On a ‘Vishal’ note!
Trivia Tunes: When Mohammed Rafi and Geeta Dutt sang for an advertisement for a kerosene brand
This time, let Trivia Tunes begin on a ‘Vishal’ (which means big, size- or stature-wise!) lighter ‘note’ (pun intended). In the past, we had two composers sharing a name, Shankar Raghuvanshi of Shankar-Jaikishan and Shankar Mahadevan of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. We then had Anand Chitragupta (of Anand-Milind) and Anand Raaj Anand.
And now, we have four Vishal’s! The first to come in was Vishal Bhardwaj, who started with a single song in the Manas Mukherjee-composed (Shaan’s father) film, Wahem, in 1987. Vishal Dadlani (of Vishal-Shekhar) began his film career with Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi as singer, solo lyricist and joint composer (with Shiraz and Samrat) 12 years later. In 2015, came singer-composer Vishal Khurana (who now calls himself Vishal Khurana K. with Sarzameen and has also composed for Neerja). In the same year came singer-composer Vishal Mishra, who began with Charlie Ke Chakkar Mein, and who was a part of the Kabir Singh group of music makers. He has piecemeal composed for not just Sarzameen but also two very recent films, Deva, Saiyaara and Aankhon Ki Gustaakhiyan.
The ‘Electronic’ king of Hindi Film Music!
There are many who swear by Kalyanji (-Anandji)’s son, the humongous talent, Viju Shah, as the king of electronic music in Hindi films. Viju, whose latest release is Zora now, told me recently that Mansoor Khan, the legendary Nasir Husain’s son, wanted him alone to look after the electronic part of Anand-Milind’s Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and, later, Jatin-Lalit’s Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander.
A hard taskmaster, Mansoor also wanted Viju to compose the music for Josh, when Venus Records and Tapes signed him and wanted A.R. Rahman for the music! Says Viju, “Mansoor did not want Rahman. And I had to turn down the film as I was neck deep into David Dhawan’s Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, Amitabh Bachchan’s home production. The film then went to Venus favourite, Anu Malik.” Strangely enough, Mansoor did later work with Rahman in Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na, which he co-produced (with Aamir Khan).
In in-film sponsorship has become endemic now, the first such song I know of came all of 53 years back in Devendra Goel’s Dhadkan, which had music by Ravi. The number began as ‘Elpar sariya Elpar’ after a popular saree brand then, and the entire song, rendered by Asha Bhosle, Kishore Kumar and Ravi himself, also promoted Jolly Board (for furniture), an Agarbatti, Limca, Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish and Dabur Amla Tel (a hair oil) in a situational song for the reincarnation drama. The song was also a part-parody and the lyrics are uncredited, though they are likely to be the handiwork of Ravi himself, with or without the main lyricist, Prem Dhawan!
The ‘oily’ song!
An interesting forward with an audio link came to me. In the olden times, kerosene had to be actually advertised, because firewood was cheaper than kerosene then. The giant oil company, Burmah Shell, hired top singers Mohammad Rafi and Geeta Roy (Geeta Dutt’s maiden name before she married Guru Dutt in 1953) to sing two advertisement songs to increase sales. The songs were broadcasted on radio, because that was the main medium for advertising at that time. The lyricist and music director of Rafi’s song (‘Ghar ghar mein muskaaye roshni / Aur andhera haath maley / Gaon gaon aur nagar nagar mein Burmah Shell ka tel jale’) were respectively S. Athaiya and Mukul Roy! The two songs were also issued on a 78 rpm EP and Geeta’s song, ‘Chacha mere sona na’ was also written by S. Athaiya, but composed by Shankar Das Gupta.
Surender Sodhi’s ‘past’
The late composer, musician and arranger, Surender Sodhi (of composer duo Shyam-Surender of Mashooq and Elaan fame in the 1990s) had a really interesting past. He was one of the men whose musical talent was noticed by Pt. Ramprasad Sharma (father to Pyarelal of Laxmikant-Pyarelal) and forcibly initiated into learning music. As was the Panditji’s trait, he would keep such proteges in his own home, feed and look after them, and if they tried to escape at night, he would tie their legs with rope in a way that he would come to know of any such attempts! But there was no compromise in the tutoring, and Sodhi even learnt to play chords without facing the piano or play them backwards, and developed many more unique abilities!
‘Dhoondoon baare saiyan’ is a well-known bandish (a structured musical composition within a specific raag and taal or rhythmic cycle) composed by Ustad Amir Khan. When Madan Mohan and Lata Mangeshkar went for his concert, she could not get over this composition in Raag Nand (also known as Raag Anandi Kalyan). Veteran music journalist Yatindra Mishra has stated that though a Raja Mehdi Ali Khan song had been locked, Lata implored the composer to re-do it in the same Raag without the classical bandish form. The result was the title-song of Mera Saaya—‘Tu jahan jahan chalega’.
Self-confessed recycle!
Technically, a song or tune based on the same metre (regularly recurring pattern and accent such as bars and beats) is not considered a copy, and in this series, I have mentioned several examples of ‘metering’ in the past, even when composed by the same talents. In an old interview of R.D. Burman, the composer even mischievously stated how he had used the same metre for the antaras of three totally diverse songs—‘Hai mubarak aaj ka din’ (Hariharan and Kavita Krishnamurthi with lyrics by Gulshan Bawra), ‘Tujh mein kya hai deewane’ (Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar with lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri) and ‘Aisa samaa na hota’ (Lata Mangeshkar solo with lyrics by Anjaan).
The three songs thus were found in varying stories with different actors, situations and genre of songs. But the best part was that all the three movies were all released within a single year—from September 1983 to June 1984!
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