Justifying multi-music composers!
Between A.R. Rahman and the original creations of Amar Singh ‘Chamkila’, we have now the first feature film with a truly creative soundtrack this year. The music of Amar Singh Chamkila is thus that rare album where multiple composers have been justified, as the late iconic singer’s actual songs had been composed by Charanjit Singh (who composed music for just one Hindi film, Kohra, in 1993), Joy Sarkar, S.N. Gulati and K.S. Narula. These are performed within the film by the artistes, led by Diljit Dosanjh in the title-role, while the soundtrack has been enhanced by A.R. Rahman’s original compositions sung by established singers as well as newcomers.
Incredible nomenclature!
It is crazy, but a Malayalam romantic comedy directed by Balu Kiriyath, starring Mukesh, Harisree Ashokan and Annie, was released in 1995 with the title, Kalyanji Anandji!! The film, with music by S.P. Venkatesh, was said to be a hit! Even more interesting is the fact that its leading man was Mukesh, also the name of one of K-A’s most favourite singers!
As old as the film!
The only other known Hindi film that shares its name with a composer is Preetam (1971), which featured Shammi Kapoor, Leena Chandavarkar and Vinod Khanna. Of course, the movie’s English spelling was different, and composer Pritam appeared on the scene only three decades later! Interestingly, Pritam was born on June 14 and the film was released on July 26 in the same year—1971!
When fan Leena Chandavarkar missed meeting Kishore Kumar
Speaking of Leena Chandavarkar, we all know that she sang playback for the disco duet, ‘Kiss me’ with Kishore Kumar in Lover Boy (1981) where her voice went on Meenakshi Seshadri. At that time, they were husband and wife. But the first time we heard them together was in ‘Gham Ka fasana’ in Manchali (1974). At that time, Leena told me that she was just a (huge) fan and was thrilled that she was to interpolate some words into the romantic song. But thanks to traffic (!!) then, she got delayed for the recording and Kishore had left the studio by the time she arrived. However, from a mere fan, she soon went on to marry her idol!
When a singing star gets playback voices!
Suraiya, Noorjehan and more—Hindi cinema has had singing stars who never sang for others and also had no one else singing for them. But poor Sulakshana Pandit was an exception. Even as she got to sing for various actresses in one-off cases (from Tanuja to Rekha and Moushumi Chatterjee among them), two composers refused to use her voice even for herself—R.D. Burman (who scored her Raaja and Bundelbaaz) and Ravindra Jain, who employed Sulakshana’s voice in both her starrers, Salakhen and Raaz, for other artistes! These two composers only got Lata and Asha to sing for her.
It is amazing how many films a big star managed to release in a single year in the bygone days, and with prolific composers around, the sky seemed the limit for a single star’s movies having the same composer within a single year. In 1987, Laxmikant-Pyarelal scored music for a record eight films with Dharmendra—Hukumat, Loha, Watan Ke Rakhwale, Insaaf Kaun Karega?, Mera Karam Mera Dharam, Mard Ki Zubaan, Insaf Ki Pukar and Jaan Hatheli Par—eight films, four of which worked at the box-office to varied degrees!
The most ‘recent’ example was of Kareena Kapoor Khan having four movies with composer Anu Malik in a single year—Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai, Yaadein, Ajnabee (in which she also contributed to a song) and Asoka—The Great, all in 2001. Add her 2000 debut, Refugee, and in another rare case, all her first five films happened to be with the same composer!
Tunes spanning languages
And talking about Watan Ke Rakhwale, the prolific Laxmikant-Pyarelal did 500 Hindi films and 10 regional movies and recycled their Tamil song, ‘Pallavi illamal padugiren’ (sung by S.P. Balasubamaniam) in Uyire Unnakaga (1986) as the Mohammed Aziz-Anuradha Paudwal duet, Jab pyar kiya ikraar kiya in that film.
With composers doing films or songs in multiple languages, it was fairly common to see them recycle their own tunes in a different lingo, like Salil Chowdhury, who did Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam movies. In 1972, Conrad Rooks from Hollywood made the Shashi Kapoor-Simi Garewal English movie, Siddhartha, which had Hemant Kumar scoring background music and two Bengali songs. One of them, ‘O nadi re ekti kathai’ used the same tune as ‘O bekaraar dil’ that he composed and sang for Kohraa, his own 1964 production.
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