Naushadnama: The Life and Music of Naushad by Raju Bharatan

Author:Raju Bharatan
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2015-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

Mention of Andaz is a reminder of Naushad enlarging upon his Dilip Kumar connection enlighteningly as he said, late in 1968: ‘I don’t sign 25-30 films at a time. Like Yusuf Khan [Dilip Kumar], I do only one film at a time. Therefore I know my reputation to be at stake in that one film. In the circumstances, how could I give of anything but my best in that one film? I have done as many as 15 films through 20 years with Dilip Kumar. Yet not once has he asked me what I’m doing. If he hasn’t asked, it’s not only because I’m his senior. It’s no less because he knows that I study my music with the same sincerity and dedication as he does his acting.’

Fair enough. In fact, what mystified contending composers was how Naushad could consistently beat them to it while doing only one film at a time. I know of their calling an informal conference to discuss the ‘sad situation’! Was it then the sad situation that, ultimately, proved Naushad’s undoing? Here is a diverting sidelight involving that well-known writer-publicist, V. P. Sathe. That gentleman was present at S. U. Sunny–Naushad’s May 1967 Palki press show. The same V. P. Sathe’s camaraderie vis-à-vis Raj Kapoor had extended through that matchless all-rounder’s lifetime. Raj trusted Sathe’s box-office instinct implicitly. In fact, it was Sathe who had accurately foretold the final fate of each RK film from Barsaat (1949) to Sangam (1964) – occupying, as always, a first-day, first-show front seat in the release theatre.

The same V. P. Sathe, now, was sitting just behind Girija and me during the May 1967 Kalamandir press-cum-public show of Palki in Bombay’s Bandra suburb. The ladies tailor-made Naushad sad situation in Palki, predictably, was upon us soon enough, as Waheeda Rehman burst into Lata song – in Raag Kaafi tones of Jaane waale teraa khuda haafiz. Sathe thereupon tapped me on the shoulder to say: ‘See this situation in which the Waheeda Rehman–Rajendra Kumar parting song has been placed? In this [sad] situation, there has not been a composer to beat Naushad yet. Just wait and hear how the public in this theatre lap it up.’

But, for once, V. P. Sathe was off the mark. Jaane waale teraa khuda haafiz failed to turn on the Mr Everyman Kalamandir audience that afternoon. Worse, Lata’s surpassingly shaded Dil ki kashti bhanwar mein aayi hai, in Raag Narayani, next went abegging, similarly dismayingly, upon Waheeda Rehman. I concluded, there and then, that this was the beginning of the end for the time-worn, weather-beaten sad situation in Naushad’s career as a popular composer.

While reflecting upon V. P. Sathe being off target this once, a relevant question to pose: Did Raj Kapoor and Naushad ever come together again after that October 1950 release of Suraiya’s Dastan? Yes they did – in a film that remained incomplete. I am talking of the Sohrab Modi remake of his 1939 landmark Pukar. A remake for which Naushad recorded (in mid-1976) two songs to be picturized upon Raj Kapoor.

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