QAWWALIS IN FILMS

I am sure that today’s generation is not very fond of the musical form called qawwali. The qawwali is linked to sufi tradition. Sufism believes that it is possible to reach God during ones lifetime. This may be achieved by either silent bhakti or vocally praising the God. This qawwali form is an extension of the vocal form of remembering God. Even today at the Sufi dargahs there are weekly events where qawwals still perform and are getting nazranas/bakshish from devotees at mosque. But since interest in the sufi music is declining so as the craze of qawwalis also declining. Though qawwali tradition is centuries old it is said that mughal ruler Aurangzeb disliked music in any form and in his time liberal tradition of Sufis were not encouraged by this emperor. Apart from qawwalis being rendered at dargahs or mosques the hindi film cinema has given yeoman service to qawwalies and kept the qawwali form of singing alive and films were main channel in making qawwalis very popular among masses. Bollywood films influenced qawwalies in many ways. In earlier hindi films the filmi plot were based on cultures and religion and also languages of the soil. And sometimes some films were based on Muslim culture background and were labeled in the genre called “Muslim social films” interspersed with ghazals and qawwalis. But still that was pure fantasy in 1960s and 1970s. During that modern time it never existed in real life. The nawabs, burqa clad heroines and courtesans, havelis shown in the films like Metre Mehbob, Chaudhvin ka chand or Barsaat ki raat long back vanished from the Indian social life before independence but people liked the fantasy part of the spice and elegance of the urdu zaban and as such the films based on muslim social life went on to become hit.

In todays time there are hardly any films made on the background of muslim social life hence no ghazal no qawwali. The one we had heard recently in Zodha Akbar ‘Maula mere Maula’ is somewhat soothing and the one qawwali in Mian Hoon Naa “Tumse milke dil ka hain’ is a fusion form of qawwali. There was a time when it was pertinent to include a situation to introduce a qawwali in the story line. In 1977 when “Parda hain Parda’ qawwali was topping the charts Nasir Hussain also wanted a qawwali for his film ‘Hum kisise kum nahin’ but others in the production line wanted this thought to do dropped. But Majrooh Sultanpuri advised Nasir Hussain to go by his instincts and include a qawwali in the storyline and rest all know that qawwali also became a hit. I mean to say that if the qawwali is composed beautifully there is no reason why this will not be liked by the people. For example in Barssat ki Raat during the last part of film there are three different qawwalis and all of them were so absorbing that people remain glued to their seats and enjoy the qawwali competition.. In the earlier films starting from way back film Zeenat ‘aahen na bhari shikwe na kiye’ in which shyama and shashikala were introduced qawwalis became an integrat part of all the hindi movies . Each and every music director had a calibre to score according to situation and each and every misic director of that time scored qawwalis in their films. I do not know whether todays music director can boast of any such achievement. In fifties N.Dutta gave us ‘aaj kyun humse parda hain’ in Sadhna , C Ramchandra scored another in Azaad ‘Marna bhi mohabbat me kisi kaam na aya’ and one private qawwali ‘hamen to loot liya milke husnwalon ne’ which was later included in film Alhilal but the decades of 1960s and 1970s were the golden period of qawwalis in Indian film music. Starting from Mughal-e-azam where Naushad scored ‘Teri mehfil men kismet aazman kar hum bhi dekhenge’, and in Palki ‘Ab idhar jaoon ya udhar jaoon’ Ravi in Chaudhvin ka chand ‘sharmake ye kyun sab pardanashin aanchal ko sanwara karte hain, in Waqt ‘o meri zohra zabin’ In film kala Samandar N Dutaa scored ‘Meri tasveer leker kya karoge tum’. Here I purposely kept badshah of qawwali maker music director Roshan to mention last as he scored numerous hit qawwalis in films a gem among them is ‘yeh ishq ishq hain ishq ishq’in film Barsaat ki raat which was rumoured to be creation of a gifted musician SD Batish who assisted him and also gave his vocal chord in this qawwali alongwith Mohd Rafi, Mannade, Asha and Sudha Malhotra. Now don’t ask me who this SD Batish is remember a song “Manmohan man men ho tumhi” yes this lilting bhajan was sung by SD Batish sahib who later migrated to London in 1964 to join BBC. Apart from this Roshan also gave us ‘Nigahen milane ko jee chahta hain’ in Dil hi to hain, in Tajmahal ‘Chandi ka badan sone ki nazar’ in Bahu Begam back to back qawwalis ‘Ab ja talab hu inshq ke darde nihan se main’ and ‘Aise main tuchhko dhoondke laoon kahan se main’ And it is interesting that apart from muslim background movies, social family drama movies also had number of qawwalis. For example in Hanse Zakhm Madan Mohan gave us ‘Yeh maana meri zaan mohabbat saza hain’ Laxmi-Pyare scored ‘Wada tera wada’ in Dushman and ‘Haal kya hain dilon na puchho sanam’ in Anokhi Ada, Kalyanaji-Anandji
‘Jhoom barabar jhoom sharabi’ in Five Rifles. During that peiod people used to throng theatre to watch movies sometimes for the sake of songs and qawwalis of that films. The film putlibai a C grade film made money only on the strength of a qawwali ‘Kitne besharm ashiq hain ye ajake’.The qawwali tradition like many art forms has been passed from one generation to another generation. The recent protagonist in this field was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan but his rendition was limited to only select class of people and I don’t know how far his successors will be able to carry out this tradition. This art is simply dying as people have lost interest and qawwals are finding it hard to survive solely on this profession. Another reason also that in hindi films now a days you rarely find this form of singing and in the days of ‘Pappu can’t dance saala’ and ‘My love My love’ whether you will find any saviour of this singing form which can captivate listeners for hours.

A performer among stars named Kishore Kumar

Since talki films music, song and dance has been an integral part of Indian cinema but before the advent of full fledged playback recording system, while shooting, musical instruments were used out of the camera range and the singer-actor sang into a hidden microphone. Because of this film production houses preferred singer actors in the initial
stages as there was no provision of playback singing in the recording studio. But as the technical aspects of the film making improved, songs from movies were rendered by professional playback singers while the actors/actresses lip synching them on screen often running around trees or dancing on floors. But one exception among those singers was Kishore Kumar though who did not have any formal basic music training, mimicked
KL Saigal and being elder brother Ashok Kumar at the helm of Bomay Talkies management Kishore Kumar got a playback singing chance in Ziddi starring Dev Anand. Though Kishore wanted a career in playback singing, but by quirk fate got a break to act in Andolan and also in some insignificant few films. After sometime he got a chance to work in Naukari directed by Bimal Roy and also acted in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s directorial debut venture Musafir. In between he also got a chance to work with Vyajanti mala in Ladki which proved lucky for Kishore Kumar. A comedy song from this film ‘Shadi.. Shadi sung by kishore became super hit. In the 1950s Kishore acted with almost all the reigning heroines of that era. He starred opposite Meena Kumari in Naya Andaz, Miss Mary and Shararat, against Vyajantimala in Asha, New Delhi and Rangoli. With Nutan in Dilli Ka Thug and Chandan, in Bhai Bhai with Nimmi with Madhubala he acted in Chalati ka Naam Gaadi, Half Ticket and Mehlon Ka khhwab. He was very popular in 1950s and was equally liked by producers and public and as his films became hits one after another he became one of the most sought after star apart from the four fabulous of that time namely Ashok Kumar, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand. He established himself in the film industry and achieved success as a comedian hero. Few people are aware that he also acted in a film called Pehli Tarikh in which he sang the title song which was invariably aired by Radio Ceylon on 1st of every amonth at 7.30 am in purane geet. Though people called him accentric for his strange behaviour but he never forgot his first hero Dev Anand for whom he lent his voice for the first time in Ziddi. During his acting days he never sang for any actor but always made it a point to, as and when called, to sing exclusively only for Dev Anand as a gratitude for the break in Ziddi. After 1970 he became full time playback singer and sang for almost all the actors.
The period of 1960s was a lean patch in his career graph. During this decade he acted in few films like Ganga ki lahren with kumkum and Hum Sab Ustaad Hain with Ameeta and also produced Jhumroo, Door gagan ki chhaon mein and door ka rahi. In late sixties he faced some problems with tax authorities. To overcome his financial state of affairs kishore started stage shows which became rage in public and all the shows were packed to full house. During those shows kishore’s versatility was visible as people sang and danced with him. In between he acted in Padosan and its songs became hit. Eventually SD Burman gave kishore another chance for playback in Aradhana in which most of the songs were sung by kishore kumar for Rajesh Khanna. The film and its music became instant hit and as Rajesh Khanna started getting deluge of assignments Kishore also got work as Rajesh’s screen voice. After this kishore’s second inning as a playback singer started and till his death in 1987 he sang for each and every leading star in the film industry.

Slumdog Millionaire Wins 8 Oscars!!!!!!!

At the right place at the right time
I was waiting for Oscars to be over to write something regarding pouring of awards for the music score of Slum Dog Millionaire. Heartiest congratulation to AR Rahman for his feat before I downpour my feelings. I know all and sundry will be showering their praise on AR Rahman including me too as a nationalist. But with due apologies I cannot digest the choice of jury of respective awards committees for bestowing awards on our very lovable A R Rahman. I still rate this music director as an overrated music director. May be he is the best amongst the present mediocre music directors who in today’s scenario sometimes entrusted with scoring tunes for different individual songs and we do not find even one song from that film’s soundtrack worth mentioning. In Rahman’s case it seems to be at the right place at the right time For the last 15 years in his filmi career starting from Roza with due apology to his music I fail to recollect even fifteen songs which have left any mark in the Indian film music histoy. The music of those films are mostly forgotten the moment the films are removed from the cinema halls. Sorry folks people may think I am too harsh but I cannot help it as I have been used to listen the songs of Indian film music which was undoubtedly the golden era of Indian film music in the fifties, sixties and to some extent even in seventies.
If the music of slumdog, taal, mangal pandey, Jaane tu ya .. …has to be appreciated what would you call the music of fifties and sixties. I quote here one example. In the year 1955 for the Filmfare awards (that tine it was the only prestigious award available )Azad, Udan Khatola, Nagin Shree 420 and Devdas were nominated and among these films the filmfare jury selected Nagin as the best music score and that years music director award went to Hemant Kumar. Though.I am not mentioning the other hits of that year it is for the public to guess what C Ramchandra Naushad, SD Burman and Shanker Jaikishen would have gone through for not getting the coveted filmfare trophy despite nomination as other nominated film’s music was equally hit amongst masses. During the 50s and 60s even talented Khayyam could not get his due recognition with films like Phir Subah Hogi and Shola Aur Shabnam as the other greats were ruling film industry at that time. Just listen to the melodious songs of that era and you will travel in a different world with the music of SD Burman, Shanker Jaikishen, Naushad, Madan Mohan, Hemant Kumar, Ravi, Salil Chaudhary, OP Nayyar to name a few. At that time competition was so fierce that even composer like Madan Madan giving number of hits in his filmi career and despite being nominated for awards could not bag any filmfare awards. Now tell me where is the competition at present. All the today’s so called music directors are just busy judging talent shows and making money rather tunes. And the one who is at the right place at the right time bagging awards.