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Ego clashes between singers and composers while presiding over various music talent hunt shows on television are nothing less than dogfights. Unfortunately, they do not realise that in the public eye, their stature gets diminished. Since the arrival of sound in cinema, the ego scuffles have been in plenty and one can safely arrive at a conclusion that when the mighty egos in music collide, the sound of the music is not always harmonious to the ear. Mohammed Rafi often referred to Lata Mangeshkar as ‘Maharani’. Rafi got on Lata’s wrong side when he he disagreed on the royalty issue that Lata was vouching for.
Rafi saw no way he could go with Lata in claiming any singing royalty as a singer carried no responsibility in the recorded song’s success or failure. Rafi’s line of reasoning annoyed Lata and they ceased to sing duets. Though the matter was later patched up but the tuning between them was never quite the same. Lata Mangeshkar was annoyed when she came to know that in Naushad’s house, a letter had been signed by Mohammed Rafi disputing Lata’s 25,000 songs record, as listed in 1974 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Rafi and Naushad were never pardoned for this misadventure. Much has been said about Lata and O. P. Nayyar rift as Nayyar never used Lata’s vocal as crutches but still went on to become a legendary composer. As a matter of principle, Lata never sang for a music composer who takes over the scoring of a film midway through without proper permission from the outgoing composer. On such a basis, Lata did not entertain the idea of performing for Nayyar as he replaced Roshan in Mehbooba in 1954. The ego scuffle that followed O. P. Nayyar with Sahir Ludhianvi on the sets of Sone ki Chidya was like none other. It was the last film they worked together. Nayyar said there had been ego clashes between Sahir and him over the lyrics in Naya Daur. B.R. Chopra freed Nayyar from the contract of composing music for Sadhaa when he felt that the vibes between Sahir and Nayyar had revealed ego hassles. Vinod Kumar, writer-director of Jahanaara, was insistent upon using the vocals of Mohammed Rafi while its composer Madan Mohan wanted Talat Mahmood to sing, “Phir wohi shaam, teri aankh ke aansoo pe jaaoon, main teri nazar ka saroor hoon”. There was a deadlock. The director threatened to change the adamant composer and picked up Roshan for the job. Madan Mohan spent a hefty amount on the recording of Talat Mahmood from his own pocket. Talat Mahmood annoyed Naushad by smoking before the recording of Babul number “Mera jeewan saathi”. Naushad never took Talat Mahmood after that. Mohammed Rafi felt diminished when Dilip Kumar once invited only Naushad to travel in his car to a function where Rafi was due to perform, with Dilip and Naushad presiding over it. This offended Rafi, who stopped singing for Dilip Kumar, who then used the vocals of Mohinder Kapoor and Kishore Kumar.
A question repeatedly asked to this day is, “Did Lata play fair in hijacking from her sister Asha a song designed to create for her a rare niche in the nation’s psyche and marginalised Asha in sisterly singing rivalry? In fact, C. Ramchandra had tuned “Ae mere watan ke logo” as a duet, for Asha to begin. Lata called Pradeep to express her keenness to sing for C. Ramchandra provided it was a solo. Forgotten, in a trice, were C. Ramchandra’s longspread rehearsals for the number with Asha. If C. Ramchandra and Lata came together to collaborate for this song, the feeling of being tunefully together again did not last too long.
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Maybe, Rafi’s addressing her as ‘Maharani’ during such a momentous confrontation where she felt that if they presented a joint front on the issue, there was no way the singer’s two and a half per cent royalty could be refused.
