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For lovers of Hindi film songs, the year 1955 provided a bonanza. The leading music directors, Naushad (Uran Khatola), C Ramchandra (Azad, Insaniyat, Yasmin), SD Burman (Munimji, Devdas, House No. 44), Shankar Jaikishen (Sri 420, Seema) contributed their best to create some of the most memorable tunes of all time. They were ably supported by the younger lot, Salil Chowdhary (Amaanat, Tongawali), OP Nayyar (Mr & Mrs 1955), Madan Mohan (Railway Platform), Vasant Desai (Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje). Veterans, Husnlal Bhagatram (Adl-e-Jahangir), Ghulam Mohammed (Kundan), and Sajjad (Rukhsana) added their flavours, and newcomers Nashad (Baradari), Jaidev (Joru ka Bhai) and Ravi (Vachan) made their presence felt. At the same time, Bombay filmdom was rocked by a controversy that left much bitterness among the leading players in film music. It exemplifies the cutthroat competition between artists, their insecurity, and the absence of any regulating machinery in their engagement by producers, who were, in turn, forced to abide by the demands of film distributors.

It all began with the resounding success of OP Nayyar’s compositions in Aar Paar the previous year. At the insistence of distributors, two producers summarily terminated the contracts of their music directors and replaced them with OP Nayyar. The victims were Roshan, who had recorded several songs including two duets by Talat Mehmood and Lata Mangeshkar for K Amarnath’s Mehbooba, and Mohammed Shafi who was working on Sheikh Mukhtar’s Mangu. OP Nayyar displayed indifference and a lack of respect for his seniors, particularly a successful and highly talented composer like Roshan. When questioned by Raju Bharatan, Lata Mangeshkar’s biographer, Nayyar justified his avaricious action, blaming it on the insecurity he had experienced following the failure of his first two films, Aasman and Baaz.

By this time Lata Mangeshkar had become the most sought-after singer in the industry and developed a clout to get what she wished. She had worked closely with Roshan and sung many hits in Hum Log, Malhar, Anhonee, Raag Rang, and Nau Bahar. An irate Lata Mangeshkar declared that she would not sing any more songs for Mehbooba. Nor did she ever sing for OP Nayyar. Nayyar groomed Asha Bhonsle and after he made himself secure claimed, arrogantly, that he never wanted Lata Mangeshkar, but he must have realized, in his heart of hearts that, eventually, it was more a loss for him, than it was for Lata.

Lata Mangeshkar also complained to the Cine Music Directors’ Association (CMDA) headed by Anil Biswas. CMDA, which included Naushad, ordered a peremptory halt to OP Nayyar’s recordings for Mehbooba and Mangu because a fellow music director had been replaced in each of these films. However, CMDA lacked the clout to enforce its order. Willy nilly, Shamshad Begum, Asha Bhonsle, Rajkumari, and Mohammed Rafi agreed to sing for OP Nayyar. In Mehbooba, Nayyar’s tunes paled compared to Roshan’s, and in Mangu, two solos of Asha Bhonsle, man more gaa and bol pardesia, drew our attention. However, in the company of Guru Dutt, OP Nayyar produced some lilting long-lasting compositions for Mr and Mrs 1955, that are remembered to this day.

Meanwhile, changes were taking place in the culture of Western countries. The post-war generation in these countries craved freedom from the restrictive social norms they had inherited. They believed in a more permissive, more blatantly open society. In music and dance, this translated into faster beats and vigorous, more suggestive movements on the dance floor. In the early 1950s, a new form of dance called Rock ‘n’ Roll emerged and took the world by storm. It combined elements of African American music such as jazz, rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, as well as country music. Braving the frowns of the older generation, youth across continents took to the foot tapping beats with zeal. It wasn’t long before it reached Indian shores. An American film titled Rock Around the Clock (1956) brought the new dance form into Indian cinema halls and the theme song was soon plagiarized by music director N Datta into lal lal gal in Mr X (1957) sung by Mohammed Rafi. Contrary to the wishes of Information and Broadcasting Minister BV Keskar, and despite the attempts of music directors like Naushad to popularise Indian classical music in films, Indian films plumped for Western pop music.

Hindi film music thrived on the popularity of its compositions and, occasionally, the popularity of a film’s songs determined the fate of the film itself. The true measure of a song’s popularity lies in its ability to reach the common man. Only when the man on the street hums a song can it be said to have achieved its purpose, like when Sachin Deb Burman found a boatman, rowing him across the Brahmaputra, singing one of his songs unaware that the creator of the song was his passenger. Music directors have, from the earliest days, tried everything to make their compositions acceptable to the masses. Light classical music and ghazals of the early days gave way to a mixture of classical and folk music and strains of Western music. Western musical instruments became a part of the orchestra of most music directors. Gradually, popular English tunes began to appear in Hindi films.

Before he declared his preference for Hindustani music in Baju Bawra, Naushad had freely used Western tunes and Western instruments, as in jab nain mile nainon se (Jadoo - 1951), an adaptation of Amor di Gitano (The Love of a Gypsy) from Loves of Carmen (1948,) on which the film Jadoo was based, and the waltz number tara ree tara ree (Dastan – 1950). C Ramchandra’s gore gore o banke chore (Samadhi – 1950) was lifted from Chico Chico from Puerto Rico (1945) by Edmundo Ros and his Rumba Band. In Awara (1951), Shankar Jaikishen used ala baladi an Arabic tune from Egypt to compose the dream sequence song ghar aaya mera pardesi and in Do Bigha Zameen (1953), Salil Chowdhary’s dharti kahe pukar ke was inspired by a Russian March.

It was, perhaps, providential that the advent of Rock & Roll parallelled the entry into Hindi films of music directors who had no qualms in lifting Western tunes and passing them on, as their own, to an unsuspecting public. OP Nayyar used both Punjabi folk music and Western music in his compositions. Here are some gems he lifted from English songs. Babuji dhire chalna (Aar Paar – 1954) based on mambo Italiano by Rosemary Cloony (1954), he babu ye hai zamana tera (Bhagambhag -1956) based on Quizas quizas quizas by Osvaldo Farres (1947), Ae dil hai mushkil jeena yahan (CID – 1956) based on Oh, My Darling Clementine by Percy Montrose (1884), Yahan hum wahan tum (Shrimati 420 - 1956) based on the little shoe maker by The Gaylords (1954), and Chanda Chandni Me Jab Chamke (Mujrim – 1958) based on Green door by James Lowe (1956).

The popularity of these songs left senior music directors like Anil Biswas, and SD Burman dismayed, and forced talented music directors like Madan Mohan, Hemant Kumar, Salil Chowdhary to follow suit with dil dil se mila kar dekho by Madan Mohan for Mem Sahab (1956) based on Isle of Capri by Frank Sinatra (1954), Aaja Zara by Hemant Kumar for Ek Jhalak (1957) based on Cherry pink and apple blossom white by Alan Dale (1955), and halke halke chalo sanwre by Salil Chowdhary for Tongawali (1955) based on wedding samba by Carmen Miranda (1949). Shankar Jaikishen composed a song teen kanastar peet peet kar, decrying this trend for Subodh Mukherjee’s Love Marriage (1959) but had no hesitation in copying Elvis Presley’s Marguerita in kaun hai jo sapne me aaya by for Jhuk gaya Aasman (1968).

Yet OP Nayyar was a gifted composer, an epithet he richly deserved for some of his unforgettable compositions in later years. He also deserves credit for bringing Asha Bhonsle out from behind her sister Lata Mangeshkar’s skirts and grooming her to reach the heights she scaled, pun intended. Perhaps, when he was flooded with offers, in the competitive world of Hindi filmdom, he found it easier to fall back on his collection of English music to provide instant tunes to satisfy his customers than to lose time in resorting to his creativity. Hindi films had stock situations for songs like birthday songs, party songs, parting songs, romantic duets, pathetic wails by the leading pair, etc. While music directors like Naushad, SD Burman, and C Ramchandra familiarised themselves with the story and situation for each song before composing them, others had ready-made tunes for each situation.

Roshan, who had to suffer the mortification of being replaced by OP Nayyar in Mehbooba had a lean time until, in 1958, when his sari sari raat teri yaad sataye from FC Mehra’s Aji bas shukriya became a major hit and catapulted him back into pole position. Interestingly, sari sari raat teri yaad sataye was figured in the 1973 film Taxi Driver for which OP Nayyar scored the music. Perhaps a belated apology from Nayyar to Roshan.

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