Translated from the original Marathi article by the late Shri Madhav Moholkar in his book 'Geet-yatree' .
The responsibility for any mistakes in translation is entirely mine.
Kaun kehta hai tujhe main ne bhoola rakha hai?
An inkling of approaching youth…, nameless, tremulous anxiety…a mind longing for and habituated to music. Talat entered my life one rainy evening like a prince from a fairy-tale, singing in his high, sweet voice a love song of rosy cheeks and heady eyes:
“chaudvin manzil pe zaalim aa gaya, aa gaya
chand mere chand se sharma gaya…sharma gaya…”
Evening had faded and the restaurant lights were aglow. Outside, the rain was pattering down. Inside, the hubbub of the customers and the clinking of crockery. Intermittently, a raucous cry of “Two people, four annas”. Yet everything was submerged in Talat’s voice. He was singing in rapt absorption:
”zulf mein rangat hai kaali raat ki
raat bhi hai kaisi barsaat ki
zulf lehrayee to badal chha gaya ,chha gaya, chha gaya
chand mere chand se sharma gaya…sharma gaya…”
My mind was dancing like strands of hair, swaying with the tune. Once, twice, thrice…I kept signaling to the young Muslim man at the counter – play it again…again…Finally, without looking in my direction, he signaled ‘Enough’ and busied himself in giving and taking money. Upset, I got up and went to the counter. Without taking my money he said, “Leaving already, my friend? You’ve yet to hear the other song, the one which must be heard. Sit down, sit down…”Then he flipped the record over. I’d been so engrossed in listening to the first song of that new singer that I’d forgotten that there could be a second one as well. And then Talat sang of a lover whose thirst would not be quenched by a mere portrait of his lady love:
“tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi
ye tei tarah mujhse to sharma na sakegi”
‘Her portrait does not speak to me, remains silent even when I clasp it to my breast. If she does not make me pine, how can she give me happiness?’
“main baat karoonga to ye khamosh rahegi
seene se laga loonga to ye kuch na kahegi
aaram who kya degi jo tadpa na sakegi
tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi…”
That night, Talat sang ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi’ till the hotel downed its shutters. From that day Talat so possessed me that morning, afternoon, evening; classroom, home, road; in my ears, my mind, and on my lips was:
“parchhai to insaan ke kaam aa na sakegi…
tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi…”
A Marwari boy from our class, with a romantic bent of mind, used to hold Wren and Martin’s English grammar book before his eyes and hum – “tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi…” One day he suddenly kissed the book. Our English teacher rushed to him and pulled the book from his grasp. As he started rifling through the pages, a photograph fell out. When he picked it up from the ground and held it up all of us shouted ecstatically, “Rehana!”
Talat’s moon, having reached ‘chaudvin manzil’, has now faded from the musical firmament. Kamal Dasgupta, who set ‘Chand mere chand se sharma gaya’ and ‘Tasveer teri dil mera mera behla na sakegi’ to music, is no more. In truth, hardly anyone even knows that there was a music director named Kamal Dasgupta. The name of lyricist Faiyyaz Hashmi, who used to weave his name in the lines of his songs and ghazals, e.g. ‘In hothon ko Faiyyaz mein kuch keh na sakunga’ and ‘Dekh ke Faiyyaz main sharma gaya’ is now only heard on Pakistan Radio. The hotels of Sholapur, where our evenings would pass unnoticed in the company of Talat’s sweet voice, no longer exist. ‘Usmania’ was pulled down long ago. Recently, someone told me, ‘Jikriya’, too, has been flattened…
We would come together in those hotels to hear Talat. Boys from school and college, and many other unknown Hindu-Muslim young men. Some loved Saigal and some, Pankaj Mullick. Some were mad about Rafi and some about Mukesh.G.M.Durrani, Khan Mastana, K.C.Dey, S.D.Batish, Shankar Dasgupta – all had their fans. In fact, everyone loved all the singers. They loved the world of music. In Saigal’s words, “ Awaaz ki duniya ke dost”. When Talat entered our gathering with his romantic ‘Chaudvin manzil pe zaalim aa gaya’ our hearts overflew with joy. We just couldn’t have our fill of listening to him. In those days Hindi film songs used to be played the most in those hotels. But some restaurateurs used to have popular, private records of singers like Saigal, Jagmohan, Hemant Kumar, Talat, Mukesh, Juthika Roy, etc. in their collections. We used to wander from one coffee-house to another to listen to those. It was at places like those that I had first heard Hemant Kumar’s ‘Tum kab tak pyar chupaogi’ and ‘Bhala tha kitna apna bachpan’, and Jagmohan’s ‘Dil dekar dard liya maine’ and ‘Mujhe na sapnon se behlao’.
Mukesh and Rafi had just commenced singing in films but had rapidly developed a large fan following. Talat’s voice, though, was yet to be heard on screen. His non-film, private songs had entranced the mind. ‘Panchhi’, Talat would call, and the feet would automatically turn back. Then he would gently console us:
“Panchhi, preet ki reet nibha, preet ki reet nibha
dheere dheere ghaav bharenge, dard chhipaye ja…
panchhi…”
The sweetness in ‘Nigahon ko churakar reh gaye hain’ was agonizing. Lines like ‘jawab-e-khat pe haye re saraasar lakeerein si banaakar reh gaye hain’, ‘Tere lab pe tabassum to nahi hai, sitare jhilmilakar reh gaye hain’ were unforgettable. Though I heard it later, Talat had sung ‘Sab din ek saman nahi tha’ five or six years earlier. The song which he should have sung in the evening of his career he sang at the outset:
“ban jaaonga kya se kya main iska kuch dhyaan nahi tha
sab din ek saman nahi tha…”
Talat’s days were not always as they are now. There was a time when he was the king of the land of happiness:
“main tha swami sukhnagari ka
dukh ka to mehmaan nahi tha…
sab din ek saman nahi tha…”
Those were the days of Saigal. Ever since he’d sung ‘Dukh kea b din beetat naahi’ as Devdas, the days of melancholy seemed to be endless. The atmosphere was laden with his sorrowful notes. Listeners and singers alike were overwhelmed. Knowingly or unknowingly, singers would imitate him, whether it was Surendra asking Noorjehan, ‘Barbad main yahaan hoon, aabaad tu kahaan hai?’, or Mukesh dejectedly telling himself, ‘Aansoo na bahaa, fariyaad na kar, dil jalta hai to jalne de’. Saigal influenced not just Jagmohan, Rafi and other singers of that era but many who came later as well, e.g. a despondent Kishore Kumar singing ‘Jagmag jagmag karta nikla chand poonam ka pyara’ or an unhappy C.H.Atma singing ‘Preetam aan milo’. Atma, who failed to understand himself, was carried away with the flow of time; Mukesh, Rafi, Kishore and Talat, who developed their distinctive singing styles, remained.
Talat, born in Lucknow on 24th February 1924, was about ten years old when the Saigal era began. Fair, handsome and blessed with a sweet voice, obsessed with Saigal’s songs, this son of a Lucknow merchant dreamt of becoming a singing star. Talat’s father could sing Iqbal’s ‘Saare jahaan se acchha Hindustan hamara’ to a congregation of thousands without needing a microphone. But the thought of his son, who’d inherited his voice, becoming a professional singer, was anathema to Talat’s conservative father. Talat, a Saigal fan born in the city of ‘sher-o-shayari’ and’tawaifs’, loved ghazals. All his free time was spent by the gramophone and the radio, listening to Saigal. He would never miss a film of Saigal’s. He’d see those films repeatedly, memorise the songs, and sing them in his sweet, trembling voice. He’d sing Saigal’s ghazals exactly like Saigal himself.
Having become popular in his neighbourhood, school and college, Talat started singing on Lucknow Radio. Earlier, ignoring his father’s opposition, he had taken training in music at the Morris Music College. But in college he was a science student. After his Inter-Science examination he went to Calcutta where Pramathesh Barua selected him as an actor. But they couldn’t find a heroine who would suit his age. It wasn’t the age of teenagers then, unlike now. On his return from Calcutta Talat didn’t go back to college. He devoted himself to music, going about giving private performances. Sometimes to Delhi, sometimes to Lahore. HMV’s talent scouts had come from Calcutta to Lucknow looking for fresh talent. Someone told them, “There’s a boy here called Talat who sings very well. A second Saigal!” They auditioned Talat and took him to Calcutta. Young music director Subal Dasgupta – brother of senior music director Kamal Dagupta – set a song to music for this new singer: “sab din ek saman nahi tha…” Kamalda fell in love with Talat’s voice and gave him many beautiful songs. Singing those songs, he gradually freed himself from Saigal’s influence. Once the barriers of imitation come down, new horizons come into view. The voice blossoms, becomes free. Saigal himself never felt that others should imitate him. He’d told Jagmohan, “You sing very well. Sing like yourself, not like me.” Then Jagmohan discovered himself. As Talat found himself while singing Kamalda’s tunes. One day young Talat sang with rapt attention : ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behala na sakegi…’For some reason Kamalda was not satisfied, neither was the lyricist Faiyyaz. But the recording was over. The record came into the market and, surprisingly, broke all records. Almost one lakh records were sold and Talat’s voice started echoing all over Hindustan. Thenceforward the equation was established: Talat means ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi…’
Talat’s image was first imprinted on my mind as a singer; not as a playback singer. I first heard Mukesh singing for Motilal in ‘Pehli Nazar’: ‘Dil jalta hai to jalne de…’ I first heard Kishore in the Bombay Talkies film ‘Ziddi’ singing for Dev Anand: ‘Ye kaun aaya re, ye kaun aaya…’ I don’t remember the song but I think I heard Rafi for the first time in Shyamsundar’s ‘Gaon Ki Gori’ singing for Nazir. Or perhaps in ‘Jugnu’ singing ‘Yahaan badla wafa ka bewafai ke siwa kya hai’ for Dilip Kumar, along with Noorjehan. It was not so for Talat. Talat came into our lives himself, sang and won our hearts with his very first song. A playback singer has many other factors, apart from his singing, which help him to become quickly popular. The scene in the film during the song, attractive picturisation, a popular actor lip-synching the song on screen, etc. In addition he gets famous music directors and lyricists and a large orchestra. A singer singing a non-film, private song has no such advantages. To his lot fall a much more literary song of far higher standard than an average film song, a slow tune, limited accompaniments, and relatively unknown or out of work music directors and lyricists. Despite all this, Talat, in those days, achieved fame to rival any playback singer. He was so beloved of some that a Muslim friend, speaking about him, would call him ‘hamara Talat’ while Mukesh and Rafi were ‘tumhara Mukesh, tumhara Rafi’. For example,”Talat bahut accha gaata hai. Tumhare Raafi aur Mukesh bhi bure nahin hai.” Once, to tease him, we sent him a note in class: “Talat hamara hai. Mukesh aur Rafi tumhare hain.” He laughed and sent the note back. He’d just erased our signatures and signed his name to it.
One evening we were sitting in a hotel, listening to songs, as usual. A young man, a stranger, would often sit at a corner table, listening to Talat with his eyes shut. That evening, he was sitting at his usual place, smoking. A group of four or five boys, fans of film music, had come in to have tea when Talat’s voice rang out, full of pathos. He was singing a ghazal of Faiyyaz’s: Flowers fall from her lips and tears from my eyes…she is unaware of the showers of the monsoon and I am a stranger to spring…
“hothon se gulfishaan hai woh, aankhon se ashqbaar hum
sawan se woh hai bekhabar, begana-e-bahar hum…”
Before the first couplet could end one of the boys shouted, “What useless song is this? Play some film song!” Immediately the young man in the corner got up, enraged. He threw away his cigarette, went to their table, grabbed the boy’s collar and pulled him to his feet. Before anyone could realize what was happening, he slapped him hard. Everyone fell silent. He drove that youth out of the hotel and, coming back, grandiloquently said, “Talat is not for those whom God did not give a heart…” Turning to the counter he commanded, “Now start – hothon se gulfishaan hai woh, aankhon se ashqbaar hum…”
Talat means a singer who sings sentimental songs in a sentiment-filled voice, whether ghazals or geets. Both, in truth, songs of emotions. When Talat sang them the sentiments would become more vivid, would make one restless… He was a singer of young lovers, singing songs of their separation or union, lending his voice to the feelings in their hearts. He was never for those whom God had not given a heart. Urdu poets have expressed intense sentiments in their ghazals; Talat breathed heart-breaking vitality into them. He would sing a ghazal as a song. There was no mauling, no breakage of words as in classical music, no long ‘taans’, no wandering away even fractionally from the main theme. Begum Akhtar, Saigal and Talat held exposition of emotions to be of utmost importance in the rendition of a ghazal. Begum Akhtar would sing a ghazal like a thumri, Saigal and Talat like a song.
Newer ghazal singers here like Jagjeet Singh, Rajendra Mehta, etc. have adopted Mehdi Hasan’s style. In his early days Mehdi Hasan was known in Pakistan as ‘Pakistan’s Talat Mahmood’. Later he started singing ghazals like thumris, with a classical touch. Talat, when singing ghazals, never lost sight of the poet’s words. Therefore his ghazals came to be remembered as songs are remembered. He sang ghazals written by well-known as well as by relatively obscure poets – Ghalib, Jigar, Shakeel, Faiyyaz, Shamim Jaipuri, Ibrahim Faiz, Tishna, Ishratjehan Begum ,Noorjehan Begum, etc. ‘Kho ke mehfil mein teri sabr-o-karaar aaya hoon’, ‘Gham-e-zindagi ka ya rab na mila koi kinara’, ‘Gham-e-aashiqui se keh do rahe aam tak na pahunchhe’, ‘Raatein guzaar di hai taaron ki roshni mein’, ‘Aankhon se door subah ke tare chale gaye’, ‘Meri zindagi hai zaalim tere gham se aashqara’, ‘Nazar bulbul ki kehti hai’, ‘Baharein jism-o-jaan hai, aur kya hai’, ‘Unse ummeed-e-runumai hai’, ‘Aankhon aankhon mein har raat guzar jaati hai’, ‘Bekaif dil hai aur piye ja raha hoon main’, ‘Chhupai lakh mohabbat magar chhupa na sake’, ‘Tumne ye kya sitam kiya’, ‘Dil pe jab teri inayat ki kami rehti hai’ – they are too many to recall. Some I recall in their entirety and some only partially.
Talat’s Urdu ghazals of love (ishq) and his sweet, tender, gentle Hindi songs - manifestations of romance and sentiments - had fascinated me. Even today I forget myself and my surroundings when humming Kamalda’s tunes for Talat. That’s why, when I first met Talat, the first question I asked him was about Kamalda. He gave a start as he was lighting his cigarette, looked up, and asked me, “Do you remember Kamalda?” I said to myself: How could I forget him? My boyhood passed singing the songs he had set to music in ‘Jawab’, and my youth, his songs for Talat, Jagmohan, and Hemant Kumar. As a boy I would, in seclusion, sing to myself Kanan’s songs from ‘Jawab’ – ‘Door des ka rehnewala aaya des paraye’, ‘Ae chand chhup na jaana’, ‘Duniya, ye duniya, Toofan Mail, Toofan Mail’ – with such absorption that I started labouring under the misapprehension that I could sing! But the magic was in Kamalda’s straightforward, simple and sweet tunes. Even today, when Kanan’s ‘Ae chand chhup na jana’ and ‘Door des ka rehnewala aaya des paraye’ play in my mind, I feel disturbed, restless. How can I forget Kamalda? I answered him, “It’s said that there’s no Talat without Anilda. As for me, I cannot imagine Talat without Kamalda…” Talat became emotional and said, “The truth is that I, Jagmohan, Hemant and Juthika Roy first managed to stand up in life only because of Kamalda!”
He told me about Kamalda’s marriage to singer Firoza Begum and about how, in his final days, he’d lost his mental balance when a bank in Calcutta had gone bust and he’d lost everything. “All of us did what we could. He had settled down in Bangladesh. But now he is no more” said Talat. My beloved Kamalda who had expanded and enriched my world at an impressionable age was no more! All my dreams of meeting him, talking to him, had come to naught. That evening I lay in a darkened room near Shivaji Park with my eyes shut listening again and again to Talat:
“soye hue chand aur tare, aaj ki raat andhiyaari
tum baithi ho pas hamare, soyeee hai phulwari
jin aankhon mein laaj bhari thi who bhi hai matwari
ab to itna keh do pyari, main hoon tumhari, main hoon tumhari…”
Faiyyaz’s love song, Kamalda’s music and the voice of Talat in his twenties. Perhaps even before ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi’. The tender importunity, propitiation in the honeyed tones of a bashful lover:
“ek duje ko paake hum-tum, bahut mile sharmake hum-tum
yun hi rahe to reh jaayengee man ki baatein man mein saari
yeh chhup tumko tadpaegee, phir yeh raat nahi aayegi
ab to itna keh do pyari, main hoon tumhari, main hoon tumhari…”
Kamalda had poured all the sweetness in the world into his tune, and Talat into his voice. Once upon a time this song had driven me mad. That madness still remains. In the intervening period, for ten or fifteen years I did not meet anyone in this alien city (Translator’s note: Mumbai) who even knew this song. It was difficult to get to hear it. When, at a picnic, Talat-mad Rajeshwari suddenly started singing ‘Soye hue hai chand aur taare’ I was overcome with emotion. And when I found Talat himself singing it on a tape recorder in Mukund Acharya’s music cave, my happiness knew no bounds! When I spoke to Talat himself about this song he started humming something in Bengali and, for a moment, I had the impression that I was sitting in a garden full of scented flowers on a dark night. The mystery of the romantic, soft, subtle sentiments in Kamalda’s songs for Talat, Jagmohan and Hemant Kumar was revealed.Kamalda had manifested Bengali feelings through his Hindi songs. He’d got Faiyyaz to translate Bengali songs and elevated the standards of Hindi film songs. To get the exact Bengali shade of meaning in Hindi in one of Talat’s songs, Kamalda, instead of using ‘tasveer’ or ‘chitra’, had retained the original ‘chhabi’:
“main teri chhabi banaoonga
tere ang ka rang milane ko chand se loonga chandni
hothon ki hansi banane ko phoolon se hansi churaoonga
main teri chhabi banaoonga…”
Talat, singing such songs of love and its fruition, created in my mind a yearning for a world as yet unknown but longed for, dear to the heart. ‘Do kafir aankhon ne maara, masti ki kasam, sahba ki kasam’, ‘Ek naya anmol jeevan mil gaya…kya gaya agar dil ke badle dil gaya’, ‘Dil ki duniya basa gaya kaun, ranj-o-gam sab mita gaya kaun’ and the one Talat had sung in dulcet tones : ‘Sapna ban aa jaata koi, mujhe roj roj satata hai koi…’ I remember another song of Talat’s about love and desire: ‘Tum lok laaj se darti thi, main apna hi deewana tha…’ Little by little she changes, becomes bolder and the moment of fulfillment of his desires comes closer: ‘Tum dheere dheere nidar bani, main jaan ke bhi anjaan bana…’ And finally:
“bas ek baar choom lene ko jhuka, magar phir palat gaya
tum bani thi pooja ki khatir, man mein tumko bithalana tha…”
Talat’s voice was basically the voice of pure love without even a trace of the carnal. When the uncouth storm of vulgarity roared into Hindi films, that sensitive voice of true love was lost. When Kishore Kumar sang ‘Roop tera mastana, pyar mera diwana’ in his intoxicating voice, even Rafi, the king of sensual tones, had to run for cover. How could sentimental Talat last? Talat’s was the trembling voice of a sensitive lover, tender in love, and distressed by separation. There was no limit to the pathos it could convey. A shadow of sadness floated over the heart while listening to Talat’s songs. His sorrow filled the skies, it could not be contained within the heart, it came out of every pore:
“mera dukh ambar mein chhaya
rom rom se phoota dukhda
jo dil mein na samaya…”
Sometimes he’d tell us the sad story of his life: ‘Ro ro beeta jeevan sara…’ and sometimes he’d despair: ‘Main dukh ki raat hoon aisi savera door hai jiska…main panchhi pankh bin aisa basera door hai jiska…main gam ka samandar hoon kinara door hai jiska…’ He’d sing love songs telling of separation-frustration so well: ‘Main ne tumse pyar kiya, tumne kyon inkaar kiya’, ‘Kaisa pyar kiya hai tha tumne, chala gaya sukh mere ghar se, aaj chale tum jag ke dar se’, ‘In bheegi bheegi raaton mein yaad koi jab aata hai, ghayal dil bhar aata hai’, ‘Mera pyar mujhe lauta do…’
I’d been pleasantly surprised to learn that ‘Mera pyar mujhe lauta do’ was written by Sajjan!I’d never dreamt that Sajjan wrote such lovely songs. Nalini Jaywant’s leading man in ‘Muqaddar’, Nutan’s in ‘Hum Log’, Nargis’ in ‘Sheesha’, Kamini Kaushal’s in ‘Poonam’, Madhubala’s in ‘Saiyan’.He still does small roles as a character actor. I heard his songs at a get-together of some poets. He reads poetry very well. Though his songs which Talat had sung are now rarely heard, they still play in my mind: ‘Chupchap akele chup chupke main geet kisike gaata hoon’, ‘Main dukh ki raat hoon aisi’ and ‘Phir pyar kiya, phir roya…’ Once, while traveling together, Sajjan recited a song of his to music director Anil Biswas. Anilda liked it so much that he set it to music there and then, and was himself deeply moved while doing so. He got his favourite Talat to sing it:
“phir pyar kiya, phir roya…
kya tadbeerein kaam karein jab apna naseeba soya…
phir pyar kiya, phir roya…”
One day, the same Anilda had given Talat, who had come to Mumbai, his first film song:
“Ai dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal jahaan koi na ho…”
Seeing Dilip Kumar sing this song in ‘Arzoo’ in Talat’s voice had been a cause for celebration. Talat entered the film world at just the time when we keenly felt that he should sing in films. It was the beginning of the golden age of film music. Naushad had started the tradition of making a film a hit purely on the basis of its music with ‘Ratan’ and he continued to give wonderful musicals like ‘Anmol Ghadi’, ‘Dard’, ‘Anokhi Ada’. C.Ramchandra’s ‘Safar’, ‘Khidki’, ‘Shehnai’ etc. were great fun. In fact a huge music caravan had set out in those days – Anil Biswas, Shyamsundar, Husnlal-Bhagatram, Sajjad, Khemchand Prakash, S.D.Burman, Hnsraj Behl, Gyandutt, Vinod, Govindram…and many more. After Saigal’s death, Rafi and Mukesh could be heard everywhere. We loved them too, but it’s hard to describe what we felt on seeing a somber Dilip Kumar standing beside a withered tree singing in our beloved Talat’s sorrowful voice:
“mera jeevan sathi bichad gaya…
lo khatm kahani ho gayee…”
Apart from this sad song Talat had sung a light ghazal in ‘Babul’ in his typical style:
“husnwalon ko na dil do yeh mita dete hain “
Dilip Kumar’s acting had done full justice to the ghazal. I can still a sherwani-clad Dilip Kumar looking mischievously at Munawar Sultana while playing a harmonium in the style of a ghazal singer, and singing ‘husnwalon ko na dil do yeh mita dete hain’. I’d felt then that Talat’s efforts had finally come to fruition. His lovelorn, sweet voice and forlorn, heart-broken voice had taken shape and become visible to the eyes. On the one hand he was lost in describing the madness of love in ‘Milte hi aankhen dil hua deewana kisika’, and, on the other, disappointed in love and disheartened, he was singing ‘Aisi chali hawa ki khushi dukh mein dhal gayee…duniya badal gayee…’
There had been heated disputes between us about these two duets Talat had sung with Shamshad in ‘Babul’. Some were of the opinion that it shouldn’t have been Shamshad singing with Talat; others felt that Shamshad was needed. Many felt that the charm of Talat’s sweet ‘Milte hi aankhen dil hua deewana kisika’ was lost when Shamshad sang the same line in her sharp, keen voice. They felt that she did not suit Talat. Others felt that she was the right choice for the dour-faced Munawar Sultana’s somewhat masculine voice. After a while everyone came to like those songs so much through hearing them repeatedly, that the arguments ceased. But there was unanimity on one point – that the female singer best suited to sing with duets with Talat was Lata.Geeta, Asha, Shamshad Begum and others could sing with Mohammad rafi; only Lata should sing with Talat. Both of them had soft and sweeet voices well suited to each other. I liked many of talat’s duets with other singers, they were really nice. I could never forget the reassuring Talat singing ‘Yeh phool, yeh khushboo, yeh chaman tere liye hai’ with Geeta in’Jaanpehchaan’. Talat-Suraiya’s duets ‘Man dheere dheere gaye re’ and ‘Rahi matwale, tu chhed ek baar man ka sitar’ from ‘Waris’ would play upon the heart-strings and the mind would start singing.
Memories of Hansraj Behl’s ‘Dil mera tera deewana’ which talat sang with Madhubala Jhaveri in ‘Apni Izzat’, Nashad’s ‘Ek dil do hai talabgaar, badi mushkil hai’ which he’d sung with Suman Hemmady, and Shivram’s ‘Tum jo aaye zindagi mein, zindagi se pyar hua’ from ‘Rangeela raja’ which he’d sung with Sudha Malhotra, may have faded with time but the duet he’d sung with Asha for Khayyam in ‘Lala Rukh’ is still on my lips: ‘Pyaas kuch aur bhi bhadka di jhalak dikhalake, tujhko parda rukh-e-roshan se hatana hoga…’ Many of Talat’s duets with Asha still linger in memory. ‘Teri nigahonmein, teri hi baahon mein rehne ko jee chahta hai’ from ‘Bahana’, ‘Dekh li ai ishq teri meherbani dekh li’ from ‘Laila Majnu’, and the touching answer Talatgave in ‘Armaan’ to Asha’s ‘Chahe kitna mujhe tum bulaoge, nahi bolungi…nahi bolungi…’: ‘Bol, na bol ai jaanewale…’ Then there was hafiz Khan’s ‘Haseen chand sitaron ka wasta aa ja’ from ‘Mera Salaam’ and Chitragupt’s ‘Do dil dhadak rahein hai aur awaaz ek hai’ from ‘Insaaf’. But it was in Talat-Lata’s case that two voices really seemed to express the same feelings.Their soft, sweet voices were extra-ordinarily complementary to each other.Not just when they voiced the same feelings but even while giving utterance to opposing sentiments. In ‘Parchhai’, Lata, singing ‘Apni kaho, kuch meri suno’, is trying to arouse Talat: ‘Nazdeek badho, nazdeekh badho, yeh mausam nahi phir aane ka…’ Talat, remaining level-headed, holds off this loving assault: ‘Nazdeek shama ke jaane se kya haal hua parwane ka…kya haal hua parwane ka…’
Sometimes I remember Lata persuading a miffed talat who finally gives in, in Ghulam Mohammad’s ‘Ajeeb Ladki’: ‘Chhodo chhodo ji piya, mera todo na jiya, tumhe hamse garaz, humein tumse, o, humein tumse’. All the sweetness in the world was concentrated in Lata’s pirouetting voice. My eyes can still see Rehman-Naseem skating in a rink, singing in Talat-Lata’s voices. The other song which both of them sing, in the belief that they have been deceived in love, was unforgettable as well: ‘Ek bewafa ko dil ka sahara samajh liya…’ Talat-Lata’s pensive songs constantly rise from the depths of my mind – sometimes ‘Seene mein sulagte hain armaan, aankhon mein udaasi chaayee hai’ from ‘Tarana’, and sometimes ‘Aasmanwale teri duniya se jee ghabra gaya…’ from ‘Laila Majnu’.
Sometimes Talat’s grief-stricken ‘Bhool ja, sapne suhane bhool ja’ from Hansraj Behl’s ‘Rajdhani echoes inside my head and a pained lata asks him ‘Kaise tujhko bhulaoon sajana…sajana…’ Sometimes Vinod’s song from ‘Anmol Ratan’ comes to mind: ‘Shikwa tera main gaaoon dil mein samanewal, bhoole se yaad kar le o door jaanewale…’, and sometimes Roshan’s ‘Dil-e-bekaraar so jaI’ from ‘Raagrang’. Lata-Talat had also showered us with many delightful, laughter-filled loive songs – ‘Aha rimjhim key eh pyare pyare geet liye’ from ‘Usne Kaha Tha’, ‘Nain mile, nain hue baawrein’ from ‘Tarana’, ‘Dil mein sama gaye sajan, phool khile chaman chaman’ from ‘Sangdil’, ‘Mere dil ki dhadkan kya bole’ from ‘Anhonee’, ‘Teri chamakti aankhon ke aage yeh sitare kuch bhi nahin’ from ‘Chhote Babu’, ‘Dar laage balma ho, ulfat na bane afsana’ from ‘Buzdil’, ‘Tere raaste pe hum ne ek ghar bana liya hai’ from ‘Kavi’, ‘Chahe naina churao, chahe daman bachao, pyar hoke rahega’ from ‘Aas’, ‘Yeh nayee nayee preet hai’ from ‘Pocketmaar’, and ‘Jab jab phool khile tujhe yaad kiya hai humne…’ from ‘Shikast’. Shailendra had a notebook of his film songs which he had christened: ‘Jab jab phool khile…’
5.
Once, I’d said to Shailendra, “Your ‘Hain sabse madhur who geet jinhe hum dard ke sur mein gaate hain’ is clearly influenced by Shelley’s ‘Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought’ “. He’d answered, “The influence may be there but there’s a difference between the two lines. Shelley says that the songs which express sad thoughts are sweet. My line says that songs sung in melancholy tones are sweet. Isn’t the voice of Talat, who sang that song, a living example of that?” In his view ‘dard ke sur’ singing sweet songs were Talat and Mukesh! Their voices not only had a natural sweetness, but also a subtle edge of tragedy.
A friend from ‘Usmania’ used to say that God created Talat’s voice from an amalgam of the sweetness of honey and heartache… While Saigal and Mukesh both sang in the lower octaves, Mukesh’s singing was straightforward, flat, while Saigal’s voice had a kind of tremor. A similar tremor was far more noticeable in Talat who used to sing at a higher pitch. Later, this tremor was taken to be the defining characteristic of his voice and a subject for criticism. In college, a boy used to mimic Mukesh, Rafi, and Talat singing the same song. For Mukesh he would adopt a nasal tone, for Rafi he’d sob dramatically and when mimicking Talat his voice would start quivering and trembling. Mukesh and Talat didn’t have Rafi’s range. At higher notes Talat’s voice didn’t seem free. Something seemed to be pulling it down as a kite is pulled down by it’s string. Besides, his voice appeared to roam a limited perimeter, to lack boldness. Nevertheless, it always came forth as the voice of a sensitive, dreamy and poetic man. It had flexibility, quaver, softness and grace. Talat’s voice was as the note of a violin trembling in the surrounding atmosphere, with an enchanting melancholy beauty.
During discussions in the college canteen about Talat’s voice, adjectives such as golden, silken, velvety would be bandied about. Once, when our group entered the canteen, a student of Sanskrit was sitting with a cup of tea before him, lost in thought. When asked the reason for his pensive mood, he replied hesitantly, “That Talat of yours…I heard him sing last night. How well he sang: ‘Meri yaad mein tum na aansoo bahana…, na jee ko jalana,mujhe bhool jana…’Since then I can’t make up my mind whether to call his voice heart-rendingly beautiful or heart-wrenchingly sweet…” Letting him go no further, one of us embraced him and kissed him on the cheek, while another, saying, “We yield to you, O student of Bhavbhooti”, prostrated himself at his feet right there in the canteen!
“juda meri manzil, juda teri raahein
milengi na ab teri meri nigahein
mujhe teri duniya se hai door jaana
na jee ko jalana, mujhe bhool jaana
meri yaad mein tum na aansoo bahana…”
In a world where the paths of lives diverge before our very eyes, all that’s left to us is to say ‘Forget me’, and hum this song of Raja Mehdi Ali Khan’s. Who had played the sitar in this song? When I asked Talat, he’d said Imrat, but I still feel that it was Vilayat Khan who’d played the sitar throughout Madan Mohan’s ‘Madhosh’. “Madhosh’ had Meena Kumari, yet few had liked the film, and to see a moving song like ‘Meri yaad mein tum na aansoo bahana’ picturised on an unremarkable actor like Manhar Desai was disappointing. Consequently the song lost its reference to the film and stayed in memory purely as a song of life. Seeing Sajjad’s beauteous ‘Ye hawa ye raat ye chandni teri ek ada pe nisar hai’ from ‘Sangdil’ on screen had been a shock. We’d imagined that Dilip Kumar would be singing it to the resplendent Madhubala. In the film Shammi sat opposite him as he sang!
But Dilip Kumar singing ‘Kahaan ho, kahaan ho mere jeevan sahare, tumhe dil pukare’in Talat’s voice appeared exactly as imagined. Mukesh had sung very well for Dilip Kumar in ‘Mela’ and ‘Andaaz’. But as his voice came to be associated more and more with Raj Kapoor, Talat, increasingly, became Dilip Kumar’s singing voice. The tragic voice of tragedian Dilip Kumar. Tragedy which deepened day by day from ‘Arzoo’ to ‘Devdas’. Dilip Kumar’s sorrow-filled evenings would make us restless. In Anilda’s ‘Tarana’ he’d sung ‘Ek main hoon, ek meri bekasi ki shaam hai’ and in Khayyam’s ‘Footpath’, ‘Sham-e-gam ki kasam, aaj gamgeen hai hum…’ When Dilip Kumar sang ‘Sapnon ki suhani duniya ko aankhon mein basana mushkil hai’ and ‘Toofan mein ghiri hai meri taqdeer ki raahein’ in Talat’s voice in ‘Shikast’ he seemed to be another manifestation of Devdas. When he sang ‘Kisko khabar thi, kisko yakeen tha, aise bhi din aayenge’ in ‘Devdas’, memories of ‘Dukh ke ab din beetat naahin’ and ‘Mitwa nahi aaye’ would render the mind all aquiver. In Shankar-Jaikishan’s ‘Daag’ Dilip Kumar would relate the story of his sorrow in ‘Koi nahin mera is duniya mein’ and ‘Hum dard ke maaron ka itna hi fasana hai, peene ko sharab-e-gam, dil gam ka nishana hai’ and then prepare to go far, far away – ‘Ai mere dil kahin aur chal, gam ki duniya se dil bhar gaya, dhoondh le ab koi ghar naya…’ Many saw their own sorrow in this song of Shailendra’s; Talat’s voice reached the ordinary people, and everywhere was heard: ‘Ai mere dil kahin aur chal…’
6.
Anilda, whose ‘Ai dil mujhe aisi jagah lechal jahaan koi na ho’ had been Talat’s first step into the film world, had once remarked, “I’ve given my best to Talat”. He’d understood the essence of Talat’s voice and, therefore, all the songs he composed for Talat became classics.E.g. ‘Kabhi hai gam, kabhi khushiyan’ from ‘Waris’, ‘Jeevan hai madhuban’ from ‘Jasoos’, ‘Shukriya, ai pyar tera shukriya’ from ‘Aaram’… A clever student from my college, who’d failed in his examination after falling in love, had received this ‘fish’: ‘Dekh li ai ishq teri meherbani dekh li’. Another, who’d tried to impress an intelligent girl by studying hard and scoring high marks, received ‘Shukriya, ai pyar tera shukriya’. Anilda really gave his best to Talat in ‘Do Raha’. Sahir’s unsuccessful love was melded by Anilda’s nameless agony to Talat’s forlorn voice. He’d stretched the delicate strings of Talat’s voice to the utmost to bring forth the saddest of songs. Talat’s heart seemed to be breaking while singing ‘behosh hoke jald tujhe hosh aa gaya, main badnaseeb hosh mein aaya nahin abhi…bedard maine tujhko bhulaya nahin abhi’ from the song ‘Tera khayal dil se mitaya nahin abhi’. He sounded extremely depressed while singing ‘Dil mein basake, meet banake bhool na jaana preet purani’. And what price the Talat who asks the world ‘I’ve forsaken love.Are you satisfied now?...’
‘Mohabbat turk ki maine, girehbaan see liya maine
zamane ab to khush ho, zeher ye bhi pee liya maine…’
This ghazal drove me to see ‘Do Raha’ again and again. I’d felt then - and still do - that if Anilda hadn’t quit films all of a sudden, no one could have matched him in setting ghazals to music-not even Madan Mohan. He’d have scaled great heights in the field of ghazals. That it was not to be distresses me to this day.
Apart from Anilda, other music directors who used Talat’s voice freely were Madan Mohan, C.Ramchandra, Ghulam Mohammad, Salil Chowdhury and Shankar-Jaikishan. Talat was born with a ghazal singer’s voice and Madan Mohan loved ghazals. After Madan Mohan’s death Lata wrote, “Talat sang his best songs for Madanbhaiyaa”.
When I was a student, apart from ‘Meri yaad mein tum na aansoo bahana’, Talat’s ‘Main paagal, mera manwa paagal, paagal meri preet re’ and ‘Mera qarar le jaa, mujhe beqarar kar ja, dum bhar to pyar kar jaa’ from Madan Mohan’s ‘Aashiana’ were the rage. By that time Talat had come to be established as Dilip Kumar’s voice. It somehow seemed odd to hear him sing for Raj Kapoor in ‘Aashiana’. Another song of Talat’s which I loved was ‘Jise dil mein basana chaha tha usey dil mein apne basa na sake’ written by Behzad Lucknavi for the film ‘Ada’. I can only faintly remember ‘Meri raaton ke andherein mein’ and ‘Mohabbat mein kashish hogi’ from ‘Khoobsoorat’ for they were rarely heard. After I finished college, I heard many songs of Madan Mohan-Talat. When we friends would meet in the holidays moving songs such as ‘Humse aaya na gaya, tumse bulaya na gaya’ from ‘Dekh Kabira Roya’, ‘Do din ki mohabbat mein humne kuch khoya hai kuch paya hai’ from ‘Chhoti Bahu’, ‘Yaad jab aaye teri, apni guzari zindagi yaad kar leta hoon main’ from ‘Mohar’, ‘Bereham aasman, meri manzil bata hai kahaan’ from ‘Bahana’ would be on our lips. I can’t remember if Madan Mohan’s ‘Ghazal’ was released earlier or ‘Jahanara’.Perhaps both came in the same year. Every one of us had roundly cursed Madan Mohan after seeing ‘Ghazal’. A film on ghazals and Talat nowhere to be heard! ‘Jahanara’ had wonderful ghazals-songs by Talat – ‘Main teri nazar ka suroor hoon’, ‘Teri aankh ke aansoo pee jaaon aisi meri taqdeer kahaan’ and ‘Phir wahi sham, wahi gam, wahi tanhai hai’. But, by then, Talat’s star had faded from the film firmament. In ‘Jahanara’ the flame had gathered all its strength to brighten and blaze one last time before being extinguished…
7.
Talat’s voice had two facets – one of sweetness and the other of pathos. C.Ramchandra’s songs brought the sweetness to the fore. For some reason it always seemed that he’d composed for Talat with great love. ‘Mohabbat hi na jo samjhe wo zaalim pyar kya jaane’ from ‘Parchhai’, ‘Kabhi tanhaiyon mein bhi aisi ghadi aayee’ from ‘Minar’, ‘Apni naakaami se mujhko kaam hai’ from ‘Subah Ka Tara’, ‘Bechain nazar, betaab jigar, yeh dil hai kisika deewana’ from ‘Yasmin’, ‘Main peeke nahin aaya’ from ‘Kavi’ – all these songs had an extraordinary sweetness which seemed to stem from the composer’s love for his singer. Though Ramchandra himself sang ‘Kitna haseen hai mausam, kitna haseen safar hai’ and ‘Dheere se aaja ri ankhiyan mein’ it is obvious that these tunes were created for Talat. A balance between the sweetness and the sadness in Talat’s voice was struck by Ghulam Mohammad. His ‘Chandni raaton mein jis dum yaad aa jaate ho tum’ from ‘Nazneen’ was a song I loved to hear again and again, as was ‘Zindagi ki kasam ho chuke hai unke hum’ from ‘Maalik’. Talat had even acted in ‘Maalik’ but his acting was nothing to write home about.In our view Ghulam Mohammad’s best film with Talat was ‘Dil-e-Nadan’. Talat acted in that one as well. The music of ‘Mirza Ghalib’ was a hit but, apart from the sorrowful ghazal ‘Phir mujhe deeda-e-tar yaad aaya’, Talat’s songs in ‘Mirza Ghalib’ weren’t a patch on those in ‘Dil-e-Nadan’. ‘Dil-e-Nadan’ was for Ghulam Mohammad what ‘Do Raha’ was for Anilda and ‘Jahanara’ was for Madan Mohan. ‘Zindagi denewale sun’, ‘Yeh raat suhani raat nahin, ai chand-sitaron so jaao’, and ‘Jo khushi se chot khaye wo jigar kahaan se laaoon’ filled one’s heart with enough sweet sorrow to last for a lifetime. In Ghulam Mohammad-Sardar Malik’s ‘Laila Majnu’, a grieving Majnu, watching Laila’s caravan wend its way far into the desert, had sung in Talat’s voice ‘Chal diya caravan, lut gaye hum yahaan, tum wahaan…gir padi bijliyan, jal gaya aashiyan, uth raha hai dhuan…’Talat’s ‘Tere dar pe aaya hoon fariyaad lekar’ is played on Ceylon Radio as a song from ‘Laila Majnu’.This song was not in that film when I saw it long ago nor when I saw it after many years.It was from ‘Chor Bazar’. Perhaps Sardar Malik removed it from ‘Laila Majnu’ and used it later in ‘Chor Bazar’. Talat’s ‘Ai gam-e-dil kya karoon’ from ‘Thokar’ permeated our very existence.The moving, doomed helplessness of the poet Majaz found expression through Talat.
Another music director who’d understood Talat’s voice was Salil Chowdhury. Talat’s ‘Raat ne kya kya khwab dikhaye, rang bhare sau jaal bichaye…aankhen khuli to sapnein toote, reh gaye gam ke kale saaye’ from Salilda’s ‘Ek Gaon Ki Kahani’, and ‘Aansoo samajh ke kyon humein aankh se tumne gira diya’ from his ‘Chhaya’ are melancholy songs which linger long in memory. ‘Aankhon mein masti sharaab ki’ and ‘Itna na mujhse tu pyar badha ke main ek badal awara’ from ‘Chaya’, and ‘Jhoome re, neela ambar jhoome, dharti ko choome’ from ‘Ek Gaon Ki Kahani’ were light songs sung by Talat with great feeling. Roshan was another music director who had given Talat soft, slow, sweet songs – ‘Main dil hoon ek armaan bhara’ from ‘Anhonee’, ‘Mohabbat ke jhoote saharon ne loota’ from ‘Sanskar’, ‘Kisi soorat dil ki lagi behel jaaye to achha ho’ from ‘Naubahar’, and ‘Aur hai dil ki lagi, aansoo bahana aur hai’ from ‘Raagrang’ are unforgettable.Yet the feeling persisted that Roshan was more Mukesh’s music director than Talat’s.
The credit for getting the common man to hum Talat’s songs and for taking him to the peak of popularity goes to Shankar-Jaikishan and Sachinda. Simple tunes well suited to Talat’s voice, and excellent orchestration ensured that ‘Ai mere dil kahin aur chal’ from ‘Shankar-Jaikishan’s ‘Daag’ and ‘Andhe jahaan ke andhe raastein, jaaye to jaaye kahaan’ and ‘Tujhe apne paas bulati hai teri duniya’ from their ‘Patita’ were always on people’s lips.Though not so popular, we used to hum Talat’s ‘Hum unke paas aate hain, who humse door jaate hain’ and ‘Unhe bhool ja ae dil, tadapne si bhi kya haasil’ from Shankar-Jaikishan’s ‘Naya Ghar’. ‘Jaaye to jaaye kahaan, samajhega kaun yahaan dard bhare dil ki zubaan’ written by Sahir for Sachinda’s ‘Taxi Driver’, and ‘Jalte hain jiske liye teri aankhon ke diye’, written by Majrooh for his ‘Sujata’ achieved such phenomenal popularity that even today Talat’s audiences do not feel that they have really heard him sing till they hear these two songs. However my desire to hear ‘Jo kisi ki khatir behta hai who aansoo moti hota hai’ from ‘Ek Nazar’, ‘Doob gaye aakash ke tare, jaake tum na aaye’ from ‘Angarein’, ‘Naazon ke pale himmat na haar jana’ from ‘Bahar’, all Sachinda’s compositions, remained unfulfilled…
As compared to his contemporaries, Talat sang far fewer songs.Others sang thousands of songs, Talat must have sung barely six to seven hundred. 100-125 of those entered the hearts of ordinary listeners, and the rest have been lovingly cherished by many, many fans in their hearts and minds.Others sang thousands of trashy songs.It is doubtful if Talat’s trashy songs number even 20-25.Even those he’d sung at the fag end of his career as a compromise.Talat had come to playback singing via ghazals and so was well aware of the weightage of words and the importance of poetry. Unless a song had a minimum poetic standard Talat would not consent to sing it.
In order to convince him to sing a song, music directors would tell him, “It’s a very good song.I’ve reserved it especially for you.” As a consequence many wonderful songs by Shakeel, Shailendra, Majrooh, jan Nisar Akhta, Sahir came to him. Talat poured his heart into Sahir’s ghazals like ‘Pyar par bas to nahin hai’ from ‘Sone Ki Chidiya’ set to music by O.P.Nayyar, and ‘Ashqon mein jo paayaa hai wo geeton mein diya hai’ from ‘Chandi Ki Deewar’ composed by N.Dutta. While in college it used to give me great joy to hum Sahir’s ‘Mere nagmon mein un mastana aankhon ki kahani hai’ and ‘Khada hoon der se ummeedvar dekh to le’, both songs written in ghazal style, sung by Talat for Shyamsundar’s ‘Alif Laila’. Talat’s ‘Subah ka intezar kaun kare’ from Jaidev’s ‘Joru Ka Bhai’ was also penned by Sahir. Talat’s touching ‘Dekh li teri khudai, bas mera jee bhar gaya’ from Jaidev’s ‘Kinare Kinare’ was written by Nyay Sharma. And his heart-rending song from Roshan’s ‘Gunaah’ written by Kidar Sharma:
‘Mere khayalon mein aake gale laga jaa mujhe
Ki aaj phir mera jee chahta hai rone ko…’
8
I was extremely disturbed the day Mukesh suddenly passed away.Seeing Raj Kapoor pay homage to him on Doordarshan brought a;lump to my throat. In a fit of emotion Raj remembered this song of Talat’’s and exclaimed:
‘Thaka hua hai musafir, sawaal hai daata
Kafan dila de mujhe mooh dhapne ko, sone ko…’
He’d cried when Shailendra had died, he’d been unable to hold back his tears when Jaikishen had passed beyond the veil.Now he felt like crying for Mukesh.Was it Talat singing in his mind? ‘Ki aaj phir mera jee chahta hair one ko…’
Talat sang many soulful songs of lesser-known lyricists for lesser known music directors. When I’d first heard Vinod’s ‘Jab kisi ke rukh pe zulfein aake lehraney lagi, hasratein uth-uthke armaanon se takraane lagi’ from ‘Anmol Ratan’ in Talat’s fresh, youthful voice, I was bowled over.Similarly with ‘Ho gaye barbad hum, unki khushi to ho gayee…’ – Talat’s song of unrequited love from ‘Kamini’.It is said that the luckless Vinod, despite recording Talat’s song for ‘Anmol Ratan’ earlier, was denied the credit for giving Talat his first film song as Anilda’s ‘Arzoo’ was released first.
I still remember the songs Talat sang for Khayyam like ‘Gar teri nawazish ho jaye’ from ‘Gulbahar’ and ‘Aana hi padega, sar ishq ke kadmon pe zukaana hi padega’ from ‘Lala Rukh’.The ears still resonate with his ‘Aaye bhi akela, jaaye bhi akela, do din ki zindagi hai, do din ka mela…’ from Hansraj Behl’s ‘Dost’.Sometimes I’m suddenly reminded of ‘Tera khayal dil ko staye to kya karein..’from Pt.Govindram’s ‘Naqab’. Husnlal-Bhagatram, who had got Rafi to sing songs like ‘Ek dil ke tukde hazaar hue, koi yahan gira, koi wahan gira…’, and ‘Mohabbat ke dhoke mein koi na aaye, yeh ek din hasaye to sau din rulaye’, also gotTalat to sing tragic songs. But Talat, while singing ‘ Ae meri zindagi tujhe dhoondoo kahan, na to milke gaye, nahi chhoda nishan…’ in Adl-e-Jahangir’, and ‘Mohabbat ki hum chot khaaye hue hain, kisi bewafa ke sataye hue hain…’ in ‘Farmaish’, did not sob like Rafi.He simply sang in his melancholy tone. I could never forget even while watching Allah Rakha’s fingers dance on the tabla as Ravi Shankar played the sitar, that this was my beloved music director A.R.Qureshi who’d got Durrani to sing ‘Ni sag a ma pa haye Ramji, pa ma ga re sa’ in Sabak.Then how could I forget Talat’s ‘Tumko fursat ho meri jaan to idhar dekh to lo’, ‘Dil matwala, lakh sambhala, phir bhi kisi pea a hi gaya’ and ‘Tu aaye na aaye teri khushi, hum aas lagaye baithe hain’, each better than the last, from ‘Bewafa’?
Ram Ganguly, who’d scored the music for Raj Kapoor’s ‘Aag’, could not resist using Talat’s voice for ‘Gavaiya’. All the songs from that film had cast a spell – ‘Aaj mera amn been bajaye’, ‘Teri yaad ka Deepak jalta hai din-raat mere veeraane mein’, and that anguished cry of a broken heart – ‘Aise toote taar ki mere geet adhoore reh gaye…aisa toota dil ke tukde aansoo banker reh gaye…’. ‘Teri yaad ka deepak jalta hai’ had been sung by Surendra as well. I’d imagined that Talat’s ‘Sundarta ke sabhi shikari, koi nahin hai poojari’ from Bulo C.Rani’s ‘Jogan’ would be picturised on Dilip Kumar.It wasn’t but as it was used at the right spot in the film, it was still appreciated.Was talat’s ‘Ae jazb-e-ishq tera kab aitbaar aaye’ from Bulo C.Rani’s ‘Haseena’ ? K.Dutta’s ‘Khata kyat hi hamari’ and ‘Wohi chandni hai’ from ‘Rishta’, and Robin Chatterjee’s ‘Agar dil ke taaron pe chhed sakta from ‘Ratnadeep’ are now but vague memories.Despite wanting to hear them again and again I’ve never been able to do so. The same is the case with Jamal Sen’s songs from ‘Daayra’. I can faintly remember Talat’s ‘Aansoo to nahin hain ankhon mein’. Hafiz Khan’s songs from ‘Mera Salaam’, sung by Talat, had mesmerised me – ‘Salaam tujhko ai duniya, ab aakhri hai salaam’, and ‘Har sham sham-e-gham hai, har raat hai andheri…’. I still feel like humming his song from ‘Meherbaan’ – ‘Mitne de meri zindagi, apna jahaan banaye ja…’
Though Lata had also sung ‘Sab kuch lutake hosh mein aaye to kya kiya’ in Ravi’s ‘Ek Saal’, that song has become synonymous with Talat. Though Talat was not really a singer of light songs, one’s mind does start to dance while listening to him sing ‘Ek do teen char paanch, naach mere man naach, khushi se naach’ from Shivram’s ‘Teen Batti Char Rasta’; sways to lines like ‘Mere ghar mein aaogi tum ek din banke pyari dulhaniya, tumhare charanon mein rakh doonga hanske apni saari duniya’. Many a Talat song has left its indelible impress on my mind. ‘Jab chhaye kabhi sawan ki ghata, ro-ro ke na karna yaad mujhe’, ‘Chand mera badalon mein kho gaya, meri duniya mein andhera ho gaya’ from Fakir Mohammad-Asar’s ‘Pathan’, ‘Jeeunga jab talak tere fasane yaad aayenge’ from ‘Manhar’s ‘Chingari’, ‘Aa teri tasveer bana loon main, apni taqdeer bana loon…’ from ChicChocolate’s ‘Naadan’. Naashad later went to Pakistan, but before going gave Talat the lustrous ‘Tasveer banata hoon, tasveer nahi banti…’ in ‘Baradari’. Nakshab, the lyricist who’d written Lata’s ‘Aayega aanewala’, had produced a film named ‘Nagma’.In that film Nashaad made Talat sing in his ghazal voice: ‘O teer chalanewale, zara aa samne aakar teer chala…’Nakshab,too, went to Pakistan, and later passed away.I can’t remember if Nashaad’s film ‘ Char Chand’ was released or not, but Talat’s ‘ Hai ye wohi aasman, aur hai wohi zameen, par meri taqdeer ka ab who zamana nahin…’ from that film was to resonate for many years in India.
9.
I’d never dreamt that a time would come when Talat would have to sing ‘‘ Hai ye wohi aasman, aur hai wohi zameen, par meri taqdeer ka ab who zamana nahin…’ for the rest of his life. What happened was like a nightmare. Those were the final days of our college life. It was reported that Talat would henceforth not do playback; he’d decided to act in films and sing only for himself. It was an inauspicious evening when we heard the news; everyone was distraught. Each person’s annoyance and displeasure at Talat was in direct proportion to the love he bore him. It did not need a soothsayer to predict that Talat would not last long as an actor, for we’d seen his films. God had gifted him a sweet voice and good looks but not histrionic skills.Once upon a time anyone with reasonable looks and a pleasant voice would do as an actor. Once the age of playback singing dawned, acting and singing separated. A good actor no longer needed to sing, and a good singer did not need to act. From then on, actors rarely insisted on singing their own songs.
Playback singers, though, could not bring themselves to give up the desire to become actors. Saigal was their ideal. In their hearts they wished to be actor-singers like him. Talat was no exception. He’d had a hearty laugh at himself once, while describing to me his travails when he’d acted for the first time in 1945 in the film “Rajlakshmi’ in Calcutta. He’d played the role of a sadhu, false beard and all, and sung ‘ Jaago musafir jaago, kholo man ka dwaar’. At around the same time, in Calcutta, he’d played the role of the hero in the film ‘ Samapti’ opposite Bharati Devi and had sung duets like ‘Mujhko apna banaya kisne’ with Suprabha Sarkar; but that film flopped. The failure of ‘Samapti’ did not dampen his enthusiasm to become a singing star.After gaining popularity in Mumbai as a playback singer he started appearing on screen again. We first saw him on screen in ‘Dil-e-Nadan’. To see him on screen was a novelty, an attraction in itself, and besides, the songs in that film so entranced us that no one paid any real attention to his acting. Later, I saw Talat in ‘Dak Babu’, ‘Waris’, etc. Suraiya was the heroine of Waris’ and Anilda’s songs were very nice. So long as Talat was singing plentifully for himself and others and satisfying, soothing our ears and minds, we did not bother overmuch about his acting. However, on reading that he would now only sing for himself, we were saddened. All of us felt that he was wilfully destroying himself.
C.H.Atma, who’d become famous after singing ‘Preetam aan milo’ and ‘Roun main sagar ke kinare’, tried to become a singer-actor like Saigal, and, to that end, acted in films like ‘Bhaisahab’, ‘Bilwamangal’, etc. The outcome was that he fell behind in the race as a playback singer and was finished.We hadn’t forgotten Mukesh’s condition as a playback singer at the time of ‘Mashooqua’ when he, like Talat, had tried to become an actor. If Raj Kapoor hadn’t saved him with ‘Mera joota hai japani’ he too would have been flung into the darkness. Not everyone has such good fortune.Talat certainly didn’t.
On the one hand the rumour that Talat wouldn’t sing for other actors spread like wildfire, on the other, he kept failing as an actor in ‘Diwali Ki Raat’, ‘Raftaar’, ‘Ek Gaon Ki Kahani’, ‘Maalik’, ‘Sone Ki Chidiya’, etc. People stopped approaching him for playback singing. He kept saying that he was prepared to sing for all actors, but no one was prepared to listen. He was as good as out of the film world – as an actor as well as a playback singer. He was lost, rudderless, he couldn’t understand what to do, where to go.’Andhe jahaan ke andhe raaste, jaaye to jaaye kahaan…’! As Talat’s new songs became rarer, we became more and more upset.We kept saying that Dilip Kumar should save Talat as Raj Kapoor had saved Mukesh, and started blaming Dilip Kumar for Talat’s travails.
But the times were changing, the world was changing.The music directors of Talat’s era were falling behind. Healthy competition had given way to dirty politics. Groupism was rampant. The golden age of Indian music in Hindi films had drawn to a close and its place had been taken by Western music. Soft, sweet notes had faded into oblivion, only to be replaced by fast-paced rhythms. Saxophones, banjos, accordions and guitars were the sounds of the moment. As basris and sitars fell by the wayside, so did Talat’s sweet voice. What was left for him was melancholy evensong…the despondency of ‘Phir wohi sham, wohi gham, wohi tanhai hai…’ from Madan Mohan’s ‘Jahanara’…After that, for a long time, Talat and Rafi were to sing Jan Nisar Akhtar’s duet from ‘Susheela’:
“Gam ki andheri raat mein dil ko na beqaraar kar
subah zaroor aayegi, subah ka intezaar kar…”
For Talat that longed-for morn never dawned, and soon Rafi, too, was lost in darkness…
10.
When Talat had started singing we’d gathered from far and wide to hear him. As his singing drew to a close, we started to disperse. By the time Talat left us for good, all of us had dispersed in all directions. We were of different faiths, different castes. Yet our religion, our caste was Talat. I can still remember Pandit Pawar singing Talat’s ‘Ae chand sitaron so jao, so jao, so jao…’ late one night as clearly as if it happened yesterday. Mehboob who used to sing ‘Gam-e-zindagi ka ya rab, na mila koi sahara’ – where is he today? One evening when Vijay Singh suddenly turned up on my doorstep, I could hardly recognise him. He had aged a lot, was white-haired. He was the Talat Mahmood of our school. To keep his Muslim friends company, this Rajput boy had given up Sanskrit and taken Persian instead. He brought up memories of ‘Usmania’, ‘Jikriya’ and of Talat-loving friends. “Do you remember Badshah? He’s an engine driver now. Uddhav used to drive a truck for a while. He used to sing ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi’ exactly like Talat, didn’t he?And Bakshu?”
…Memories made my mind emotional. A friend had written in a letter once: “ Have you forgotten Talat?Do you remember ‘Tera khayal dil se mitaya nahi abhi’? “ “Sing ‘Tera khayal dil se mitaya nahi abhi’”, I said to Vijay Singh. He laughed and said, “My voice is no longer what it used to be.Still, if you insist I’ll sing.” He shut his eyes and started singing. Twenty-four years ago his face had the same expression while singing Talat’s song, the same notes emanated from his throat:
“Gardan ko aaj bhi teri baahon ki yaad hai
chaukhat se teri sar ko uthaya nahi abhi…”
His throat still remembered Talat’s voice, Talat’s notes. ‘Badal jaaye duniya, na badlenge hum, tumhari kasam’ – Talat was not the only one to have sworn that. Who says we’ve forgotten Talat? How could we forget him? So much of life, said and unsaid, written and unwritten is bound up with Talat. Jan Nisar Akhtar may have left us but we haven’t forgotten his song which Talat sang :
“Kaun kehta hai tujhe maine bhula rakha hai
Teri yaadon ko kaleje se laga rakha hai…”
