TAKE
UP, PARELLAL,
Now about the duo’s life and times: For 35 years did they stay the course, averaging a film a month. The passing of Laxmikant, therefore, is sad if only because he still had so much good music left in him. L-P as a duo, had come to represent the total composer, when that unifying dash in Laxmikant-Pyarelal was so traumatically knocked out. My heart goes out to Laxmikant’s wife Jaya, to son Hrishikesh and to daughter Rajshree. So close was I to Laxmikant that I can never be far from the family. Jaya’s husband saw hard times indeed before he came up the hard way, just like Pyarelal did. Today Laxmi has put Jaya and their children in the cosy Parasmani bungalow, providing them with the wherewithal to rebuild their shattered lives. All luck to them.
Having had the opportunity to watch most of the legendary music makers at close quarters (as those men worked on their now vintage tunes) these two bright youngsters, who were at their most receptive age and stage, naturally picked up the art of composition swiftly. Pyare with his swift grasp of notation and Laxmi with his retention power combined to move speedily up. Our top composers could relax while these two youngsters carried out their instructions of passing on the various instrumental pieces (to be played) to the orchestra. Laxmi and Pyare were also called upon, as assistants, to rehearse the singers. Here is where L-P learnt to do everything themselves. Pyarelal from the beginning, preferred to write down the music in notation (Indian or Western), while Laxmikant like his idol Jaikishan, opted to tape his inspirational moments and later work them out on the harmonium.
As Laxmi explained to me once, it was not a joke making a breakthrough when, still on the scene, were such magical names as Naushad, C Ramchandra, SD Burman, Madan Mohan, Roshan, Shanker-Jaikishan, OP Nayyar, Jaidev, Khayyam, SN Tripathi, Chitragupta and Hansraj Bahl. In such tough competition, Laxmi felt that Pyare and he were destined to remain second-graders. But Rajshri’s Dosti (1964) came as the big bonanza, after Parasmani and a host of such B-grade movies. The songs of Dosti need no recapitulation, they are evergreen. Shanker-Jaikishan were, perhaps, a trifle overconfident about their Sangam (as an RK blockbuster) winning the best music award. The duo got the shock of their lives as Laxmikant-Pyarelal were proclaimed as the winners for Dosti. Only upto this point is it necessary, really, to trace L-P’s career graph. After Dosti, their life is an open music book. Quality was their watchword from the start. They scored foot-tapping music even in mythologicals like Sati Savitri, Sant Gyaneshwar and Harishchandra Taramati And there was no stopping them after Dosti and J Om Prakash’s Aaye Din Bahaar Ke, the movie in which they replaced Shanker-Jaikishan and in which they took the first step towards moving into the big league.
That LP were sidelined by Ravindra Jain at RK after Bobby, Satyam Shivam Sundaram and Prem Rog they accepted as part of the game. For by then LP had moved on to the top most banners spearheaded by men like Manoj Kumar, Yash Chopra, Manmohan Desai and Subhash Ghai, not to speak of Raj Khosla, the veteran who so believed in them. The point about LP is that they could score every kind of theme. There was commerce in their music, there was art, what more could the industry want? From Kranti to Karz to Karma LP moved, picking up accolades and awards, almost routinely, as they moved up, up and still more up. They soon became the highest paid music directors in the industry. RD Burman had come to the field before them, but could create his mod wave only long after LP established themselves. It would be only fair to say that, unique in his own way as was Pancham, he never ever managed to overtake LP in the boxoffice stakes. There was a time when Kalyanji-Anandji, under who LP had been assistants, looked to have eclipsed them. But only briefly. Kalyanji-Anandji remained popular, very popular. But Laxmikant-Pyarelal came to be acknowledged as kings by the 1980. Verily did they perform in an era when the composer was king.
“When we started our career in 1962, we did so in small-budget stunt and mythological movies. But then, if we could give a consistent string of hit tunes in films like Parasmani, Sati Savitri, Mr X In Bombay, Dillagi and Laadla, it was because of our attitude that the producer who deigned to engage us, was the biggest for us. Good work speaks for itself. The big producers automatically came to us later. Yes, we became progressively selective about the calibre of producers with whom we would work. This was only because, like Shanker-Jaikishan, we wanted a big orchestra. This the small producers, our discoverers, sadly could not afford as we progressed. But we did go back, for instance, to Tarachand Barjatya’s Rajshri after Dosti. We consider our score for Rajshri’s Taqdeer to be one of our best, no matter how the film fared. “We swear by our art,” went on Laxmikant, “and have always given individual attention to all our producers. Makers like Raj Khosla and Yash Chopra never settled for anything but the finest by way of music. And we gave them all the time they wanted. It was a different style of music to be made for Amitabh Bachchan in the Manmohan Desai camp. Here, too, we showed our calibre. What is a composer if he is not all things to all people in this industry? If you have the variety, you fear working nowhere.
I met Laxmikant again in 1993, when LP completed three decades in films. At the time, Laxmi spoke up for the duo like this :”Having worked for 30 years and more in the field, we have come to the conclusion that there is a change in trend every two years. What was relevant in 1982-84, we found, was no longer suitable in 1986-88. But, basically, our quality of melody remained, no matter what outer garb the tune took. For instance, when we were scoring Subhash Ghai’s Karz, he explained that he wanted ‘pop’ music in the film. When we composed it as a ghazal, Dard-e-dil dard-e-jigar and cast it in a faster tempo with modern instruments, it was accepted as ‘pop’ by the public. Even Om Shanti Om Shanti, was a bhajan in word and mood, yet it came to be accepted as a disco number the way we modernised the tune. So, you see, basically music has to be melodious, no matter what shape you finally give it.
LP adjusted to the times, all right, but then time is not so much a healer as a ‘dealer’! Time claims as its victim, the best of them. It is not that the composer has deteriorated over the years. It is just that a time comes when he has to make way in the face of a trend he cannot understand. And it was the mass copying trend to which LP had no answer. Not that LP had not been inspired by things ‘phoren’. But they had adapted, not adopted. The wholesale copying that invaded the industry with the ‘cassettisation’ of music saw Laxmikant-Pyarelal looking lost as never before. Because, while they still believed in work, the others didn’t. LP had never taken the easy way out, they had never shied away from the slog. Now technology was beginning to wreak havoc with the melody base of music.
The industry must remember that, if Laxmi had it in him, Pyare still has it in him. Pyare is a musician with a mind. The best of Laxmikant-Pyarelal, I say, is still to come. Laxmi and Pyare are two sides of the same boxoffice coin. The coin that must be allowed to roll kindly in this moment in which Pyarelal needs the support of an industry he has served from the time Naushad spotted him as a boy prodigy on the violin. More than one string to his composing bow does Pyarelal command, as the bigwigs of this industry should know. |
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The
same confidence by which Laxmikant-Pyarelal measured up to competition from
an array of stalwart composers, so much so that this supremely gifted duo
had the rare honour of Lata Mangeshkar handpicking their Jeevan dor tumhin
sang baandhin) from Sati Savitri among her all-time ten best during her silver
jubilee in 1967. In a phase when L-P were still freshers! Remember, Lata’s
silver jubilee year, 1967, was the one in which L-P came up with that super
score for LV Prasad’s Milan to bring that songstress’ pet, Mukesh,
back with a bang as a thematic performer. “Pyare is a very good
composer!” to recall something that Lata herself told me. The industry,
too, should respect this opinion of the Melody Queen and give Pyarelal the
break that has to be Now or Never. After all, as Pyare says, he will continue
to score in the name of Laxmikant-Pyarelal.
Laxmikant-Pyarelal
must rate as the youngest and longest-lasting of our traditional line of
composers. They kept up their traditional No.1 position even in the face
of the RD Burman wave, followed by the Bappi Lahiri churning. Laxmi wsa only
12 and Pyare a mere 10 when they used to be placed, as instrumentalists,
right in front, because of their height! Laxmi used the mandolin with the
same flourish as did Pyare the violin. The two slowly made the grade, first
as arrangers, then as assistants. The way they finally broke through as music
directors, will never be forgotten. They arrived on the scene like an
avalanche.
I give this
background only to offer an idea of how the two, in their maiden movie, Parasmani
(1963) instantly produced such hits as Hansta hua noorani chehra, Chori chori
jo tum se mile to, Roshan tumhin se duniya and Woh jab yaad aaye. L-P had
both Lata and Mohammad Rafi rooting for them from the outset. Possibly because
both had gauged the duo’s calibre while they saw them function as
assistants.
And LP began
challenging the topmost in the music business once they won the second of
the seven best music awards for Milan. LP had reason to feel fulfilled when,
in seven successful years following Milan they came to replace SJ in the
RK camp. “We naturally were,” Laxmi then told me, “more than
a little hesitant to take on RK’s Bobby, for Shanker-Jaikishan had always
been our ideal, we had done a lot of work for that team. It was only after
Mukesh who brought us the offer on behalf of Raj Kapoor told us that, if
we did not accept Bobby, it would go to some composer other than Shankerji
that we said Yes.”
Without further
ado, therefore, I have Laxmikant, in his prime, speaking for the duo as was
customary in the matter of how they did it. Said Laxmikant to me:
Only in the
case of Vijay Anand, perhaps, could you say that the vibes were not quite
right. Even this happened only because Goldie had become so used to a particular
style of work with first SD Burman and then RD Burman. But when we were signed
for his Ram Balram and Rajput by the producers concerned, we showed Goldie
that we could deliver the exact way he wanted. It sometimes takes time for
a creative maker to adjust. Why, it happened with Raj Kapoor too. Naturally,
SJ remained uppermost in Rajji’s mind. Only in the latter stages of
Satyam Shivam Sundaram, and through Prem Rog did Rajji get convinced that
we, too, had something of our own to give. Rajji himself knew so much about
music that it was natural for him to want things his way. We were, therefore,
patient with him and it ultimately worked,” noted Laxmi.
“Take,
for instance, Naam, Nagina and Naache Mayuri — in these our latest films,
the music fits the changing times and changing themes. What is a composer
if he does not move with the times? With the times, the tone changed, but
your melody base remains. Even in Karma, where the scope for music might
seem limited, you will find our score sweet to the ear. The challenge is
to adjust to the times without losing out on quality. You must grow as a
composer. But not grow to an extent that you lose touch with what the young
want. Of Laxmikant-Pyarelal, would you not say that we saw more changes (than
any other earlier composer) in our first 30 years and were never found wanting
in the matter of tuning with the times?”
But then to
how many changes in his time, do you expect a composer to conform? There
arrives a moment when he wants to spell away from it all — to recast
his thinking and his tuning. Laxmikant-Pyeralal, following their superb score
in RK’s Prem Granth, had begun to get it all back. Pyarelal says that
they sat down to compare musical notes just before Laxmikant entered the
hospital. Now Laxmi is gone, but the legacy he has left behind is for Pyare
to inherit and interpret. In the case of Shanker, he remained a fine composer
but lost out in background scoring. Pyarelal, by contrast, “is a very
good composer” — we have Lata’s word for it. And, as for
orchestration and background scoring, is there anyone to match Pyarelal even
today?
