QUOTE(Inaam @ Jun 23 2006, 12:40 PM)
Thanks for the article, Sir Ji
I am a die-hard fan of Madan Ji.
In that case...here is one more....
Sri
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The Incredibly Sweet Sound of Impending Doom: Madan Mohan (1924 - 1975) Raghunandan R Bhat
October 19, 2005 Whenever I have listened to many of the incredibly beautiful melodies of Lata singing for Madan Mohan, my heart has always gone out to the unfortunate character who sang it on screen. Nothing good was ever going to come her way. Even the happiest of melodies seemed only a brief interlude in this tragedy called life. The most passionate of songs were only an invitation to a doomed love. Each note from these beautiful compositions seemed to ride on a background of melancholy - sometimes only a hint like in
Main To Tumse Nain Milake Haar Gayee Sajana from
Manmauji, sometimes so completely suffused with it as in
Rasm-e-Ulfat ko Nibhayen to Nibhayen Kaise from
Dil Ki Rahein. Except for a few honourable exceptions, Sadhana (
Mera Saaya, Woh Kaun Thi), Nutan (
Dulhan Ek Raat Ki) and Nargis (
Adalat), almost all Madan's compositions were sung by heroines who were never quite top-rung. Two of his great compositions
Woh Bhuli Dastaan and
Chala hai kahan from Sanjog was picturised on Anita Guha. Enduring classics
Hai Isi mein Pyaar ki Aabroo and
Aap ki nazron ne samjha were shot on Mala Sinha and Bindu sang
Jiya le gayo jee mora sawariya in
Anpadh. The number of Madan's gems wasted on Priya Rajvansh is an indication of the saturnine misfortune that dogged him all his life. When the heroine was right, the film flopped. Nutan's
Dulhan Ek Raat Ki with
Sapnon mein agar mere was removed from theatres after just four days. Just once, Madan had his moment in the sun. The Director was right. The Heroine was right. And the film was a certified hit - Raj Khosla's
Woh Kaun Thi with Sadhana ran for 25 weeks and every one thought Madan's work in the film would surely get the Filmfare award for that year. It got a nomination. But as the rumour goes a rival Music Director rigged the poll and laughed all the way to the podium. Raj Khosla who had worked with him before on the musically memorable
Mera Saaya used him in the flop
Chiraag and then never worked with Madan again.
Many years after Madan's death, his son Sanjeev Kohli wrote in a touching tribute to his father (Filmfare, 1997):
QUOTE
When we went on long car drives, dad would tell us to sing a song. Small and unfeeling that we were, we would start singing the songs composed by other music directors. He'd turn around and say, "Hey, even you!" At that time, we couldn't understand what he meant. We wouldn't sing his songs because they weren't easy to sing. That used to hurt him. Even his family didn't appreciate him.
Despite the obsequies of fate, Madan's creative muse flowered. For a film called
Aap Ki Parchaiyaan with an unknown South Indian heroine opposite Dharmendra, he composed the classic -
Agar Mujhse Mohabat hai. For
Manmauji he tuned
Chanda Ja. And then there were the string of pearls for Chetan Anand.
Haqeeqat for which he tuned the most rousing patriotic song ever:
Kar chale ham fida jaan-o-tan saathiyon, Ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon had seven other classics which I fear to rank till this day. And then also for Chetan Anand in
Hanste Zakhm was the jazz redux:
Tum Jo Milgaye To and the orchestral classic for Heer Ranjha:
Yeh Duniya yeh Mehfil, mere kaam ki nahin. If it were not for two Madan loyalists - Chetan Anand who used Madan in
Haqeeqat, Naunihal, Heer Ranjha, Hanste Zakhm and
Hindustan Ki Kasam and Om Prakash (the character actor known as much for his off screen generosity as his on screen villany) who used Madan Mohan in
Sanjog, Jahan Ara, Gateway Of India and
Chacha Zindabad, many of Madan Mohan's brilliant compositions would have remained uncomposed.
Jahan Ara had three songs by Talat Mehmood -
Phir Wahee Shaam, Main Teri Nazar ka Suroor, Tere Aankh ke ansoo and the duet with Lata -
Ae Sanam aaj ye kasam khayein. This duet along with the other one from
Suhagan - Tumhi To Mere Pooja ho are two of Talat's most melodious duets. The Talat-Madan combination gave some of the most moving songs ever:
Meri Yaad mein tum na aanso bahana from
Madhosh, Mera Qarar Leja and
Main Pagal mera manwa pagal from
Aashiana, Humse aaya na gaya from
Dekh Kabeera Roya and a multi-singer
Ho Ke Majboor from
Haqeeqat.
Madan Mohan had the uncanny knack of getting the right singer to sing each of his compositions. Apart from Lata, Madan's choice of Mohamad Rafi was hauntingly perfect. In Chetan Anand's
Naunihal Rafi sang that langourously seductive
Tumhare Zulf ke Saaye mein Shaam kar loonga, Safar ik umr ka pal me tamam kar loonga, for a Guru Dutt Mala Sinha starrer
Suhagan, Rafi sang
Tu mere saamne hain and for Sunil Dutt in
Mera Saaya Rafi's rendition of
Aap ke Peheloon mein akar ro diye is heartbreakingly poignant. Rafi, it seems was hurt at Madan's stubborn choice of Talat for some of the the best songs of
Jahan Ara. But not for long. With a portfolio that included
Main nigahen teri chehere se from
Aap Ki Parchaian, Rang aur Noor ki baraat from
Ghazal, Ek Haseen Shaam Ko Dil Mera from
Dulhan Ek Raat Ki, Chirag Dil Ka Jalao, bahot andhera hai from
Chirag and that hauntingly perfect
Tumse Kahoon Ek baat paronse halki halki from
Dastak, Rafi had little to complain. And then there the duets - one with Asha -
Humsafar saath apna chhod chale and the other with Lata from
Heer Ranjha:
Meri Duniya Mein Tum Aaye, Kya Kya Sapne Sath Liye - a magical dreamlike duet with almost no orchestration apart from the singers own melodious whispers. For Manna Dey too, Madan conjured that classic from
Dekh Kabeera Roya - Kaun aaya mere Man ke dware and the achingly sweet duet with Lata -
Bheegi Chandni Chayee Bekhudi from
Suhagan.
The seventies saw Madan Mohan at his creative peak. R. D. Burman had gripped the nation's imagination with his western rhythms and was spawning imitations from a growing list of music directors. Madan refused to be swayed and composed some of his greatest songs in this period beginning with Rajinder Singh Bedi's Dastak - a work for which Madan recieved the country's highest honour - the National Award. Dastak had Lata at her melodious best.
Baiyan Na Dharo, Hum Hai Mataye Kuchao and
Mai Re Mai Kase Kahoon, and then that Rafi's painful anthem for solititude in a decaying urban chaos (the sound of a horse carriage moving through Bombay's Foras Road past midnight, rudely cutting the song in half) -
Tumse Kahoon Ek Baat Paron Se Halki.... His work with Chetan Anand for Heer Ranjha and Hanste Zakhm was also in this period.
My own personal Madan favourite is an achingly sweet Khamaj from a film that ran for three days in a seedy Mumbai theatre -
Dil Ki Raahein with Rehana Sultan and Rakesh Pandey. In constrast to the immensely popular Lata song from the same film,
Rasm-E-Ulfat ko Nibhayein, this one never quite made it to the public memory. The same unfortunate film had a melodious Manna Dey, Usha Mangeshkar duet -
Apne suron ko mere suron se milao. Yeh geet amar ho jaye. But the best of the lot was that lilting Khamaj by Lata. The song is almost happy, as if the actor had finally broken free of the melancholia that had run like an invisible thread through her voice and found true love. Like so many of Madan's gems, lyrics and melody are so perfectly matched that even after hearing it a thousand times, the experience is as fresh as it was the first time. Here it is:
QUOTE
Aap se baatein karein, Kya Dil ka afsaana kahein. Hosh mein donon nahin, Ab Kisko Diwana kahein
Close at number two is Madan's composition - a seductive Bhimpalas for
Mera Saaya:
Nainon mein Badra chaaye. Both seem to bring out that extra something from Lata Mangeshkar. Every note, every twang of the sitar, every word of the lyric is just right and every feeling perfectly nuanced. As with many of Madan's songs, it is difficult to tell what came first - the melody, the arrangement or the lyrics. Like the little known
Bawarchi song - Lata's
More naina bahaye neer.
Each of these musical classics with a handful of exceptions thudded at the box-office. Yet, Madan Mohan always had the grudging admiration of his peers. Naushad is supposed to have said that
Madan ke Anpadh ki do ghazalon par meri zindagi ki sari mausiqui fida hai. Equally none of this
fidayeen stopped the carping behind his back. The word that Madan bought misfortune had spread. Some of the industry's giants at that time - Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor - Madan's close friends never used him. There is a rumour that Raj Kapoor was discussing
Satyam Shivam Sundaram with Madan just before he collapsed of an exhausted liver at Chetan Anand's house composing for
Salim Anarkali - a film that Chetan Anand eventually shelved. Madan Mohan did not survive long. A few weeks later, leaving two doomed love stories
Laila Majnu and
Salim Anarkali unfinished Madan Mohan died on the 14th of July 1975.
In a tribute Ratna Rajaiah - a columnist for The Hindu, wrote:
QUOTE
His son Sanjeev Kohli recalls that his body was carried on the shoulders of Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna, Dharmendra, Rajesh Khanna and Rajendra Kumar and when a photograph of this hit the newspapers the next morning, Sanjeev says that he became more popular in college than he had ever been when his father was alive - because they suddenly realised the worth of the dead man by the men who were his pallbearers...
Some of Madan's unrecorded compositions salvaged by his son have been recently re-arranged as a musical score for a film made by a company that his son heads. Like his college friends, sadly, the unfortunate young of today can grasp the measure of a musical genius only when a pouting mega star lips syncs to them to the waves of his blow-dried hair. This time the stars are right, the film director is right and who knows, the film might just about be a hit. But its just not the same. Now
that is real tragedy.
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Don't miss the Madan Mohan Special Radio Program on HF Radio - on June 25th - his 82nd birthday - see the earlier post #6 for more details Sri