Oh, those wrong numbers 
By HT Café, December 21, 2007 - 10:03 IST
Raju Bharatan’s two part series on the slip-ups in Ramancing with Life
As a biographer, Dev Anand challenged the settled memory of a whole generation when he wrote that it wasn’t her ‘old battle-axe’ of a granny but his heartthrob Suraiya who “took the ring I sent her to the (Marine Drive) seaside. Looking at it for the last time with all the love she had in her heart for me, she threw it far into the sea.”
Mistake, mistake
I let this pass as Dev’s Romancing with Life. But what about Dev’s Romancing with the face that Kishore’s first song for him, was composed, not by Khemchand Prakash, but by Prem Dhavan. Writes Dev: “Ziddi was a milestone in my career, since it was the first film that brought me into the limelight as an actor to reckon with. It brought me very close to Ashok Kumar and Kishore Kumar.”
“The very first song of Kishore’s career was sung by me on screen in Ziddi. It was a ghazal composed by a renowned poet, Prem Dhavan: ‘Marne ki duaaen kyun maangoon’.”
A ghazal composed by Prem Dhavan, Dev? Leave alone Prem Dhavan not being the composer of ‘Marne ki duaaen’, he wasn’t even the song’s writer. Kishore’s ‘Marne ki duaaen’ on Dev Anand was actually penned by Prof Jazbee. Prem Dhavan did write six songs for Ziddi (1948). But ‘Marne ki duaaen’ wasn’t one of them. “That Dev slipped on Khemchand Prakash’s being the ‘Marne ki duaaen’ composer is a blunder defying categorization.”
History sheets
The man to tune ‘Marne ki duaaen’ was stalwart Khemchand Prakash. How possibly could you attribute Kishore’s very first song picturised on you, Dev, to the wrong composer?
Do you know, Dev, that Kishore had originally handpicked ‘Marne ki duaaen’ among his 10 best in Pritish Nandy’s ‘Genius’ cover story for ‘The Illustrated Weekly of India’? At the last possible moment, Kishore rang to alter his Khemchand Prakash song choice to ‘Jagmag jagmag karat niklaa chaand ounam kaa pyaara’ (on Kishore Sahu in Rimjhim). Why so, Dev? Because Kishore’s memory of ‘Marne ki duaaen’ (filmed on you) was flawed. How?
Over to Bimal Roy’s Naukri (1954). Kishore Kumar, as Sheila Ramani’s hero in the film, naturally thought he would himself be singing in Naukri. But Salil Chowdhary, as the Naukri composer, determined that Hemant Kumar would be singing play-back for Kishore. Kishore ran from Salil pillar to Bimal post to convince them that he was already an established voice. Kishore actually fetched the N3565978-rpm record of ‘Marne ki duaaen’ and played it before Salil, who observed: “It sounds painstakingly rehearsed rather than spontaneously rendered. So, sing it before me in your natural voice.”
Kishore sang. How a nervous Kishore sounded that day, I can’t tell. But Kishore had barely got going when Salil pronounced: “You don’t know the ABC of music, Hemant it’ll be for you!”
Follow on
How Ashok Kumar interceded so that his brother finally got to render ‘Chhotaa sa ghar hogaa’ in Naukri for Salil – is part of our music lore. Only later did Salil concede: “All composers but Dada Burman failed to spot the spark in Kishore.” After this, Kishore rendered for Salil, ‘Koiiee hotaa jis ko apnaa’, some 17 years, later, in Gulzar’s Mere Apne. That Salil’s ‘Koiiee hotaa’, too, figures in Kishore’s Ten Best is the crowning touch. That Dev should have slipped on Khemchand Prakash’s being the ‘‘Marne ki duaaen’’ composer, for his own Kishore, is a superstar blunder defying categorization.
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