Trivia Tunes: When a film featuring Jaikishan in a song and starring Kishore Kumar was banned and its prints destroyed : Bollywood News

January 30, 20256 Mins Read

Centenary Musings
A colossus’ centenary fell on Christmas eve—Mohammed Rafi was born on December 24, 1924. Rafi-saab sang from 1944 until his death in 1980, for artistes from Prithviraj Kapoor (that happened only in 1974 with a Punjabi film, Nanak Naam Jahaz Hai!) to Deepak Parashar and Raj Babbar. His voice also sat perfectly on the lips of Govinda when his song, ‘Phool ka shabab kya’ was used in Farz Ki Jung in 1989! The film was produced by Dalwinder Sohal, who had recorded it for an earlier movie that was shelved. Thanks to technology, Rafi even lent his voice to Pulkit Samrat, who was born in 1983 (that is, three years after Rafi’s death!), when the song O meri mehbooba (Dharam-Veer) was sampled in its re-creation in Fukrey Returns in 2017.

Trivia Tunes: When a film featuring Jaikishan in a song and starring Kishore Kumar was banned and its prints destroyed

Bi-lingual composers
Hindi film composers scoring for regional films have been a tradition in Hindi cinema, but that has happened mostly with films that were made as bi-linguals, or in films that were aligned with the music makers’ own culture or languages. Besides these, there have been sporadic cases otherwise, like (Laxmikant-)Pyarelal, Bappi Lahiri and R.D. Burman doing Marathi films and Ravi and Salil Chowdhury scoring big in Malayalam cinema. In 2011, South legend Ilaiayraaja (who has worked in Hindi cinema as well) also scored a Marathi film, Hello Jai Hind.

But in the latest generation, apart from the South composers in Hindi cinema, there have been rare examples, like Vishal-Shekhar scoring Riteish Deshmukh’s Balak Palak (Marathi) in 2013.

However, in this respect, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy score high as they have scored super-hit songs in Marathi for Katyar Kaljat Ghusli (in 2015) and now work with the same director, Subodh Bhave, in Sangeet Manapmaan. Both subjects are historical, and the music needed a solid base of classical Hindustani music. The trio scored 14 songs (after 17 in the earlier film!), including a few re-treated from the original classic musical plays!

The jhumka that fell (gira) thrice!
Madan Mohan once said that he took hardly five minutes to compose the chartbuster, ‘Jhumka gira re’ (Mera Saaya). The catchphrase ‘Phir kya hua’ was by one Sharma-ji, who was present in the studio. But the truth is that this Asha Bhosle song (freshly written by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan) was originally a famous folk song recorded in the voice of Miss Dulari in the early 1930s. Later, the song appeared in the film Dekho Ji in 1947 in a faster, more playful and modified version by Shamshad Begum, written by Wali Saab, also the director of the film, with music by Tufail Farooqui.

Updating a tune
From Rajesh Roshan and M.M. Kreem, I have heard the invaluable and absolute truth that a tune can never be dated, but its treatment has to be in sync with the times. We have seen the above example as also that of Kalyanji-Anandji’s ‘Na kajare ki dhaar’, the Mukesh-Lata (as in pre-1977 as Mukesh passed away in 1976!) song for an incomplete film that was redone with great effect in 1994 by Kalyanji’s son Viju Shah in Mohra. And another father-son case is of R.D. Burman using his father’s mukhda (main lines) in his Lata hit, ‘Toone o rangeela kaisa jaadu kiya’ in Kudrat (1981) and composing original antaras (inner verses) for it. The original was S.D. Burman’s ‘Haay ki je kori’, a Bengali song also sung by Dada, with lyrics by Mohini Chowdhury.

Traditional songs, often centuries old, have been retreated endlessly by our film composers.

Mahesh Bhatt’s revisits
Mahesh Bhatt, in the early 2000s, legally licensed and adapted several Pakistani songs in Hindi films. One of the finest examples in the above mould is the redoing of Nashad’s classic (and frothy!) romantic number, ‘Agar tum mil jaao’, written by Taslim Fazil and sung by Tasawar Khanum for the 1974 hit Pakistani film, Imandar. In the 2005 Zeher, Anu Malik and lyricist Sayeed Quadri shaped a masterpiece in Shreya Ghoshal’s delicately textured voice. Anu decidedly gave his own distinctive touch to the lovely number, and Quadri modified the version splendidly.

That fabulous play on words
Sayeed Quadri, who has barely been prolific, was brilliant in his early millennium work, especially for Mahesh Bhatt movies. In Saaya (2003), he wrote that stunning play on Hindi words in his song, “Kabhi khushboo kabhi jhonka kabhi hawa sa lage’ when the second line said, ‘Juda hokar bhi tu mujhse jooda jooda sa lage’. Hasrat Jaipuri wrote the teaser ‘Tumne kisi ki jaan ko jaate hue dekha hai / Woh dekho mujhse rooth kar meri jaan jaa rahi hai’ (Rajkumar /1964).

Anand Bakshi showed this mastery in two plays on the words ‘jeeya’ (heart or, in this connotation, the sweetheart) and ‘jiya’ (to live) and ‘lut’ (be robbed of) and ‘loot’ (steal). These respective chartbusters were ‘Ke jaan chali jaaye jeeya nahin jaaye/ Jeeya jaaye to phir jiya nahin jaaye’ (Anjaana / 1969) and the chart-smashing ‘Sheesha ho ya dil ho’ in Aasha (1980) in which the final antara ends with ‘Koi lut jaata hai / Koi loot jaata hai’!

Who was Jaikishan’s voice?
Everyone knows that Shankar-Jaikishan’s favourite male voices were Mohammed Rafi, Mukesh and Manna Dey. Everyone also agrees that Jaikishan was among the handsomest composers in the industry. So, everyone wished that he was seen on screen (apart from his fleeting appearance in Main Sundar Hoon as himself). Jaikishan enacted the song, ‘Aye pyaase dil bezubaan’ in the 1957 film Begunaah featuring Kishore Kumar, Shakila and Helen. And the voice chosen for the composition was Mukesh. The film was screened for a mere 10 days before being banned and its prints destroyed as per legal orders because the story was plagiarized from an American film!

Also Read: Ranbir Kapoor REVEALS Alia Bhatt didn’t know who Kishore Kumar was: “It’s just a circle of life; people are forgotten”