Husnlal Bhagatram....and The Rise Of Lata Mangeshkar Options

[Reeth]

There is an old adage that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration. No
matter how big a person grows, this saying comes true. Today Lata Mangeshkar rules the world.
Young music directors touch her feet. But there was a time when Lata was desperately looking for work
and a great discoverer of latent the Late Master Ghulam Haider gave her the break of her life.

Ghulam Haider introduced Lata to all the biggies of India’s film music direction including Anil Biswas,
Khem Chand Prakash and Sajjad. But Shyam Sunder composed some of the earliest masterpiece tunes
for her. It is true that none of the above mentioned music directors had the time to groom her as the
master of playback singing. She had a great base of classical music, but playback singing was a different
art and Lata needed to be groomed for its specific requirements.

Pandit HusnalalMy good friend Chiranjeev Singh, a retired Indian Administrative Service officer of the
Karnataka Cadre is an ardent and discriminating lover of all kinds of music. He is a great fan of music
directors Husnalal and Bhagatram, Sajjad and Anil Biswas. He has personally met Pandit Husnalal and
some members of his family. With Anil Biswas, Chiranjeev had several meetings, including one in which
I was also present. Since Anil Biswas and Pandit Husnalal were colleagues in Bombay, Anil Biswas could
offer a treasure house of information on both Husnalal and Lata Mangeshkar. S. Mohinder lives in Virginia,
he has been in touch with Pandit Husnalal Bhagatram. Late Sardul Kwatra was also an admirer of Pandit
Husnalal Bhagatram, his phone calls have also been a source of my information. Late Mohammad Rafi had
a lot of reverence for Pandit Husnalal. He himself admitted that whatever he is today, Pandit Husnalal has
a lot to do with it. I am composing this story based on my interaction with these personalities.

Mohammad Rafi admitted that he used to be called to the residence of Pandit Husnalal along with his
Tanpura sometimes at 4 in the morning. Pandit Husnalal will tell him “Alaap” of the Raga to be used in
the song. So obedient was Rafi that he would rehearse the raga for several hours before getting lessons
on the composed tune. Mohammad Rafi said even Lata Mangeshkar has undergone such intensive
training under the same music director, but the venue used to be not the home of Pandit Husnalal, but
the relevant sound recording studio.

In their first film “Chand”, Pandit Husnalal Bhagatram composed very good music and they used the voice
of technically superb Zeenat Begum. But Noorjehan had set the trend of singing in shrill voices and the
actresses started liking more feminine sounding voices. This virtually sealed the fate of singers like
Zohra Bai of Ambala, Sitara Devi of Kanpur and Lalita Dawoodkar and Zeenat.

Lata MangeshkarPandit Husnalal Bhagatram developed a liking for the highly emotional voice of Suraiya. Since they all came to Bombay from Lahore, they had a linguistic affinity too. Suraiya had no formal
training in classical music. That was a handicap. But she was a very hardworking character. Whenever
Pandit Husnalal composed a tune, Suraiya rehearsed it time and again till it neared perfection. Pandit
Husnalal and Bhagatram were perfectly at home with Suraiya’s final performances. Years 1949 and
1950 were the best professional years for Pandit Husnalal Bhagatram. In 1949 they had composed music
for ten films and most of the films were musically hit. In 1950, they created music for nine more films and most succeeded as fine musicals. In both these years the voices of choice were Suraiya and Lata Mangeshkar, with Geeta Roy as the third choice.

When Raj Kapoor hired the duo of Shanker Jaikishan to compose the music for his production “Barsaat”, Shanker Jaikishan tried to emulate the style of Husnalal Bhagatram. Most of the songs of “Barsaat”
became hit. For several more years Shanker Jaikishan worked under the shadow of Husnalal Bhagatram,
but eventually they developed their own style which later became highly successful. In some songs
even Vinod tried to copy the tunes of Husnalal Bhagatram.

SuraiyaLata Mangeshkar’s grasp over classical music was her rallying point. Lata’s vocal chords were in
fact more flexible and needed less tutoring. As the time passed Lata Mangeshkar, who was just a play-back
singer, started getting more songs. Suraiya being an actress singer naturally had lesser opportunities at
singing.

While rehearsing Pandit Husnalal will compose the tune on Harmonium and Lata will sing it. Violin played
by Pandit Husnalal himself was used for making the interludes more intricate and emotional. Pandit Husnalal
had developed an unconventional style of playing violin, which virtually died with him. Whenever Lata was
given a very emotional sad tune, Pandit Husnalal the maestro with a sobbing violin will match the melody
in the voice of Lata with his equally emotional rendition with violin. Such an intimate relationship between
the tutor and the taught created hundreds of memorable melodies for Hindi cinema.

As far as Mohammed Rafi was concerned, his training at Pandit Husnalal’s residence was totally
acceptable to the music director’s wife. But Lata’s rehearsals even at different recording studios became
a bone of contention. There is no doubt that Pandit Husnalal used to return home quite late at night,
primarily because he was extremely busy in tune-making and rehearsals. His wife resented his late
arrivals at home and that led to a lot of domestic tension.

As the years passed, pressed by the circumstances at home, Pandit Husnalal started keeping a distance
from Lata Mangeshkar. Lata did not expect this sudden change in Pandit Husnalal’s behaviour. Round
about in 1957, the relationship between the two got severely strained. By that time Lata’s stature had
grown into a superstar. She had perfected the art of playback singing. Every heroine wanted Lata to lend
her voice to the songs picturized over her. Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhonsle became the second and third
choices. The once powerful music directors started playing second fiddle to Lata. In fact Lata, during
the mid fifties and sixties, could make or break any music director, big or small.

The producers, financers and directors of the movies started getting the hint very quickly. They
started shunning Husnalal Bhagatram. The indifferent attitude of the film industry broke the heart of
Pandit Husnalal. This duo still had several years of great music in them, when Pandit Husnalal had to
pack up from Bombay and leave for Punjab and Delhi. Pandit Bhagatram stayed back in Bombay and
kept playing drum instruments in the orchestras of other, of course, junior music directors.
Pandit Husnalal started earning his livelihood by playing Violin and singing classical music at All India
Radio Delhi.Occasionally he used to sing complete Khayal also at different radio stations. After the unfortunate break-up with Lata Mangeshkar, Pandit Husnalal composed music for just one or two films.
The music composed was great, but there were no contracts forthcoming.

The tunes for the duo were most of the time composed by younger brother Pandit Husnalal. The older
brother Bhagatram provided mostly the beat only as a drummer (tabla player). As long as they were
together, there was complete unison between the two and their beat fascinated the lovers of good music.

On December 28, 1968, two years after his last film assignment and at a young age of 45 years, Pandit Husnalal died in New Delhi as a highly dejected man. Words can not describe how good a music composer he was. You have to listen especially to his sad music, which can drive you to tears. Poet Qamar Jalalabadi, hailing from village Jalalabad in Amritsar District composed most of the lyrics for Husnalal Bhagatram. Late singer Surinder Kaur, known as the nightingale of Punjab, called Pandit Husnalal as the soul of Punjab’s country-music. Pandit Bhagatram died five years later in 1973 in Bombay by and large un-honoured. Who can forget their soulful music in films like Chand, Pyar Ki Jeet, Balam, Bari Behan, Farmaish, Rakhi, Adhi Raat, Meena Bazaar, Afsana, Ansoo, Shama Parwana, Shaheed Bhagat Singh and Adle-Jehangir to name a few?.

We offer our salute to Pandit Husnalal’s genius. Unfortunately the HMV (one of the EMI group of
Companies), which possesses copy rights to the entire music of Pandit Husnalal Bhagatram, has not
done justice to this great duo. Hardly two cassettes of their music are available in the market. They
deserve a lot more. Some of their finest compositions are unavailable to the listeners. Efforts should
be made to locate their finest melodies and put these on CDs.


by Harjap Singh Aujla

[The author lives at 16 Junction Pond Lane, Monmouth Junction, New Jersey 08852 U.S.A.

[Harjinder]

Hi
Mr. Aujla has some articles on Punjabi music directors and singers like Sardul Kwatra, S. Mohinder, and others on APNA website.His observatons and insights based on personal interactions with those musicians offer information that is otherwise unavailable. I can think of one Punjabi singer Shaminder Singh Chahal who sang a few songs in Punjabi movies in the 1950's. I have not found any information on Shaminder in Wikipedia or anywhere else. What I know about him is from one of the the articles that Mr. Aujla wrote. It is indeed nice to seet this article by him on Hamara Forums. Harjinder