Post - 1976 (where RD’s Mehbooba was the sole saving grace), RD could only give one score - Nasir Husain’s Hum Kisise Kum Naheen - of the calibre he possessed, his swan song 1942-A Love Story excepted. Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand and Shakti Samanta all came back to him, only to leave him again, thoroughly disappointed and disillusioned that the sensitive Pancham could never again work with them at the same ‘pitch’. After 1975, the number of truly memorable Kishore Kumar songs for RD can be counted practically on one’s finger tips : Mere naina saawan bhadon (Mehbooba), Aanewala pal (Gol Maal), Rimjhim gire saawan (Manzil), Hamein tumse pyar kitna (Kudrat), Kiski sada ayen mujhko bulaaye (Red Rose), Yeh vaada raha (Yeh Vaada Raha), Hamein aur jeene ki (Agar Tum Na Hote), Saagar kinare (Saagar), Kahin na jaa (Bade Dil Wala) and Jaane kis din kab kahan (Shakti). As can be seen, most of these songs were duets. LP, on the other hand, delivered success after success, and having warded off all challenges, helped Rafi back into the reckoning - as he suited their style more - with Manmohan Desai’s backing in 1977. But right till the end they were never really unfair to Kishore Kumar. ‘But Kishore Kumar would always complain that we never gave him our best songs,’ Laxmikant told me once. But the singing phenomenon never realized that LP had made him their prime weapon in upstaging Pancham, and in the process had demolished myths of Kishore’s narrow range, and given him and themselves some of their finest compositions. Compositions which included the not-so-popular classy (and classic) creations like their songs from Dost, Imtihan, Mile kahin do ajnabi (Manchali), Main aaya hoon leke saaz haathon mein (Amir Garib) Maine kuchh khoya hai (Mere Sajana), Yeh mausam aaya hai (Aakraman ) Tere baghair jaan-e-jaana (Anari), Har raat ek si hoti hai (Aadha Din Aadhi Raat), Aaja ho aaja ke mere dil ne tadap ke (Anurodh), Ek ritu aaye (Gautam Govinda) and Mere hosh le lo (Bandish) before they gradually sidelined the singer in the 80’s. Unlike RD, they neither were trapped in an image, nor did they allow the versatile Kishore to be tied down by a false image.

(source:Sajjad Qadar’s collections)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 30th, 2004 at 4:10 am and is filed under Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.