Remembering The Golden Era - PART I

The Golden Era Remembered….

Chupna sakega ishq hamara, chaaron taraf hai unka nazara …so danced the ravishingly beautiful Madhubala with a defiant smile lighting up the entire court, as the regal and majestic veteran actor Prithviraj Kapoor for once looked shaken at the reflections of a thousand Anarkalis twirling around, cast dizzyingly on the mirrored walls of the breathtakingly beautiful replica of the Mirror-Hall at Agra Fort, as Dilip Kumar as Prince Salim looked on bemusedly and triumphantly at his powerful father. For me, that defined the most magical moment of Indian Cinema, and aptly, it belonged to the Golden Era. K. Asif’s magnum opus, Mughal E Azam, was released in 1960 and went on to become the biggest ever commercial success then (before Sholay happened).

Before objectively viewing the Golden Era (late 40’s, 50’s, most part of 60’s), we need to look at what started off the 100 year old history of Indian cinema. 1896 was the first time a “Movie” was shown in India, at Watson Hotel, Mumbai (Bombay). The “Burra Sahibs” and their “Gori Mems” thronged in carriages to catch this defining moment. This started off the Indian Film Industry. Dada Saheb Phalke released the first full length film, Raja Harishchandra in 1913. The first Talkie to be released in India was Alam Ara in 1931, four years after The Jazz Singer debuted in the United States. Music and dance is in our blood, so the films of yore were complete musicals. A film would have as many as 30 songs even! It was the pre-requisite for any actor to be proficient in singing. The thirties saw the entry of Kundan Lal Saigal, the thespian actor, Ashok Kumar Ganguly, fondly known as Dadamoni, the majestic Devika Rani, and other early patrons of the new art on the Cinematic scene, and there was no looking back.

The thirties also saw the advent of the studio system. The Indian film industry regrouped itself into three significant camps – New Theatres of Bengal, which to this day has produced the best films (Devdas 1935, biggest hit of that era, established KL Saigal’s legendary career), heralded by P.C Barua and later by Salil Chaudhry; The Prabhat Flim Company, established by Damale, V Shantaram and S Fatehlal, which pioneered the concept of spreading awareness among the masses using Films as a media; and the Bombay Talkies (Achut Kanya, 1936, first film which had playback-recorded songs which were runaway hits).

This era saw the emergence and phenomenal success of Singing Stars like the legendary KL Saigal, Pankaj Mullick, Amirbai Karnataki, Noor Jehan, Suraiyya etc. It also popularized the low octave nasal twanged singing of pathos filled numbers, mainly by Saigal and Mullick. Jab Dil Hi Toot Gaya, To Jee Ke Kya Karenge is a classic even today, first rendered by Saigal. The music directors then were feudal lords, with Serfs working tirelessly for them, churning out monotonous tunes. After Saigal’s death in 1946, there was a severe dearth of singing stars. The one music director who ruled roost with exclusive movies right from the 30s to the early 50s is the greatest of the great Anil Biswas. He structured the modern Hindi song giving it the modern shape of a Mukhda and several Antaras. He gave Talat Mahmood his first break with the evergreen sublime melody Aye Dil Mujhe Aisi Jagah Le Chal. He created magic with Talat Mahmood, Mannadey and Lata...giving masterpieces like Pi Bin Sooni Re, Ritu Aaye Ritu Jaaye etc. Another maveric Musid Director was the genius of Sajjad Hussain. Neither has the screen seen a composer like him, nor will it ever see. He was a genius very much ahead of his time, and like all geniuses, eccentric. He scored only 14 recorded songs in his short career, but each of them is a masterpiece. His most famous movie remains Sangdil, with Talat's Yeh Hawa Raat Yeh Chandni set in the majestic night raga of Raag Darbari creating absolute magic. Anil Biswas once said of Sajjad Hussain, that he is the only original composer...everyone else has to turn to some source of inspiration. Sadly, this genius was boorish, rude and always irritable, and never satisfied with his own work. So no one approached him for scoring music, and he slowly faded away and we lost a BIG chunk of Gold.

This was the time when singers like Mukesh, Rafi and the vastly under-rated but great Talat Mahmood were scouring for footholds in this harsh industry. Mukesh, first termed as a very good Saigal Mimic, but ineffectual, heralded in the era of the new singers with his near perfect rendering of Dil Jalta Hai in 1945, and ironically, it was a perfect Saigal imitation. It was a runaway hit and Mukesh Chand Mathur established himself as the leading singer of the day (To this day, he’s both my dad’s and my favourite). This was about the same time when a young prodigy named Latabai Dinanath Mangeshkar, with nothing to look after her family (her father, Pt. Dinanath Mangeshkar had died of a heart attack following the invasion of Talkie Cinema) knocked on Ghulam Haidar’s doors. He heard her, and took her to Subodh Mukherjee’s studio for a recording. She was instantly rejected, the reason being, “Iski aawaz to bahut patli hai”. Apparently, she was no match for heavy throated, bass voiced Punjabi singers like Zohrabai Ambalewali, Rajkumari Dubey etc. Ghulam Haider was incensed; he made a prophecy about composers begging at her feet to sing for them, and the rest is history. With one song, Aayega Aanawala, in Mahal, 1949, she swept clean the careers of those inane male-voiced Punjabi singers. Success had gone to Talat’s and Mukesh’s heads, they turned to acting. Then came in the pleasant mannered lad from Lahore, trained under the able baton of the great Ust. Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, who could sing at any pitch, and could even amazingly hold three octaves together, without going once out of tune. He sang Suhani Raat Dhal Chuki for the film Dulari, and we acclaimed the entry of the unmatched genius of the great Mohammad Rafi. Around this time itself, two young men of Bengal, from New Theatres, forayed into Hindi Cinema. One was the firebrand lyricist and musician, Salil Chaudhry, banned by AIR for his anti-British songs and poems, and the other was the silken voiced debonair Hemanta Mukherjee. Salil Chaudhry took Hemanta a.k.a Hemant Kumar under his wings, and they went on to become a rage in Bengal; they invented a new form of Bengali Music called Kavya Geet. Salilda once said of Hemant Kumar, that if God ever sang, it would be in Hemant’s voice. Hemant also showed his mettle in the Bombay film industry with such classics as Sunja Dil Ki Daastan in Jaal. Another Babu Moshai to make his mark was the unparalled Manna Dey. Though he maintained a low profile throughout his career, he is still undisputedly the best male singer the Indian Film Industry has seen, in terms of proficiency and talent. Note, that there’s a difference in proficiency and acceptability. His sheer range and overtones were unmatched, even by the great Rafi. Manna Dey perfected his style of Semi-Classical singing and was one of the finest exponents of Rabindrageet and Nazrulgeet. His classical song “Ketki Gulab Juhi Champak Ban Phule” in Raag Basant is considered the best ever classical compositon sung on the silver screen. And aptly, it was a duet with Sangeet Sartaj, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi and was a part of the film Basant Bahar, which has some of the finest classical compositions ever heard on the silver screen. Even more fitting, the song was composed by the unrivalled duo of Shankar-Jaikishen who changed the scene of Hindi Film music forever with their entry in the late forties, and ruled the industry for three decades; and won 9 filmfare awards, a feat still to be surpassed by anyone in any category. The 1950s saw a spate of musicals, which were based on great musicians lives. Baiju Bawra 1952, Basant Bahar 1956, Sangeet Samrat Tansen, Rani Roopmati were some of them. Bharat Bhushan, the reserved, dopey eyed actor was the automatic choice for most of these movies, and he teamed up excellently with Rafi and Manna Dey to deliver some of the most intricate and pleasing classical songs on silver screen with Naushad and Shankar-Jaikishen