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Beginning an Army officer in 1943, Madan Mohan left the Army and joined the film industry. There is a piercing quality to his compositions like "Lagja galey", "Kar chaley hum fida". When he died in 1975, he left a huge treasure of unused tunes composed by him. Yash Chopra used some of his tunes for the soundtrack of Veer-Zaara (2004). Shankar and Jaikishan were trailblazers in music from their debut film Barsaat (1948). They tried variations, reversing taals, using counter melody but never lost focus of the fact that the songs just had to be audience-friendly. A staunch critic of the smothering influence of western music, Naushad Ali adroitly exploited Indian classical and folk music in his films like Shahjehan, Rattan, Dard, Dillagi, Anmol Ghadi and Andaaz in the 1940s. He used to agonise over every tune and phrase in music, spend sleepless nights over a song and work on it till it was perfected. O. P. Nayyar was a rebel. For 15 years, he was at the top, his music epitomised the brighter side of life. In times when good music had to be classical in orientation, he composed simple, folk-based tunes or went western in style. Salil Choudhury immersed in the folk songs of Bengal as well the records of western classical music. Both these influences permeate his compositions. He would spend days on end without food or sleep in critical examination of his compositions before deciding on the tune. He would start higher and instead of going up aaroh would come down as in "Zindagi kaisi yeh pahelee haye"(Anand).
Rai Chand Boral took to instruments and got good idea of their strengths and weaknesses. He also became fond of playing the tabla and piano. He became the head of the All-India Radio at Kolkata and also started performing as a musician in bioscopes. When first talkie Alam Ara (1931) was released, he intensified his composing efforts at New Theatres at Calcutta. He was the first to make Saigal sing in his Mohabbat Ke Aanso in 1932. Two years later, he was the first to bring in background music in Chandidas. Then in 1935, he was credited with being the first to bring in playback to films in India. Suraiyya, the singing star, was nothing short of a devastating double-barrel attack. Her incredible voice and beauty were enough to set your heart on fire. When she was just 13 years old, she played lead in Ishaara opposite Prithviraj Kapoor. She bloomed as she got many singing and acting assignments — Anmol Ghadi, Dar, Parwana, Dillagi, Badi Bahan, Pyar Ki Jeet, Daastaan, etc. Her affair with Dev Anand ended in fiasco as she could not stand up to her grand mother’s opposition to the match. As she called off the engagement, the desire to belong to this world died in her. She continued acting and singing. It was only in the doomed love story in Mirza Ghalib (1954) that she revived herself to put her heart and soul into. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru complimented her by saying, "Suraiyya, tum ne Ghalib ki rooh ko zinda kar diya". For Geeta Dutt, playback singing was not so much about technique as it was about taking the listener along into the world of feelings. It was on the strength of this ability that she held her own against the phenomenal talent of Lata Mangeshkar. S.D. Burman gave Geeta an image makeover with fast, jazzy number "Tadbeer sey bigadi huyee takdeer bana ley" (Baazi/51). Phenomenal as Geeta’s work for Nayyar and Burman is, her range and versatility are exemplified by her solo numbers for Madan Mohan, C. Ramchandra, Hemant Kumar. Guru Dutt’s suicide in 1964 shattered Geeta and she suffered a nervous breakdown. After being in and out of hospitals, she died of live cirrhosis at 41. It was as much Majrooh Sultanpuri’s standing in the Urdu literary world as his phenomenal versatility in song writing that saw him emerge as the first poet to be honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. He started his career writing for K. L. Saigal in Kardar’s Shahjehan (1946), unforgettable numbers like "Jab dil hee toot gaya". Majrooh was a poet for all seasons. Majrooh captured the entire persona of Raj Kapoor in the words "Ek din bik jayeyga." When Raj Kapoor heard Shailendra recite an inflammatory poem Jalta Hai Punjab at a function, he offered him to join his studio. For Raj Kapoor, Shailendra engendered emotionally resonant classics like "Awaara hoon", "Mera joota hai Japani". Shakeel Badayuni confined all his creativity to love, romance and dejection, resisting temptation to write about social causes. Shakeel penned the immortal bhajans like "O duniya key rakhwaley."
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T
Rahul Dev Burman, or RD
as he was lovingly called, stumbled upon the jazz route in his quest
to find his moorings. "Aaja aaja" from Teesri
Manzil clicked and RD got stuck with a brand of music where rhythm
and pace were more important than melody. This was further compounded
when Dev Anand approached RD to compose music for Hare Rama Hare
Krishna (1971) knowing that only RD could fire the imagination of
the youth with the devil-may-care attitude of "Dum Maro Dum".
The song became a cult and RD was trapped further in the image.
Despite his hit scores in films like Aandhi, Love Story, 1942 — A
Love Story, Amar Prem, Betaab, RD was in the throes of a serious
identity crisis. When Saagar failed at the boxoffice, RD found
himself written off. When Subhash Ghai replaced him with
Laxmikant-Pyarelal in Ram-Lakhan (1989), RD suffered his first
heart attack.