi ka safar ..., Ye sama, sama hai ye pyar ka ..., O babul pyare..., Pal pal dil ke paas ..., Mere jeewan kora kagaz ... etc have indeed made them immortal.

New aspects of contemporary art

“ARS Gratia Artis” meaning arts for art sake is the immediate reaction generated by the exhibition titled “Anyatha”, a joint venture of five artists belonging to the Indore School of Arts, namely, Akhilesh, Vishal, Dinesh Siraj and Mohan; held at Alliance Francaise Art Gallery from August 18 to 26. At an interaction with the artists, the writer came across new aspects on contemporary art.

Ceramics and paintings is an interesting combination in the field of visual presentation of arts Siraj, a ceramics artist, displayed an unusual assemblence of the medium with a new dimension to it. According to this aspiring artist: “My work appears to be oversimplified to the viewer and perhaps that in itself is the biggest difficulty for me as the creator to artistically philosophise about. For me beauty of repetition is highly inspirational. What might appear to be regular linear alignments of tiny ceramic peices, for me it is a juxtaposition of the routine observations.”

Interestingly, Siraj, in the recent past has been doing work in the sentiment of paying a sort of tribute to unidentifiable artists which is why he titled the series of framed ceramics as “Homage to the unknown sculptor of Khajuraho”. Why so? “Well, I lived in that temple city for a while. I was in complete awe of the kind of excellence and perfection of the aesthetics it projects. Even though every work of art has its own visual language, somewhere the artist’s incognito portrayal demands due recognition. So I felt that through my small contribution I could at least let it be acknowledged wherever and howsoever.”

The painted canvases put up for the exhibition showed an aura of uniqueness and cerebral vibrance. For instance, Mohan’s paintings spelt out his deep concern and faith regarding the limited tribal societies existing in the country today. Having spent sufficient time amongst them, his work seems to have become a centre of his understanding of the Adivasi people. “Though they have a colourful appearance, clothes and jewellery, yet temperamentally they are completely calm and composed, as though subsided in their evolution”.

Vishal, is a student of art at Indore and his paintings called “Gothic Surfaces” have a layered impact within their frames. “Philosophic interpretations in my paintings reveal forms giving glimpses of the Gothic periods symbolically represented in each and every layer that has been shown.” His works are usually in pastels and inches in the square frames that have entrapped the patterns and designs of this young budding artist.

Dinesh’s oil on paper, again untitled, is displayed in attractive and stunning black square frames. He too speaks a language that combines aesthetics with reality. And the seniormost of these five artists, Akhilesh’s work boldly announces his personal intellectual journeys shared with cerebral giants like J. Swaminathan and his experiences in the medium of art. His collection includes indigo blue, flaming orange, beautiful black and earthy browns colours.

This exhibition has indeed been an inspirational exposure to a lot of the young amateur artists of the city. Through “Anyatha”, contemporary art has been able to break its once upon-a-time mould of being labelled as abstract visual depiction.

Like a breath of fresh air

FIZA (Tips): For just this once, you cannot accuse Anu Malik of aping A.R.Rahman. And that is only because for perhaps the first time, the names of Anu and Rahman appear on an album together, the former as the regular composer and the latter as the “guest composer”. So, any Rahman trademark tunes that may have entered Anu’s brains are purely authentic.

Barbs apart, Anu has done a thoroughly professional job this time. Almost the entire cassette is way above the run of the mill music that one gets to hear these days. The piece de resistance is the very first song, Aaja mahiya… rendered superbly by Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan. Its dance beat is infectious.

Equally accomplished are Tu fiza hai… (Alka, Sonu Nigam) and Mehboob mere… (Sunidhi Chauhan, Karsan Sargathiya). Gaya gaya dil… by Sonu Nigam could have made to the same list, but for the fact that its tune is too similar to an old hit, Ye Bombay shahar hadson ka shahar hai…

Rahman has composed and sung Piya Haji Ali… in style. There is a sudden revival of such Sufiana songs and that is a welcome development indeed. Jaspinder Narula gets to sing a stirring Na leke jao….

Aaankh milaoongi… would have been a very ordinary song, but for the fact that it has been rendered by Asha Bhosle.

The album boasts of several lyrics-writers: Gulzar, Sameer, Tejpal Kaur and Shaukat Ali. As expected, Gulzar towers over all others.

MASTI UNLIMITED (Auro Audio): Johny Lever has become famous as a film comedian but he is a mimicry artiste first. Stage shows are his forte. This cassette is a recording of one of such shows. It is dated to the extent that he pokes fun at the already forgotten Mohan Kapoor of “Saanp-Seedhi” fame, but the rest of the gags are still enjoyable.

In fact, he does not copy any well-known artiste here but concentrates on the peculiar accents of people from various regions. A hilarious cameo is about what happens when too many airlines enter the fray and take one from Mumbai to Ludhiana, Ahmedabad and Kolhapur.

Some of the fun of a stage show is lost in an audio recording, but what does come through is funny enough.

HAMARA DIL AAPKE PAAS HAI (Tips): One expects outstanding music in as prestigious a film as this. But music director Sanjeev Darshan fails to deliver. The eight songs that he has presented are just about ok. In fact, had these been composed by a more established music director, these could have been called dated.

Right from the title song sung by Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan to I love you … by Hema Sardesai, Anil Kapoor and Sonali Bendre, the songs have run-of-the-mill stamped all over them.

Only Gham hai kyoon yeh bata…(Udit Narayan) rises above average. Even Javed Akhtar’s lyrics are not able to pep up things.

Films, mythology—back to formula

IT’s party time folks! Zee has had three, HBO two, Sony Entertainment and other newer channels have started with one each. All at five star hotels, some with blinding smoky laser lights and deafening music. At one of them starting at 7.30 p.m. the host was missing and there was general chaos, by which time the media had had enough, and left. The host apparently turned up by 11 p.m. Meanwhile a deep-throated woman gave out details of Sony’s forthcoming attractions but complained, with typical Mumbai arrogance, that Delhiites don’t take to the dance floor. Madam, obviously you don’t read our page three social doings. More mature and established channels like the BBC and CNN have a lot of decorum, where the hosts receive people at the entrance, talk to the Press and others interested about their forthcoming plans and even serve food which does not consist of mater-paneer, pudina paratha and roghan josh in Italian or French restaurants. In fact, the media are getting indigestion over these three-on-the-same-day parties. Zee mercifully has smaller, less rowdy Press parties.

The incentive for all these parties and PR exercises has obviously come from “Kaun Banega Crorepati”, which has apparently sent other channels into a blue panic. Some have rescheduled their prime time programmes out of reach of KBC. Others have quiz programmes with lakhs or bags of gold instead of crores. Some have timed their competitions in such a way that you have to watch their programmes for at least three hours non-stop for clues and then get the results at exactly the time that KBC is at its height. What it all adds up to is competition, which, as one CEO bravely said, is very healthy.

As far as the viewer is concerned, the main gainer has been the film buff. Indian TV started with starring the cinema and its highest viewing figures have been for mythologicals like the Ramayana and Mahabharata, viewing for which started with a cleansing bath and burning of incense and puja on Sunday mornings and I have seen professors at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study cut breakfast to squat on the floor and watch these mythologicals which had viewership even in Pakistan, where they also know of the fight between Good and Evil. Suffice it to say that it indicates something of viewer tastes in India at the moment two channels, including the prestigious Sony are going to have serials on Lord Ganesha.

As for the filmi war, it is no longer merely Turner vs Murdoch. The tie-up of studios and channels is just breathtaking. HBO, which claims to be the biggest cinema channel in the world has tied up with Paramount, Columbia Tristar and Universal relinquishing 25 per cent to these studios while offering the latest Hollywood movies. Murdoch’s Star Movies has meanwhile lined up Disney, Polygram and Spielberg for its films. Healthy but boringly repetitive films are also coming steadily on Hallmark — how many times can one see Alice in Wonderland? And now Zee TV is going to revive its English movies channel with Metro Goldwyn-Mayer to join the competition. And of course the TNT cartoon network offers old classics at night. Garbo, Hymphery Bogart and the rest. And we love them.

But as a film buff I must award the palm for Indian classics to Sony Entertainment and Max. It has been a joy to catch up with Raj Kapoor — I particularly enjoyed the Shombhu Mitra-directed ‘Jagte Raho’, with Raj Kapoor not saying a word until the end. And the youthful Dev Anand serenading a formidable line-up of leading ladies. So what with the most contemporary Indian films vying for honours on TV, not to forget small-budget films like ‘Hyderabad Blues’ getting a chance, the film enthusiast now has a formidable choice of Indian and foreign films, old and new. There is fierce competition going on about soaps and other serials, and Sony is even going to have a novelty item Hrithik Roshan in Concert and Movers and Shakers with an audience.

TAILPIECE: I have been rather amused by the obviously rival-instigated campaign that Star News is lacking in newscasters and anchors who can speak Hindi. I meticulously consulted Hindi experts on both language and TV newscasting. They gave full marks to Pankaj Pachauri and Darain Shahidi for Hindi. Amongst the bi-lingual newscasters and anchors, and Star News has a formidable array of them, they rated very highly (for their Hindi) Arup Ghosh, Shireen, Rupali Tiwari, Saleha Wasim (whose charming Urdu inflexions delight me) Sonali Verma and the new Kanupriya Sehgal and Chetan Sharma. I will leave for the future outstanding bi-lingual correspondents such as Sanjay Ahirwal, whose Hindi is impeccable.

DAK