Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Gulzar on Pancham Da!

Today is R. D. Burman's death anniversary, a fact which I came to know after reading my fellow blogger Neel's post. A year back in one of the poetry forum I went into great length about Gulzar's poetry & songs. And during my search on net I found quite interesting incidents related to Gulzar's association with Pancham da. On this very day when pancham da left us I will love to share my old post with u!

Dated 12 Feb 2004
Any discussion about Gulzar is incomplete without mention of legendary musician Pancham yani late R.D.Burman sahab.
If songs ofj Gulzar are immortal in our mind the credit must also go to Pancham da apart from poet itself.
Let's see what Gulzar has to say about the making of those immortal songs. This piece was written by Gulzar in Filmfare after Pancham's da sad demise. Here are few excerpts from that article..

..We first worked together on PARICHAY. It was important for me to sit with him on the music sessions. He inspired certain moments which I picturised later, his music was that visual...I went to Rajkamal studio where he was recording a background score for another film. I gave him the mukhDa- 'Musafir hun yaaro/Na ghar hai na thikaana-and I left. That night he woke me up at 1 a.m. and said, "Come, come down with me to the car." He'd recorded the tune on a cassette already. He started driving through the empty streets of Bandra, he played the beat on the dashboard. It was my first song as a director with him.

By the time he composed 'Saare ke saare', he had shifted from home--he was in the process of acquiring a new flat--to Caesar's Palace Hotel. The most beautiful song in the film--'Beeti na bitaai raina'--was also composed in the hotel room. It was based on a classical 'bandish'; it fetched Lata and Bhupendra National Awards for best playback singers.

In all, we did eight films together, as a composer-director team. Besides PARICHAY, there were: KHUSHBOO, KINARA, AANDHI, KITAAB, NAMKEEN, LIBAAS and IJAAZAT. How did 'Tere bina zindagi se koi shikwa to nahin' (AANDHI) come about? He was recording Bengali songs for Durga puja around that time. The lyrics were by the renowned Gauri Shanker. I liked the tune that Pancham was composing; I filled it up with Hindi words and said, "Look, I'm going to use this for AANDHI."

As for 'Is moD pe jaate haiN, kuCH sust qadam raste', I gave him the words from one of my poems. He composed the tune instantly. He never took time. Spontaneity was his specialty. If he struggled over a song, he would prefer to abandon it. For instance, 'Ek hi khwab kai baar yuhi dekha hai maine' (KINARA) exasperated him. He found that metre a bit difficult, but two months later I put it before him again. He caught the scanning, and the song was finally recorded.

When I gave him 'Mera kuCH saamaaan tumhare paas paDa hai' (IJAA- ZAT), he waved the lyric aside and said, "Huh, tomorrow you'll bring me the front page of *The Times of India* and expect me to compose a tune around it. What is this blank verse you're giving me!" Ashaji was sitting there, she started humming the phrase, "Mujhe lauta do." He grasped it immediately; from that one phrase he developed the song, which was quite a feat! This time Ashaji and I got National Awards. Poor fellow, he did all the work and we enjoyed the 'kheer'..."

14 comments:

Keshi said...

ok Im so lost in this Post Manish...can u gimme an intro to who this person is..

Keshi.

Dawn said...

boy....manish u hv to come to my blog....we were thinking on same wavelength :D

amazing post...am sure i dont hv to mention anything here ;)

awesome dost

MS said...

They both (Pancham Da & GulzarJi) are Legends in every sense, ManishJi.....And when both came 2gether it was nothing less than jus perfection in everything!!

Your collection once again memerized me by draggign me back in to those oldie days...jab ek tradition sa thaa ki raat mein sotey samay, radio on karke sotey they, aur in suriley geeton koh suntey huey khwabon ki duniya mein chaley jaaya kartey they!! :)

Wow...woh 2 geet (Is mod se jaate hain & Musafir hoon yaaron) mujhe bahut pasand hain....Especially 'Is mod se jaate hain' ke mukhde ki woh do panktiyaan kaafi acchhi lagti hain.. "In reshmi raahon mein, ik raah toh vo hogi....
Tum tak jo pahunchati hai, is mod ee jaati hai...."

Main aaj raat phir in geeton go gungunaaye bina nahin so paaonga....

Dhanyawaad ManishJi, ik baar phir se aapka, jo aap hamein un yaadon koh, un lamhon ko phir se jeene ka avsar pradaan kar rahein hain...

Oops I forgot that this is your English blog..am very sorry...but I cud not have expressed those emotions in English... Joh baat Hindi mein hai, aur hamaarey geeton mein hain, woh kisi aur bhaasha mein nahin hain ManishJi..waakai...

Cheers!!
MS

Manish Kumar said...

Well R. D. Burman was a great music director and his compostions ruled the charts in late seventies & eighties. Her close freinds gave him the nick Pancham ! Here in this post legendary lyricist Gulzar who worked with him for so many years gives a nostalgic account of how those immemorable tunes were composed by Pancham .I don't know wheather u like these songs or not. may be u have never heard them. Hope some day when u will become fluent in Hindi:) u will enjoy it more.

Manish Kumar said...

DON u were part of that series on Gulzar so I know how much u love and adore this duo.

Manish Kumar said...

MS love to know ur original name :)
there is no language barrier here fren! after all dil ki aawaz jis bhasha mein nikle wahi istemaal karni chahiye.
Tumne jo songs.....radio....aur khwabon ke bare mein kaha.... I totally agree because I feel in the same way abt these songs.
thx buddy it was so nice to go thru ur comment

Urvashi said...

I love R.D. Burman's music a lot too! The songs of Teesri Manzil are just so fantastic! 'Tumne mujhe dekha', 'Aaja aaja' etc. Just loooove them!! :)

Keshi said...

aww Thanks Manish for all that info..I wish I knew Hindi to appreciate his work..wow!

Keshi.

Keshi said...

hey new post mate :)

Keshi.

Anonymous said...

manish, can i be a new member of yur blog? i think it is cool

MS said...

Thanks ManishJi aapka, joh appne un language ki deewaron koh tod diya hamaare liye :)
In fact, mujhe kaafi khushi hoti hai, aapke blog peh yun hindi mein comments likhte huey :-)

Cheers!!
MS

Urvashi said...

You have been tagged! Check out my blog for further details! :D

V said...

Hi Manish,
a v moving post...
I am having mp3 of this interview i believe, anyone interested, let me know.
Regards
V
vishalvibhu at gmail

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wow. thats amazing.