Shankar Jaikishan

Shankar Jaikishan

Shankar Jaikishan image courtsey: downmelodylane.com

The most versatile Musical Giant of the Last Century.

Shankar Jaikishan are probably the most versatile music –duos that hailed the music of Bollywood during the Golden Age of Indian Cinema, the 40s, 50s and 60s.The golden era of Indian film music can be associated with the musical giants of different capabilities and specialisations.The Legends include Roshan- the king of melody, Madanmohan- the shahenzah of ghazals, Naushad- the Genius of Hindustani classical ragas with a blend of Lucknow Gharana, Salil Chowdhury –the Master of Westernised chorus with Eastern folk and poetic excellence, O. P. Nayyar – the Master of Westernised Tunes with Eastern flavour, Jaidev – the Legend of Urbanised Folk and Rural tunes, and many other Classical composers who have become immortal with their everlasting tunes. Shankar Jaikishan emerged in that arena with a range of tunes and compositions which could not be categorised under a single head. There were folk songs like “ chalat Musafir” sung by Manna dey in “Teesri Kasam”( 1966) to ghazals like “Chalke Teri Aankhose sharab aur ziada” sung by Mohammad Rafi in “Aarzoo”(1965). There were rock and roll compositions like “aajkal tere mere pyarke charche har jawanpar” in Brahmchari(1967) to pure classical composition like “Sur na saje kya gayun mai” in “Basant Bahar”(1957).


They had composed music in almost 200 films in a tenure of around 22 years (1). So great was the impact of their creative genius that it had a lasting impact on the music of the Hindi films. Shankar-Jaikishan understood the taste of the masses, were able to cater to them, as well as moulded their tastes. No wonder then that during their tenure as music directors, they were exceedingly popular and 75 per cent of the films for which their scores were everlasting hits - many have celebrated silver jubilees.

They were probably the only musical pair, who have given music to all the leading giants who had glorified the silver screen during the 1940, 1950s, and 1960s.They have given music to Dilip Kumar in Yahudi,1958, Rajender Kumar in Suraj,1966, Bharat Bhushan in Basant Bahar,1957, Balraj Sahani in Seema,1956, Pradeep Kumar in Raat Aur Din,1966, Dev Anand in Asli Nakli,1961,Manoj Kumar in Hariyali Aur Raasta,1962, Shammi Kapoor in Professor,1962, Shashi Kapoor in Kanyadan,1969, Biswajeet in April Fool,1964, Joy Mukherjee in Love in Tokyo,1965, Dharmender in Pyar hi Pyar,1968, Jeetender in Mere Huzur,1967, RajKumar in Lal Patthar,1971.

The team of Shankar Jaikishan consisted of Shankarsingh Raghuwanshi and Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal. Shankar (October 15, 1922 - 1987) was born in Punjab and trained under the famous Husnlal Bhagatram. He later settled down in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. Jaikishan (1929 - 1971) hails from Panchal, Gujarat, India. Before the duo met, Jaikishan worked as a carpenter. Their career started as music directors for Raj Kapoor's 1949 film Barsaat. Songs like "Jiya beqaraar hai" and "Barsaat mein humse mile tum" became a rage. Barsaat was also the starting point of the pair’s long and successful association with the R.K. Banner. Hit music in films like Aah and Awaara followed in the early 1950s. The song "Ghar aaya mera pardesi" went on to become a benchmark for dream-sequence songs. Their music for most R.K. films was considered a huge success, but two films stand out, Shree 420 and Sangam. The songs "Pyaar hua ikraar hua" and "Ramaiyyaa vasta vaiyya" from Shree 420 and "Dost dost na raha" and "Har dil jo pyaar karega" from Sangam were popular favorites (2).

They were honored with the maximum number (nine) of Filmfare awards in the Indian film industry. In 1968, Shankar Jaikishan released an album, "Raga Jazz Style : Shankar Jaikishan with Rais Khan." Shankar Jaikishan made a great impact on film music from the start. Their tunes range from pure classical Indian themes to more westernised tunes.They had a distinct style, which was adaptable to different stars and films.In the West, they are best known for the song "Jaan Pechan Ho", which originally appeared in the 1965 film Gumnaam. The musical number was replayed in the American film Ghost World and helped to catapult the popularity of Indian film music in America.

However, according to Raj Kapoor, the pair's most notable score came in the film "Mera Naam Joker" in 1970 which has landmark songs like "Jaane kahan gaye woh din", "Jeena yahan marna yahan", and "Ae bhai zara dekh ke chalo". Arguably, the background musical scores of "Sangam" and "Mera Naam Joker" are considered to be among the best ever in the history of Hindi film music. Of the two, Shankar's speciality was dance-based compositions, whereas Jaikishan's forte was the background musical score. Both of them preferred Raaga Bhairavi over other strains of classical music.

Shankar Jaikishan created few classical oriented tunes fit for the Golden voice of Mohammad Rafi. In the film “ Lal patthar”(1971), Shankar Jaikishan had composed for Rafi “ unke khayal aye to ate chaale gaye”in raag gara. There the nostalgic mood of badshah was presented by Rafi. Other quality creations of Shankar Jaikishan included “ Aji ruth kar ab kahan jaiyega” in raag desh in Aarzoo(1966) starring Rajenderkumar, “ Khudabhi asma se jab zamin par dekhta hoga” in the film ‘Dharti,” “mujhko apne gale lagalo ai mere humrahi”( Humrahi, 1962) “surahidar gardan koel sihi awaz”in the film “ Aman”. The lyrics were written by Hasrat Jaipuri (3).

One of the other shades of the character of the Legendary duo was that they had encouraged a number of singers both male and female, at an era when the other Music Directors preferred only Rafi and Lata. They have composed songs for Subir Sen, “ Dil mera ek aas ka panchi” in the film Aas ka panchi,1960, Suman Kalyanpur , “Dil ek mandir hai,” in the film Dil Ek Mandir,1963, Manna Dey, “Yeh Raat Bheegi Bheegi” in the film Chori Chori,1956, Asha Bhosle, “Mur Murke na dekh Mur Mur ke” in the film Shri 420,1955, Sharda, “Titli Uri” in the film Suraj,1966, Mukesh, “Yeh mera diwanapan hai” in the film Yahudi,1958, Talat Mehmood, “Koi nahi mera is duniya mai” in the film Daag,1955, Kishore Kumar, “Zindagi ek safar hai suhana” in the film Andaz,1971. The songs were complimented with brilliant orchestration which had added lights to the composition of the giant.

The other aspect of their creation include blending the Indian flavour with the foreign tunes wherever the films were picturised. Best examples can be the song “Sayonara sayonara” in the film “Love in Tokyo”, 1965, had Japanese orchestration, the other being “Raat ke humsafar” in the film “An Evening Paris”,1967, had French flavour. Besides their use of few instruments showed the class of their own, Accordion in “Sub kuch sikha Humne na siki hoshiari” in the film Anari,1959, Saxophone in “Ai sanam jis ne tujhe chand sa surat di hai” in the film Diwana, 1967, Synthesized Harmonium played by V. Balsara in “Awara Hoon” in the film Awara, 1951.

One of the reasons why Shankar Jaikishan did not get the acknowledgement of providing immortal tunes in that era is because it could not be identified as which song is composed by Shankar and which song is composed by Jaikishan. Otherwise Naushad was awarded with Dada Saheb Phalke for his brilliant contribution to Indian music, Majrooh Sultanpuri also received the same award in the lyricist category, Shankar- Jaikishan was deprived of that honour. The other reason may be that they had worked with Raj Kapoor for the longest period and most of the credit of the unforgettable tunes were taken away by Raj Kapoor himself. An archive should be created for the rich and classical creations of Shankar Jaikishan where the works can be preserved for future generations to take inspiration from.

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(1)

Dattaram, their Assistant also made immortal tunes like “Ansu Bhari Hai” in the film “Parvarish”, 1959, starring Raj Kapoor


(2)

My father Chitta Ranjan Chatterji, Ex chief Public Prosecutor, Bankshall Court,( CMM Court), Kolkata had solved a case relating to Music Rackett in HMV in the early 1980s. The Zonal manager of HMV, Mr. SriDaure gave him a present of HMV discs of film “diwana-composed by Shankar Jaikishan” and Disc of “ Pakiza- composed by Ghulam mohammad”. Mr. Sri Daure was involved with numerous immortal recordings of HMV and he mentioned that there was a song in Diwana, titled “ tumhare bhi jai jai, humare bhi jai jai, na tum hare, na hum hare”. The song was picturised with Raj kapoor staying in the railway station and Saira Banu travelling in a train. The song beat that was composed by Shankar-Jaikishan synchronised the actual sound of the movement of the train. It was only possible from Shankar-Jaikishan.It was reported in AnandaBazar Patrika, the Bengali Newspaper under the column of Ashis Ghosh.

(3)

Noted Music Director Anu Malik says that Raj Kapoor had dug a well full of everlasting music and Shankar Jaikishan drew water out of it

Article By: Souvik Chatterji

Assistant Director

CUTS International,
Centre for Competition, Investment & Economic Regulation
D-217, Bhaskar Marg,
Bani Park, Jaipur 302 016, India
Ph: 91.141.2282821 (Board)
http://www.cuts-ccier.org

Sampooran Singh Gulzar

Music in Films of Gulzar

Sampooran Singh Gulzar image courtsey: bollywoodvillage.com

The 1970s is characterised as a period of change in Indian film music. Although popular music continued to be created by the innovative compositions of Laxmikant Pyarellal, Kalyanji Anandji, R.D. Burman, yet the classical flavour of Hindustani music started losing predominance during that time. There were few reasons for the change.

Firstly the neo-realistic film movement by Satyajit Ray (1), Ritwik Ghatak (2), Tapan Sinha (3), Rajen Tarapdar (4), had inspired filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nahalani to make realistic films in the 70s. Shyam Benegal started his journey with the film Ankur, 1974, where he gave the biggest break to Shabana Azmi, one of the most powerful actress of Indian cinema. Govind Nahalani made Akrosh, where he brought out one of the most daunting performance of Om Puri in a mute role. These films depicted the lives of the rural Indian folk with powerful story telling and theme music. At the same time Directors like Basu Chatterji made Chitchor, 1974, Hrishikesh Mukherjee made Milli, 1975, Golmaal, 1979, where the stories were picturised on the lives of middle class Indians. In the same era, corruption became rampant in the Governmental and non-governmental sector, thereby invoking the Directors to make anti-establishment films. Ramesh Sippy came up with Sholay, 1975, Prakash Mehra made Zanjeer, 1973, Yash chopra made Deewar, 1975 where Amitabh Bacchan played the roles of the angry young man who had raised his voice against the anti corruptive practices throughout the country.

Music took a turn in the 1970s due to a number of reasons. A number of musical giants died in that period. Jaikishan died in 1971, Roshan died in 1969, SD Burman died in 1975.In that era arrived Gulzar with a treasure of offbeat films which were backed by classic literature and soft meaningful music. Gulzar had the background of composing quality lyrics for Bimal Ray at a time when he had not started his career in film direction (5).

His song in the film “Mausam”, 1975, titled “Dil Dhoondhta Hai, phir wohi, phursat ke raat din”, composed by Madanmohan, brought the music lovers back to the cinema hall who got frustrated with the loud music that used to be composed in the commercial films at that time. The song was sung by Bhupinder Singh who was predominently eminent as a ghazal singer. The film was picturised in Darjeeling and Sanjeev Kumar recollected his past experience after returning from abroad. In the film “Gharonda”, 1977, Gulzar brought back the melody of the violin with the song “Ek Akela is shahar me, raatme aur dopeher me, abodana dhoondhta hai, ashiana dhoondhta hai”. The composer Jaidev, the winner of a number of national awards was a loner in his life, the song almost told his story through Amol Palekar with a tragic note. Bhupinder Singh performed the song with his intoxicating appeal. In the same film Jaidev used urbanised folk song in “do diwane shahar me” and “tumhe ho naho mujhko to itna yakeen hai” where Runa Laila accompanied Bhupinder Singh. The lyrics were written from the core of the heart by Gulzar (6).

In the Film “ Kinara”,1977, Gulzar was successful to extract the best possible music from RD Burman. In the song “ Naam Gum Jayega, Chehera Yeh Badal Jayega, meri awaz hi pehchan hai, gar yaad rahe” he complimented the poetic excellence of urdu poets like Sahir Ludhianvi, Hasrat Jaipuri, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaifi Azmi, Shailendra, Shakeel Badayani and others. Lata Mangeshkar and Bhupinder Singh were at their best. In the song “ Ek hi Khwab kaibaar dekha hai maine”, sometimes the music stopped, there were dialogues and Bhupinder Singh’s voice almost brought life into the role of Dharmender who was killed in an accident by the car of Jeetender in that film. Lastly RD Burman used the Bengali classical song of SD Burman ( Madhu brindabone) to create “Mithe Bol bole” sung by Bhupinder Singh.

In the film “Dooriya”, 1980, the song “ Zindagi, zindagi, mere ghar ana, ana zindagi” composed by Jaidev and picturised on Uttamkumar and Sharmila Tagore , the height of the location of the song and height of the composition matched each other. Both of them had differences in opinion which led to separation with their children and were united at the end of the film.

In the other films like Parichay (7),1972, Kitaab (8), 1978, Aandhi (9), 1975, the songs played a significant role in bringing out the mental complexities of the characters. Notable songs include “Biti na bitayi rehna”, “Is morse jate hai”. Later on he contributed with a flavour of Rajasthani Folk songs in the film, Lekin, 1989. Gulzar’s creations are even noteworthy in films directed by other noted filmmakers , an example being “Masoom”,1983, the song “huzur is kadar bhi na itrake chaliye” and “ tujhse naaraz nahin zindagi hairan hoon mai” showing the feelings of the poet. It was directed by Shekhar Kapoor and Shabana Azmi and Nasiruddin Shah had performed to their potentials. Inpiration should be taken from the works of Gulzar to create space in the films these days for creation of soft, thoughtful, meaningful music

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(1)

Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy( Pather Panchali in 1955, Aparajito in 1956 and Apur Sangsar in 1959, based on story of Bhibhutibhushan Bandopadhaya) talked about the journey of Apu from the village in India to the crude reality of urbanised life of Kolkata. His Film Jalsaghar( 1958) was based on Feudal system existing in Bengal where Chabi Biswas depicted the Feudal Lord in his majestic style.

(2)

Ghatak’s film “ Meghe Dhaka Tara”, 1960, talked about the pains taken by victims of partition of Bengal during independence.

(3)

Tapan Sinha’s “Louhakapat”,1959 talked about the experiences of a jailor in respect of the lives of different prisoners in his jail. His film “Jatugriha”,1964, starring Uttamkumar talked about the complex life of a couple having no children in Kolkata.

(4)

Rajen Tarpadar’s film “Ganga” ,1960, depicted the lives of fishing community of Bengal who sacrificed their lives in boats and travelled through Ganges to maintain their livelihood.

(5)

Bimal Ray , the winner of a number of filmfare awards , made classic films like “ Devdas”,1955, written by Sarat Chandra Chatterji, “Madhumati” ,1958 and other notable films.

(6)

My father Chitta Ranjan Chatterji, the then chief Public Prosecutor, Bankshall Court ( Chief Metropolitan magistrate’s court), Kolkata interviewed Sabitri Chatterji and Dilip Ray eminent actors of Bengali films, who said it was so difficult to make Hindi version of Bengali film “ Panditmoshai” written by Sarat Chandra Chatterji , and yet Gulzar had maintained the Bengali flavour while making Khushbu, 1975.

(7)

Parichay was the Hindi version of the Bengali film “ Jayjayanti”,1970, where Uttamkumar played the lead role and Manobendra Mukherjee got the Indira Gandhi Award for best Music Direction. It had similarity with the Hollywood film “Sound of Music”

(8)

Uttamkumar played a significant role to bring up his brother in-law Master Raju in the film “Kitaab”.

(9)

Suchitra Sen played the role of Political leader in the film Aandhi almost personifying Indira Gandhi, the Indian PM in 1975.

Article By: Souvik Chatterji

Assistant Director
CUTS International,
Centre for Competition, Investment & Economic Regulation
D-217, Bhaskar Marg,
Bani Park, Jaipur 302 016, India
Ph: 91.141.2282821 (Board)
http://www.cuts-ccier.org

Detective Stories of Satyajit Ray

Detective Stories of Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray was India's first internationally recognized film-maker and, 15 years after his death, still remains the most well-known Indian director on the world stage. Ray has written that he became captivated by the cinema as a young college student, and he was self-taught, his film education consisting largely of repeated viewings of film classics by De Sica, Fellini, John Ford, Orson Welles, and other eminent directors. With the release in 1955 of his first film Pather Panchali ("Song of the Road"), whose financing presented Ray with immense monetary problems, compelling him even to pawn his wife’s jewellery, he brought the neo-realist movement in film to India. Little could anyone have imagined that this first film would launch Ray on one of the most brilliant careers in the history of cinema, leading eventually not only to dozens of international awards, India’s highest honour, and a lifetime achievement Oscar from Hollywood, but the unusual accolade of being voted by members of the British Film Institute as one of the three greatest directors in world cinema.


Being a versatile genius of his times, much has been said about the skills used by Ray in transforming Celluloid from only a medium of entertainment to an arena of creative arts. Well known Directors of India namely Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and others have seen his first film Pather Panchali a number of times and learnt huge lessons relating to story telling in cinema. But much less has been said about Ray’s literary skills. Being a maestro of numerous number of Arts, including scripts, illustrations, music, his literature which predominantly was filmic got unnoticed. My entire childhood was flooded with crime thrillers of Ray being simplified for the children in series of stories of Feluda and Professor Shanku. [Feluda is the Private Investigator created by Satyajit Ray named “Pradosh Mitra” just like Fiction Character “Sherlock Holmes” created by Arthur Conan Doyle.] There were other writers of Bengal namely Premendra Mitra ( who have also made films on suspense thriller titled “Chupi Chupi Ase”, “Hanabari”), Hemendra Kumar Ray, Sunil Ganguly, Saradindu Bandopadhyay( Satyajit Ray’s film “ Chiriakhana” was based on his story where Uttamkumar played the role of Byomkesh Bakshi, a famous detective who solved a number of mysteries) [Chiriakhana was released in 1967 and won the National Film Award for Best Direction. Also Uttamkumar won the best Actor for playing the role of Satyanyeshi meaning founder of the truth] to name a few, who had attracted the attention of young readers and made a notable impact of stories relating to crime and punishment. But what was different in case of Ray’s literature was that he made the incidences cinematic. He always used to give description of the characters through ‘tapesh’ so that the chain of thoughts of the readers did coincide with the thoughts of the characters in his story.


When the same stories which were written, depicted by Ray were later made Films, they ended in excellence by their standards. The best example can be Sonar Kella ( The Golden Fortress). [Sonar Kella was released in 1974 , the film where Ray introduced the character “Jatayu” for the first time which was played by Santosh Dutta on who demise Ray stopped making any more films on stories of .Feluda ] Mukul, a young boy, was being haunted by memories of his previous life. He was taken to Dr. Hajra, a parapsychologist, for treatment. On discovering some drawings by Mukul that represented scenes from the past, Dr. Hajra believed that a Fortress in the drawings may be in Rajasthan. Dr. Hajra decided to take Mukul on a trip to Rajasthan in the hope that it might be a cure. A newspaper report caught the attention of two bandits. They kidnapped Mukul in hope of getting their hands on the treasure. The detective Feluda was engaged, along with his assistant Tapesh, to recover the child. Sonar Kella was a bewitching comedy-thriller for children of all ages. An exciting and fun-filled journey that took audiences from Calcutta to Jaisalmer in Rajasthan including Felu and friends chasing a train on a camelbacks. It included beautiful color photography and use of color for dramatic effect.


The greatest skill of story-telling which was made evident by Ray was the use of coincidence. There is a scene where Feluda while travelling in a train from Kolkata to New Delhi was anticipating that the two Bandits to be in the same train with Dr. Hajra and Mukul if they have stayed in Delhi for one day and he anticipated any harsh step to be taken by the bandits. In the next scene Ray shows that Dr. Hajra is being pushed by Kamu Mukherjee who played the role of Mandar Bose from the cliff of Nahargarh Fort in Jaipur. [Nahargarh means the abode of Tigers. In Jaipur it is one of the most eminent tourist attractions. Satyajit Ray discovered that entire Jaipur can be seen from the summit of Nahargarh Fort. So he shot his sequence where Mandar Bose throws Dr. Hajra from the Cliff to kill him.] Ray realized that every reader while reading a story generally paints a picture of the person in their mind who is referred to in the story. So the writer or the novelist is supposed to give the details of the looks of the character to the readers .It became easy for him as he reached a level of excellence in illustration. The character “Jatayu” was intitially drawn in a different way. When Ray saw Santosh Dutta, the actor who played Jatayu in “Sonar Kella” and “Joy Baba Felunath”, he started drawing the character identically like Santosh Dutta. Seeing Satyajit Ray’s script full of illustrations is a treat for the eyes *. The film Sonar Kella was made for the children, but ended up in catching the attention of intellectual adult viewers, there were so many scientific aspects like telepathy, hypnotism employed in the film with justifications who reshuffled the knowledge base of viewers of different age.


Those readers who are addicted to read novels, short stories of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle were also attracted towards literature composed by Ray. Besides the pictographic description of the places Ray used to describe ( Description of Lucknow in “ Badshahi Uncty”, description of Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer in “Sonar Kella”, description of Benaras in “ Joy Baba Felunath”) was simply brilliant. Rays standard of perfection has given a new light on the historical, geographical, social and other aspects of every part of the world on where his stories were based. These days Sandip Ray makes films based on Satyajit Ray’s stories. [Sandip Ray had made films “Baksho Rahasya”, “ Bombaiyer bombete” and other films and TV serials on the stories of Satyajit Ray.] But the readers basically miss Ray’s literature which flooded the hearts of youth of the country with treasure of knowledge of different fields, subjects,dimentions. Research should be done on the literature of Satyajit Ray with same priority as the way his films are scanned. Detailed analysis of his literature can throw new light on the upcoming fresh talents of India who use their pen as a sword.


* [My Father, Sri Chitta Ranjan Chatterji, the then Chief Public Prosecutor of Bankshall Court, Kolkata was handling the brief of Sandip Ray ( son of Satyajit Ray) in a case where Uday Acharya, the brother of Nirmalya Acharya, denied to give Rays scripts which were with him, which were supposed to be kept in Nandan Archive under the supervision of Dr. Sur. The trunk containing the scripts of Ray were opened in Lalbazar, Kolkata Police Headquarters, where the scripts were unfolded. It included even the demi-newspaper called “ chandipurer Barta” used in the film Ganashatru by Ray . The case was reported in Anandabazar Patrika, Pratidin, The Statesman,etc in 1994.]

Article By Souvik Chatterji.

Master of Law from Warwick University,UK
LLM from Case Western Reserve University,USA

Assistant Director,
CUTS International Centre for Competition Investment and Economic Regulation, Jaipur, India
souvik_chatterji2000@yahoo.co.in

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