Resultados y discusión

Sampooran Singh Kalra was born into a Sikh family in undivided Punjab and was forced to migrate to a rented house in old Delhi's Pul Bangash near Subzi Mandi area in the aftermath of the Partition, the experiences of which shaped his formative years and continue to resonate in his writings. Sampooran was pulled out of St Stephen's College after his first term and packed off to Bombay by his father Sardar Makhan Singh so that he might find a long-term career for himself. In Bombay, Sampooran struggled more with his lack of conviction in the jobs he did than with his ability to execute them. These

included working in a garage where he was told to supervise the painting of cars. He rebelled against his father, his elder brother with whom he was living in Bombay, and his religion (by dispensing with his hair and beard) in pursuit of what he wanted to do with his life. It would henceforth be heart over mind and tales of human sensitivity over everything else for Gulzar.

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Gulzar's simple beginnings in the Bombay film industry happened with the lyrics he wrote under the nom de plume of Gulzar Deenvi for films directed by Pradeep Nayyar (Choron Ki Baaraat, 1960; Diler Haseena, 1960) and S.M. Abbas (Shriman Satyawadi, ^1960). His association with the Burmans owes its origin to a fortuitous face-off between S.D. Burman and lyricist Shailendra on the sets of Bimal Roy's Bandini (1963). Another lyricist had to be summoned, and Gulzar penned 'Mora gora ang layi le. He and the younger Burman hit it off during the sitting sessions of this song.

After close to a decade as a lyricist and scenarist, he crossed an important milestone in 1971 when he turned independent director with Mere Apne ⁽¹⁹⁷¹⁾ and followed that up with Koshish ( 1 9 7 2 ) . Then came his first film with Pancham — Parichay (1972).

There has to be something about bathtubs and showers that brings forth solutions. Gulzar had given Pancham the first two lines of 'Musafir hun yaarori to compose. While Archimedes might have had a reason for his principle of buoyancy to surface just where it did, Pancham did not. Yet, it was under the

shower that Pancham came up with what would become the first gem in a glittering array.

'I was sitting in Pancham's music room one morning and warming up by strumming chords on my guitar,' Bhanu Gupta recalls. 'Pancham, who was taking a shower, opened the bathroom door, poked his head out and said, "Bajate thako, themo na (Keep playing, don't stop)." So I continued playing the chord progression. When Pancham came out, he was humming a tune that fit the chord sequence I was playing. The line was "Mujhe chaltejana hai". Later, he went back to the first two lines. So, in effect, Pancham composed the tune for the refrain first and then for the mukhra.'

Gulzar's night out with Pancham in his car, with the latter

keeping beat on the dashboard and singing the full tune of 'Musafir hun yaarori is now part of film folklore. By dawn, the composition was complete. 'Musafir hun yaarori was one of Pancham's definitive compositions for the road, along with songs like ' Chala jata huri (Mere Jeevan Saathi), 'Meri jaan meri jaari (Do Chor), ' Jaan-e-jaana jao kal phir aana (Samadhi) and

'Aaj unse pehli mulaqaat hogi' (Paraya Dhari).

" t S t p H

There seems to b e a slight s t r u c t u r a l r e s e m b l a n c e b e t w e e n t h e starting notes of t h e t h e m e t u n e of S a t y a j i t Ray s film Pather Panchali (1955), c o m p o s e d by Ravi S h a n k a r , a n d Musafir hun yaaron. It is a point of c o n j e c t u r e t h a t P a n c h a m m i g h t h a v e h e a r d t h e d h u n b e i n g p l a y e d at t h e A l i A k b a r K h a n School a n d t h a t t h e t u n e might h a v e s t a y e d w i t h him.

Gulzar is one of the troika of film-makers — with Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee — who popularized middle-of-the-road Hindi cinema, high on entertainment but without the ostentatious make-believe fluff, while not going the whole minimalist hog like the New Indian Cinema of the 1970s. Each film picked up an issue that the common man would be able to relate to and narrated its story simply, in a language that resonated with the audience. There were no heroes or villains, nor were there beggars dying of starvation while the wealthy drove past in their Rolls Royces; only circumstances — favourable or adverse.

The source of inspiration behind Parichay remains hazy. The consensus is that writer Mani Barma borrowed the basic outline of Robert Wise's The Sound of Music for the Bengali film Joy Jayanti ( 1 9 7 0 ) . This in turn inspired Gulzar's Parichay. However, the film credits well-known Bengali writer Rajkumar Moitra as the storywriter. The fact that his then fiancee Raakhee gave him the idea after reading Moitra's story also made news in film magazines in the early 1970s.

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Gulzar has never denied that he was inspired by The Sound of Music — his tale of rebellious children tamed by a teacher had far too many similarities to the Hollywood musical. 'Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa' is the Hindi equivalent of 'Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do' which made 'Sa Re ke Sa Re' Pancham's answer to 'Doe a deer, a female deer. Both songs served as an explanation of the seven basic notes of music. However, to Pancham and Gulzar's credit, the tune, the rhythm and the feel were all very original. The sargam had hitherto been used only in songs based on classical music. 'Sa Re ke Sa Re experimented with the sargam in a lighter vein. Using musical notes like Dha-Ni to take a mischievous dig at the colour of the eldest siblings' saree added to the song's appeal. In the interlude, Pancham employs the sound and rhythm of a running train. This was done by making Kersi Lord use a technique called 'bellows shake'. In the film, the song stops midway, almost purposefully, for a few dialogues between Jeetendra and Jaya Bhaduri, and resumes ingeniously at Pa — the Pancham note!

Child actor Master Raju (Shrestha) who played the youngest child in the family was used for a specific purpose in the song.

Gulzar wanted to insert the sound of the siren that the toddler had picked up during the curfew and blackout regime of the Indo-Pak war in 1971 (around the time that Parichay was being made).

Pancham created the effect to a nicety. Kersi Lord narrates:

'Whenever Pancham wanted something new, he used to tell me:

"Hey, a song is going to be recorded in six or seven days. I want this type of effect," proceeding to make a "Woooo Woooo"

sound. Those days, synthesizers were not controlled by keyboards. I remembered that my friend had a radio repair shop and used to have oscillators which generated a flute-like sound, which is a normal sine wave. Datta Raojekar is a fine musician and music director and an expert in electronic instruments. I

told him, "DT, this is what I want. I want four oscillators and I want octave switches and wave form switches so that I can convert sine wave into wave forms like square and rectangular waves." Within a couple of days, he showed me a small box with four knobs which were switches for wave change and switches for octave. These four knobs were connected to an output and the sound of the siren was generated by turning the knobs. If I had had the Moog synthesizer [which came later, in \913~), the tuning would have been perfect.'

Parichay also allowed Bhupendra to resume his career as a mainstream playback singer, this time of semi-classical songs.

Based on a mix of various ragas, mainly Yaman and Khamaj, 'Beeti na bitayi raina was Pancham's first duet composition based on Indian classical music. Keeping in tune with the period and the tradition, he made elaborate use of the sitar and the tabla. Bhupendra's deep voice was refreshingly different and

happened to hear it at RK Studios. It won Lata Mangeshkar the National Award for the best female playback singer. Inexplicably, neither Pancham nor Bhupendra were awarded the same.

'Mitwa bole meethe bairi, another Bhupendra solo, picturized on Sanjeev Kumar, was based on a mix of Raga Rageshri and Raga Hemant. Prince Rama Varma feels that the song is closer to Raga Hemant (Raga Bhinna Shadja). Aashish Khan feels that Pancham might have learnt Raga Hemant when he was a

Incidentally, S a n d k y a

blended well with Sanjeev Kumar's expression of resignation. This song became one of Pancham's strongest defences against accusations that he was too westernized and incapable of composing songs based on Indian classical ragas. The tender emotions of the song moved even the Angry Y o u n g Man to t e a r s when he

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student under Ali Akbar Khan since it is considered to have been developed by the Allauddin Khan family. Hemant is a controversial raga: various musical gharanas have chiselled it under different names and claimed credit for its genesis. The Vilayat Khan Gharana has supposedly been playing it for generations, calling it by a different name, Raga Pancham.

Who knows, Pancham may have deliberately used Raga Pancham for a character playing the role of a musician.

UU—' ^

The overall brilliance of t h e film not withstanding, its last scene was flawed in announcing t h e marriage of the lead pair on 9 April, for it falls in t h e month of Chaitra, when Hindu marriages do not t a k e place. Gulzar s own wedding (to Raakhee) was slated for 18 April 1973, in t h e month of Baisakh.

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Gulzar worked with Pancham in three more films in quick succession: as lyricist in Doosri Seeta (1974), and as director and lyricist in Aandhi and Khushboo (1975).

Directed by Gogi Anand, one of Pancham's closest lifelong friends, Doosri Seeta bombed big time at the box office. With that, three RD—Gulzar gems went virtually unnoticed. It was only after the composer's resurrection post-1994 that the audience could enjoy melodies like the Lata Mangeshkar solo 'Dinja rahe hain ke raaton ke saaye and the Asha solos 'Tu jahan mile mujhe and 'Aaye re aaye re'. Many found the use of Nitin Mukesh for the tandem 'Tu jahan mile mujhe surprising and wondered if Pancham had buckled under pressure from the financiers, or if he was experimenting with a newcomer who was working, without much success, as an assistant to director Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

Khushboo, starring Jeetendra as the Panditmashai, was Gulzar's first venture into Saratchandra Chatterjee territory. T h e

Panditmashai angle was just one of the various subplots unfolding within the film, permitting Gulzar the luxury of landscaping a more present-day village and a more orchestral music score than what one would have expected in rural Bengal. This was seen in the Asha Bhonsle solos, 'Bechara dil kya kare and 'Ghar jayegi', which had the right dose of ebullience and grace but posed the risk of being interpreted as modern, given the period setting. The tragic mood of the story was reflected in the use of the sarod in the background, played by Aashish Khan.

The Lata Mangeshkar solo 'Do naino mein aansoo bharen hairi was recorded in two versions and is, with its mix of the flute, tabla and the extended taan in the antara, an example of how a sad song can be composed without it getting maudlin. The film uses a version where, apart from the vibraphone, there is little instrumental accompaniment with the vocals.

The one song which has stood out for more than three decades is Kishore Kumar's O majhi re. With its underlying Bhatiyali philosophy, this modern version of Bengali folk music is known as much for Pancham's technical innovations like the use of the reverb and the blowing on a bottle filled with water to simulate the upper C note on the normal octave, as for its compositional and lyrical brilliance.

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Gulzar started writing the screenplay of Aandhi shortly after Parichay. He had penned down some thoughts, though the main characters eluded him. While working on the script, he met writer Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena who was writing a story titled Aagami Ateet' for producer Mallikarjun Rao. This story had a stark resemblance to A.J. Cronin's Judas Tree and would be named Mausam (1976).

During the course of the discussion, it was decided that Kamleshwar would write a novel based on the storyline Gulzar

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had in mind. The result was the novel Kaali Aandhi. Although some shots of Aandhi were based on the story by Kamleshwar, Gulzar maintains there were differences between the screenplay and the novel as far as the characters were concerned.

The music of Aandhi, considered at par with Amar Prem, is the result of a symbiosis of the best of both Pancham's and Gulzar's worlds. One needs to go back a few years, when Gulzar was fascinated by 'Raina beeti jaye. He had said in Meri Sangeet Tatra: 'The use of shuddha notes [in 'Raina beeti jaye") were representative of the purity of the courtesan.'

Gulzar probably extended this idea to Arati Bose in Aandhi, for the title music which had all the seven shuddha notes woven in a simple mesh. Though not similar in any way, a parallel could be drawn to the Indian National Song 'Jana gana mana which is based on Raga Bilawal where only the seven shuddha notes are used.

With the Kishore-Lata duet 'Is mod se jaate hairi, Pancham further used the title track, added a Teevra Madhyam, and delved into the territory of Raga Yaman. Replete with Gulzar-esque imagery and references, the lyrics baffled Pancham. With his limited knowledge of poetry and precious little knowledge of Urdu, he had inquired of Gulzar if 'nasheman' was the name of a town. Often thought of as excelling only in minor-scale compositions, Pancham was possibly divinely inspired to create the song that shattered the notion. T h e interludes too are worth a study. While Hariprasad Chaurasia's flute and Zarine Daruwala's sarod were used to impart a dominating tone, Jairam Acharya's sitar and a violin ensemble gave the melody a touch of frailty. 'Is mod se jaate hairi, like 'Beeti na bitayi raina', is one of the best major-scale songs in Hindi film music.

In 'Tere bina zindagi se koi', Suchitra Sen and Sanjeev Kumar revive the memories of their love in Golconda Fort twelve years after their separation. Emotions are mellower, and so is the

tune. Pancham almost surreptitiously introduces the minor scale even while tackling shuddha notes. The mood is delicate, and Pancham uses Acharya's sitar to create a sentimental prelude to the duet. The beginning of this Lata—Kishore duet is reminiscent of Pancham's composition in Raga Nand, 'Jeete dao amaye deko na \ hence the shuddha notes, but the similarity ends there. The elderly couple does not sing; and the song, playing in the background, acts as a medium to convey their thoughts so delicately expressed as 'Tere bina zindagi se koi shikwa toh nahi/ Tere bina zindagi bhi lekin zindagi toh nahiri. Initially created by Pancham as a Puja song in the form of 'Jetejete poLhe holo deri', Gulzar took to the tune and penned the lyrics which fit in snugly. Despite this, the song has a made-to-order feel as far as the theme of Aandhi is concerned.

The monumental success of the song can be gauged by the response it gets even today. The number of views on YouTube is around 3.5 million, definitely the highest for any Hindi film song considered 'retro', and probably the highest among all Hindi film songs.

Sandwiched between 'Is mod se jaate hairi and ' Tere bina zindagi se' is Kishore—Lata's 'Turn aa gaye ho', where Pancham steps back into the familiar terrain of flat notes and minor scale.

Aandhi came into national prominence when it was banned during the Emergency in 1975. The character of Aarti Devi, portrayed by Suchitra Sen, purportedly resembled Indira Gandhi, a conjecture fuelled by a film magazine capturing a film poster of Aandhi with the tagline: 'See your Prime Minister on Screen'.

In fact, far from being anti-Indira Gandhi, Aandhi showed the protagonist as a courageous, diligent political figure struggling to keep unscrupulous power brokers at bay. However, a couple of scenes had to be re-shot, including the one in which Aarti Devi points to a wall photograph of Indira Gandhi and tells her father: 'Yeh meri ideal hai.'

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The film, when re-released after the Emergency, Indira Gandhi no longer in power, continued to pull crowds. Kishore Kumar's songs which had been banned

on public media by Sanjay G a n d h i s u d d e n l y found unprecedented attention, and could be heard everywhere.

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What Soumitra Chatterjee was to Satyajit Ray, Max Von Sydow to I n g m a r B e r g m a n , and T o s h i r o M i f u n e to Akira Kurosawa, Sanjeev Kumar was to Gulzar, acting in six of the

twelve feature films Gulzar directed till 1985, the year the actor passed away. RD composed the music for four of these films. In the 1970s, the three almost seemed like a package deal. Not surprising, therefore, that Gulzar dedicated the published screenplay of Aandhi to the 'Anchorplayers of my films - R.D.

Burman and Sanjeev Kumar'. Each represented three distinct aspects of film-making, and worked with a remarkable synergy.

As Gulzar remembers, Sanjeev Kumar had a very relaxed disposition towards most things in life. For example, he was always the last one to deboard an aircraft, waiting till all other passengers had done so. This rubbed off on his on-screen persona as well. Sanjeev's maturity as an artist, the innate calm that he carried in and out of the studio despite his troubled personal life, was reflected in a number of RD compositions picturized on the actor.

T w o almost back-to-back Pancham—Sanjeev films were Raghunath Jhallani's Anamika (1973) and Shakti Samanta's

G u l z a r , for one, n e v e r interpreted t h e character of A a r t i Devi to represent Mrs

Charitraheen (1974). The films were like two sides of a coin - in the former the heroine leaves the hero, while it is the other way round in the latter. 'Meri bheegi bheegi si' (redone from Pancham's first Bengali solo 'Monepore Ruby Ray') in Anamika was composure and pain personified. On the other hand, 'Dil se dil milne ka, an enchanting Kishore—Lata duet in Charitraheen, reverberated with the rhythm of the earth.

Charitraheen had an archetypal Pancham—Asha Bhonsle solo, ' Ten meri meri teri', featured as an item number with the heroine Sharmila Tagore joining the dancing girls for a stanza.

The number had a typical metallic sound effect with Asha's voice caressing more than one octave and the one-off staccato in a falsetto (Asha's short, abrupt 'He he he' rendered in a voice an octave higher than the rest of the song) adding an element of intrigue to the hero's anguish. Pancham reminded everyone again that sad songs need not be slow.

The coyness that Jaya Bhaduri had patented in films like Guddi was seen once again in Anamika, in its sweet and dreamy romantic numbers. Quantitatively, Asha Bhonsle got a bigger share with the bhajan 'Jaoon toh kahan jaoori, the girl-full-of-beans 'Togo na maro isey, and the cabaret, 'Aaj ki raat' (which

had Bhupendra's guitar riffs on the

had Bhupendra's guitar riffs on the