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Forgetting Laxmikant-Pyarelal
I
am touched. A company which did not market a single album of theirs and
consequently did not earn a penny from their work - Sony Music - brought
out a lovely concert-based compilation 
under
the moving title - I Remember Laxmikant - By Pyarelal. Admittedly, it
was released three weeks after Laxmikant’s death anniversary on May
25, but the fact remains — they remembered.
It is very disheartening to realise that the fickle industry has chosen
to forget the enormous, nay, colossal contribution of L and P to film
music over more than three decades. The live recordings find all the singers
except Vinod Rathod in poor form in the Sony album, but the mesmerising
magic of compositions as varied as Ram kare aisa ho jaaye (Milan) and
Chahoonga main tujhe (Dosti) — their twin titanic breakthroughs,
as well as Zindagi ki na toote ladi (Kranti/1981) — when they were
in Manmohan Desai’s words and factually Numbers 1 to 10) and Om namah
Shivae (from Bhairavi) transcends the very average singing, and drives
home the point that there will never be another composing entity like
Laxmikant-Pyarelal, ever.
Compare this gesture with the indifference of the four music companies
with whom L-P had the longest links - HMV, Universal, T-Seires and even
Tips in their last years. A focussed stroll through mega-music shops will
convince everyone that despite the S-J-RD-Madan Mohan-Naushad hype in
the media, is the L-P re-issues (as solo films or combinations) that constitute
the bulk of the evergreen sellers of HMV - Dosti, Milan, Farz, Shagird,
Mere Humdum Mere Dost, Do Raaste, Dushman, Shor, Daag, Bobby, Roti Kapada
Aur Makaan, Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Sargam, Karz, Ek Duhe Ke Liye, Prem
Rog, Hero, Ram Lakhan and Saudagar only leading a list of over a 100 perennial
sellers after their 1963 debut Parasmani. Universal Music India (which
posthmously felicitated Pancham on the launch day of Universal in India
- presumably as a reward for his contribution to their success) - opted
to omit Kalyanji-Anandji and LP. And LP have given Universal Music hits
and perennials as outstanding as Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Roti, Dharam-Veer,
Amar Akbar Anthony, Dostana, Judaai, Naseeb, Hum Paanch, Woh Saat Din
and Coolie!
Move down to T-Series and you will find LP doing the film which established
T-Series - Pyar Jhukta Nahin (1985), followed by Nache Mayuri, Nagina,
Mr. India, the smash hit Tezaab and Chaalbaaz. And Tips began with LP
(Elaan-E-Jung) and in the ’90s had Khal-Nayak (one of five topmost
Tips bestsellers to date) and Narsimha with them, apart from good but
not very successful scores like Khuda Gawah and Heer Ranjha.
After he died, RD was hyped. After Laxmikant, nothing has happend. Why
is this happening? Quoth a know-all music buff, “Laxmikantji rubbed
quite a few major people the wrong way towards the end. RD was a saint!”
But if that were the criterion, then so many of our giant artistes would
be totally ignored today! For as Annu Kapoor, Antakshari anchor, says
so succintly, “Never remain under the illusion that a great talent
is necessarily a good human being!”
And what about Amar Haldipur’s impassioned statement after working
with them for years? “In the industry, LP were considered as ‘langhar’
(a place where the needy can gets free meals as long as they want). They
never turned away any musician, struggler or anyone who was undergoing
a bad phase. Out-of-work musicians and even senior composers fallen on
bad days like Prabhakar Jog were respectfully welcomed. They never grudged
anyone a slice of their own profit margins.” Over to the music buff,
I spoke of!
Veteran singer Mahendra Kapoor seems to be more on target when he opines
on the mystery about why LP are not hyped as much as Pancham or any of
their colleagues. Says Kapoor, “Their music was completely Indian.
It did not lend itself to remixes and was completely melody-oriented.
At the same time, LP’s music always had a classy touch even in their
mass friendly numbers. Shanker-Jaikishan were the right mix of mass and
class appeal. LP tended to move towards the classy.” And on reflection,
this seems amazingly true. Blind following of trends or outright pandering
to crass commerce was never LP’s style. They composed Milan and persuaded
the film’s distributors and producers to do a Mukesh-based score
when the singer was down-and-out in the mid-’60s. After Milan, Mukesh
never had a dull phase.
At the height of the Kishore wave, LP always balanced their Rafi-Kishore
equation with the finesse and skill of tightrope artistes. In the ’80s
when they were miles ahead of the opposition and could have played safe,
they boldly experimented with scores like Pyar Jhukta Nahin (which signalled
the end of the disco and Padmalaya waves), Utsav and Sur-Sangam and made
young singers like Alka Yagnik, Kavita Krishnamurthi and Anuradha Paudwal
shoulder major scores like Karma, Mr. India, Tezaab, Eeshwar and Chaalbaaz
and came up trumps.
This is what is doubly callous and hypocritical about the way LP’s
work has been sidelined by the media and the film and music industry.
No other composer - solo and duo - have had such a limitless repertoire,
such sustained innings, such a towering cavalcade of giga-hits and awe-inspiring
songs. But as in every genuine artiste’s case, even these sins of
omission and commission on the part of the powers-that-be have not prevented
LP from getting their due from the janata janardhan. The less-informed
among them may not be knowing about their incredible repertoire (thanks
to the absence of hype), but the joys that LP’s songs keep giving
them will keep this LP record going forever even in the era of the CD.
Rajiv Vijayakar