Making music together
By Alka Seth

IN the Indian musical scene, talent seems to flow in the genes of musicians, both instrumentalists and vocalists. Certain living examples are sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan’s two sons, sitar wizard Ravi Shankar’s daughter, the Dagar brothers and santoor guru Shiv Kumar Sharma’s son.

The trend is even more obvious in the world of Hindi cinema with renowned music composers and playback singers collaborating with their relatives. Various partnerships — between husband and wife, brother and sister and father and son — have become the norm these days.

But then, for every Kishore Kumar and Amit Kumar there’s a Hemant Kumar who did not have a single song for daughter Ranu Mukherji. The Mangeshkar sisters, Lata and Asha have come together for duets, but what about Vinod Rathod and Roop Kumar Rathod?

Roop’s wife, Sonali, is an accomplished ghazal singer and together, they have been making music for films and private albums. Now they have got their daughter, Surshree, to follow in their footsteps as she is supposed to have inherited their talent!

And what would you say about Bappi Lahiri who produced countless chartbusters, but not one hit with his daughter, Rema Lahiri? For that matter, he made no effort to give his aunt, Chandrani Mukherji, a worthwhile song, even though she has produced several hits with other composers.

Likewise, music composer Khayyam got wife Jagjit Kaur to sing several songs, but the only number that became popular was Ranjish hi sahi from a little-known film, Shagoon. Somehow, one could not complement the other.

The same explanation would hold good for Ranu Mukherji, who has several popular numbers to her credit with Rahul Dev Burman and Anand-Milind, but not one with her father. Hemant Kumar just did not know how to exploit his daughter’s voice.

Then there was a versatile Salil Chaudhury who composed the popular Nani teri morni ko mor le gaye for daughter Antara Chaudhury, but nothing else. Wife Sabita Chaudhury has, however, been a marvellous creative foil with countless Bengali hits in her time.

Similarly, a well-past-his-prime Naushad Ali composed off-colour music for M.A. Rehman’s maiden directorial venture. Tere Payal Mere Geet, in just the same way as Khayyam could not deliver when his son, Pradeep, made his screen debut as hero of Jaan-e Wafaa.

But the biggest irony was reserved for composers Laxmikant-Pyarelal who ruled the music scene for close to three decades. In their entire career, they managed just one hit, Hey Raju Hey Daddy, for Rajeshwari (Laxmikant’s daughter) from Ek Hi Bhool.

The duo made Rajeshwari sing many other songs, one of which also had Kanal, Pyarelal’s daughter, singing for a lark in Oonch Neech Beech. But none of these came anywhere close to what they had composed for other singers like Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosale.

L.P also composed for Dilbar, in which Laxmikant’s son, Rishikesh, made his screen debut. Papa even made peace with Kumar Sanu (at Rishikesh’s bidding) as the main singer. But with trends changing, the film proved a non-starter and the songs went into oblivion.

There’s also Jatin-Lalit duo which who had occasionally used the vocals of sister Vijayeta Pandit and niece Shraddha in films like Sangharsh and Khubsoorat. But they admit that their best have always come from other playback singers.

At the other extreme, there was R.D. Burman who took the music world by storm with an unending stream of experimental numbers sung by Asha Bhosle. It is hard to single out a flop number from this husband-wife combination.

Likewise, Guru Dutt could get the best songs from his wife, Geeta Dutt.But when the two fell apart (apparently over the former’s affair with Waheeda Rahman), Geeta was a lost case. So was Guru Dutt, even as he got Asha Bhosle to replace Geeta.

Yet another case in point is Javed Akhtar’s lyrics for wife Shabana Azmi. No song picturised on her stands out as strongly as Tum itna jo mushkura rahe ho (from Arth) and the numbers from Saaz. The husband-wife magic worked once again.

The latest is, of course, Rajesh Roshan’s compositions for brother Rakesh’s Kaho Na Pyar Hai. He has composed for many other film-makers, but his best numbers have always been reserved for his brother. And when it came to the launch of his nephew, Hritik Roshan, he excelled himself! (MF)