It’s a well-known fact that Mukesh was the preferred voice of Raj Kapoor when it came to playback singing. Mukesh has indeed recorded some wonderful songs for Raj Kapoor and the combination of Raj Kapoor, Mukesh, Shailendra/Hasrat Jaipuri (lyricists) and Shankar-Jaikishan (music composers) have produced some immortal songs filmed on Raj Kapoor. However, Manna Dey has also sung some iconic…
Composed by OP Nayyar and sung by his friend CH Atma, this song was released in 1945 and went on to become a hit. OP Nayyar, who was about 18 when the song was recorded says that HMV offered to pay him either royalties on the sales of the record or a one-time payment. Royalties were to be paid starting…
The word “marathon” especially when it comes to running gets bandied around pretty freely. While the marathon distance itself is 26.2 miles, I’ve heard people refer to races as 3K marathon, 5k marathon etc which does not make sense. Contrary to what people might think, the Olympics in Ancient Greece did not feature long-distance races. It was instituted in 1896…
Shailendra is regarded as one of the greats when it comes to lyricists of Hindi cinema. He was born in Rawalpindi in pre-partition Punjab in 1923. A sensitive poet, he moved to Bombay in search of work and ended up working as a welder in the Railways. An idealist at heart, he was a member of IPTA (Indian People’s Theater…
If you were residing in India in the late 1970s and listened to songs on the radio, you would have heard the song “My name is Anthony Gonsalves” being played repeatedly on AIR (All India Radio). You might have even hummed, snapped your fingers or tapped your feet to the song, it is a fast number. The song is from…
My friend Ashish considers the song “Chaudhvin ka chand ho” (The full moon) the most complete Hindi romantic song. It certainly has all the ingredients – superb lyrics, subtle music, fantastic vocals by Mohammed Rafi and filmed on the classic beauty – Waheeda Rehman. As an added bonus, in the movie, the song is sung by Guru Dutt, Ashish’s favorite…
It’s interesting how different snippets of information gleaned over different periods of time, finally lead to an “Aha” moment. I had one such moment recently. Waheeda Rehman’s first Hindi movie was “CID” where she played the role of a villain’s moll. Released in 1956 and directed by Guru Dutt, it starred Dev Anand and Shakila. In the movie, Waheeda…
The song “Ae mere dil kahin aur chal” sung by Talat Mahmood was filmed on Dilip Kumar for the movie “Daag” which was released in 1952. Not to be confused with the Rajesh Khanna starrer of the same name released in 1973. Dattaram Wadkar who started off playing the Dholak (two-headed drum) for the famed music director duo of…
In a 2008 poll, 58% of a group of teenagers surveyed in the UK thought that Sherlock Holmes had actually existed while 23% thought that Winston Churchill was a fictional character! It was undoubtedly Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s genius that ensconced Sherlock Holmes in our collective imagination but a couple of others aided in the image that we now associate…
“Dil Jalta Hai” (My heart is aflame) is acknowledged as Mukesh Chand Mathur’s first song in his storied career. People often mistake this to have been sung by KL Saigal. Saigal was the leading singer of the 1940s and his influence extended over the entire generation of male singers that followed him. The song is from the film “Pehli Nazar”…