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Inside outside
Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar.
The Big Three of Hindi Cinema. Each one a separate entity, who had his
own exclusive domain complete with image, ‘campwallah’ producers,
directors, writers and even character artistes, heroines, playback singers
and music-makers.
Dev Anand’s combo with SD Burman yielded an amazing variety in music.
Music tht was way ahead of those times and spanned half-a-dozen playback
singers, with a very high hit ratio. Rafi and Kishore led the list, of
course.
Raj Kapoor’s team-up with Shanker-Jaikishan was the very chart-friendly
liaison, with simple Mukesh (and occasionally Manna Dey) songs which caught
on immediately, and were popular with the masses as well as the classes.
Dilip Kumar’s nexus with Naushad was steeped in folk and classical
music. Rafi dominated the show.
Obviously, SJ, Dada Burman and Naushad all worked with many other stars.
But among the big three, they barely worked with the other two!
Raj Kapoor had just three films with SD Burman early in his career. Dada
Burman did not enamour him despite the fact that he made Raj sing for
himself in one of these films, Chittor Vijay. As always obsessed with
Kishore Kumar, Dada used his voice for Raj Kapoor as well in Pyar. SD
Burman did employ Mukesh’s vocals in several films, notably Bandini
and Bambai Ka Babu, but never did so for Raj Kapoor, who always considered
that Mukesh was his very soul.
It may be argued that Mukesh had barely established himself when Dada
did those three early films for Raj Kapoor, but then as late as 1955 in
Devdas, Dada actually used Rafi for another artiste and Talat Mahmood
(then out of the Dilip-Naushad orbit) for Dilip! In 1974 too, in Sagina,
the unlikely and not-too-seemly vocals of Kishore Kumar were used for
the actor!
Shanker-Jaikishan too played the same game, restricting Rafi on Dilip
to a single song in Daag (along with Talat) and sticking to Mukesh in
Yahudi! In their earlier films with Dev Anand, they did employ Rafi for
Dev Anand for their characteristically breezy songs for the ever-young
hero, with a sop for Talat in Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja. But in the
late ’60s, when Kishore had all but taken over the Dev vocals, especially
in the Dada-Dev ditties, they used Kishore Kumar for just one song for
Dev Anand - Dooriyan nazdeekiyan ban gayi (Duniya).
And quite obviously, Dev Anand and Naushad were poles apart in their outlook,
so that even the thought of a die-hard puritan like Naushad scoring music
for a ever-progressive Dev sounds bizarre! But when Naushad did his only
film with Raj Kapoor way back in 1949 - Andaz - he used Rafi (the voice
he fixed for Dilip Kumar a few years later) for Raj Kapoor, and Mukesh
for the remaining songs that were filmed on Dilip Kumar in the film!
On the face of it, these examples seem to indicate that the music directors
sought to be different when they were working “outside”, as
one many call it. Strangely enough in those days the hero would call the
shots rather than anyone else in the choice of the voice. One would have
thought that the stars would have insisted on at least their pet voices
when they were working with composers from rival camps. But facts speak
otherwise.
Today, the star-singer nexus is in its last days for various reasons that
would be out of context here. But on the music director front things seem
to be much the same.
Hrithik Roshan’s home films will obviously have his chacha Rajesh
Roshan at the inspired helm, though superstardom will naturally mean films
with all the top names, and Hrithik has outside films with Anu Malik,
Shanker-Ehsan-Loy, Jatin-Lalit and maybe some others. But Roshan is hardly
likely to step into the Khan territory.
And look at the Khans. Shah Rukh Khan’s favourites Jatin-Lalit don’t
cut much ice with Aamir and Salman, with the latter bringing in the composers
without their consent in his home production Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya despite
its excellent scores in his Khamoshi, Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai and Kuch
Kuch Hota Hai. JL have never yet disappointed with Aamir Khan either,
and have made him sing the famous Aati Kya Khandala (Ghulam), but Aamir
whose previous home productions have had music by Anand-Milind and Nadeem-Shravan
is not impressed. He has now opted for AR Rahman.
Now Salman Khan has stayed miles away from Rahman. His favourites as of
now are Himesh Reshammiya and Sajid-Wajid, both the proteges of their
home banner, GS Entertainment. Now look for HR and S-W figuring in the
films of the other two Khans and you will be in for a disappointment.
Interestingly, when Raj Kapoor and S-J were inseparable, and Shashi Kapoor
the actor had formed an alliance with Kalyanji-Anandji, the SJ-dominated
Shammi Kapoor did try to acquire new composers in the meteorically-rising
Laxmikant-Pyarelal with Sachhai. Things did not work out due to a reported
ego problem between the flamboyant Kapoor and LP, but who knows? If LP
had done the film with the same ‘prove a point’ motivation as
they did Raj’s Bobby, each of the Kapoors would have once again acquired
a camp composer. Ironically, when LP finally did picturise songs on Shammi
Kapoor, the Yahoo star had become a portly character artiste. In Parvarish
(1977) LP too played the different game by using their own as well as
Shammi’s pet singer Rafi for Vinod Khanna in Hum premee prem karna
jaane, a song also lip-synched in part by Shammi - but in the voice of
Shailendra Singh! And to compound the irony, when the time came to create
a Muslim devotional song for Shammi in Kala Dhanda Goray Log (1986), Rafi
was no longer around and LP went down in music history as the only composers
to have used the Rafi-clone Mohammed Aziz for Shammi Kapoor after side-stepping
Rafi’s perfect vocals for the actor!
What, comes the purely fanciful question, would have happened if LP had
done Sachhai in 1969? Your guess is as good as mine on whether LP would
have deliberately side-stepped Rafi to conform to this inside-outside
tradition!
Rajiv Vijayakar