Trivia Tunes: From Anandji editing Zanjeer to Anu Malik turning composer at 17, here is some unheard musical trivia from Bollywood

By Rajiv Vijayakar -

June 28, 2023 - 2:16 PM IST

When a first association is unique
Interestingly, Himesh Reshammiya, after singing the Sajid-Wajid solo, ‘Photocopy’, in the 2014 Jai Ho!, has now sung in Sachin-Jigar’s Zara Hatke Zara Bachke in the song ‘Baby Tujhe Paap Lagega’. Interestingly, this is Himesh’s first association with today’s frontline writer, Amitabh Bhattacharya, who has never worked with him before as either lyricist or even as singer!

Trivia Tunes: From Anandji editing Zanjeer to Anu Malik turning composer at 17, here is some unheard musical trivia from Bollywood

Popular but not together
Composer-lyricist teams are a byword in Hindi film music. Nevertheless, there have always been combinations of top-flight songwriters and music directors that never happened for mysterious reasons, even when both entities were individually among the frontline names. Like Himesh and Amitabh above, we would love to see Amit Trivedi work with Manoj Muntashir and Sachin-Jigar with Gulzar.

Bonds that almost happened
However, some teams even in the past almost happened. Nadeem-Shravan were signed to work with Javed Akhtar in a Venus project. Himesh Reshammiya was to work with Anand Bakshi in a film announced by the Mukerjis of Filmalaya. Laxmikant-Pyarelal were to work with Shailendra in Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke and Naushad had even recorded a song with Indeevar before the film, Chanakya Aur Chandragupta, was dropped, as already revealed in this column. Piquantly, composer Ravi had told me that he had worked with Anand Bakshi, but in a non-film Punjabi album, not in Hindi cinema!

Music composer-plus
While many composers have been known to openly do things outside music, like Naushad (story), A.R. Rahman, Hemant Kumar and Hridaynath Mangeshkar (produce films), and R.D. Burman, Bappi Lahiri and Anu Malik (acting in them), not all get credits for what they do behind-the-scenes. Anandji, of Kalyanji-Anandji, was one such. As he reveals, “I would often sit on the edit of our movies, and the most interesting case was of Zanjeer, on which I sat with Prakash Mehra and edited out 6000 feet of footage. The film’s editor, R.D. Mahadik, even won the Filmfare award for it!”

Why Lata was Lata!
Composer-arranger Amar Haldipur reveals why Lata Mangeshkar was what she became. “She would never record more than one song a day!” he reveals. “She would go totally into the depths of each song. A playback singer must know not just which words or phrase in the lyrics to emphasize and how, but also where the singing must also vary and how and which musical notes she had to focus on. Can you imagine how perfectly she modulated her voice, throw and expression in two songs from the same film, Do Raaste, to give Mumtaz the very feminine ‘Bindiya Chamkegi’ and also Mehmood Jr.’s ‘Apni Apni Biwi Pe Sabko Guroor Hai’? To date, many think that the latter song was sung by her sister, Usha Mangeshkar, because of her vocal timbre!”

Film composer at 17
Anu Malik clears the confusion on whether he scored the music for his debut film, Hunterwali (1978). According to some sources, Anu had claimed that the music was by his father, the late Sardar Malik, and not by him. The other claim was that Anu himself had done the songs after his father fell ill during the making of the music for this production of comedian Mohan Choti. However, the composer reveals that his father told the actor to give Anu one chance, and he came up with one track in the 4-song album, ‘Zulm-o-situm par itraane wale’. Asha Bhosle agreed to sing his composition, while Anu’s maternal uncle, the legendary Hasrat Jaipuri, wrote the lyrics. And Anu was just 17 when the song was recorded.

The Khans and Bappi Lahiri
We all know that Salman Khan has two favourite composer entities, both his own discoveries—Himesh Reshammiya and Sajid-Wajid. Shah Rukh Khan, meanwhile, had several composers doing his home productions. Both the Khans, however, were close to, among senior composers, Bappi Lahiri, as well. Salman’s home production Main Aur Mrs. Khanna, had music by Sajid-Wajid, but Bappi Lahiri played a small but important role and also sang a song in it. In Shah Rukh Khan’s Om Shanti Om, Bappi also played himself, and later, on Shah Rukh’s request, he also provided the musical score for his Kolkata Knight Riders team in the Indian Premier League, 2008.

Also Read: After Shankar Mahadevan, Zee TV ropes in Anu Malik as judge of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Li’l Champs