Extend that Madhubala-in-Yaman moment to Jaane waale se, as tuned for Lata Mangeshkar by Naushad in Amar. Do you prefer Madhubala as Anju here, or do you, in the same Amar, flip for the sexy Nimmi (as Sonia) in the Lata-naushad Yaman gem: Na miltaa gham toh? So ravishing Does Nimmi look ravishing here? After being ravished in the film by a Dilip Kumar symbolising Amar? During that stormy night so evocatively picturised by Mehboob Khan? Over to Madhubala immortalising Anarkali in Mughal-e-Azam. In Yaman, here, do you instinctively picture Madhubala as a Lata Naushad combo via Shakeel's Khuda nigehbaan ho tumhaaraa. But tarry till K Asif's Mughal-e-Azam completes its diamond jubilee at Maratha Mandir. Matching tunes So as to be able to view the film afresh, as Naushad brings Madhubala to you in a neoYaman. Through that Lata nugget going as Humein kaash tum se mohabbat naa hotee.

Has Rafi's voice Yaman-matched Lata's in extolling the beauty of a star other than Madhubala? It has - on a Rajendra Kumar urging Sadhana to awaken to the Shakeel Naushadian spell of Ae husn zaraa jaag. A vision verily does Sadhana look here, as captured by G Singh's comely camera in Mere Mehboob. Serene charm Meena Kumari, too, was photographing as looking beautiful right up to 1961 in Bhabhi ki Chudiyan. Coming through as personable indeed in Lata tones of Lau lagaati geet gaati. This is the style of Yaman you almost anticipated from Sudhir Phadke, seeing how this raag was that composer's staple.

Returning to Meena Kumari, she might have shed her looks by the time it came to her materialising as Pakeezah. Yet there's a serene Yaman charm about the way Mausam hai aashiqaanaa unfolds on Meena as Pakeezah, as Lata's vocals move fluidly into 1972.

WhosaysMadanMohanwasallghazal?Not for nothing did Lata latch on to this mauseeqaar's mauseeqaar after Roshan! Remember how featherweight was Madan's Yaman, in Bahana,onaMeenaKumariLata-lip-synching Jaa re badraa bairee jaa re jaa re? More gems Gopal Sharma on Radio Ceylon, without knowing it to be Yaman, kept playing Jaa re badraa bairee. Making it a Lata part of our Yaman mindset. Play it again, Gopal! Sulakshana Pandit was a looker. In some Yaman voice did Khayyam capture Sulakshana in his Sandhya classic , Ang ang rang.

So beauteous did Sulakshana sound here that we thought it to be the lady herself lilting the number as a Sandhya singing-star! No way. Ang ang was picturised on one Nargis Banu, just no one knows what happened to this 1975 Khayyam film. Yet forever Yaman does Khayyam make Sulakshana sound here.

He was the Nawab of all he surveyed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, September 22, 2001

THE 2000 C. K. Nayudu Award to Subhash Gupte and The 2001 to Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi - a reminder of the Pearson Surita punchline: "Should we not be calling him The Nawab of Padaudi?" Tiger Pataudi, the way he confronted quality spin (pads on with his cap tilted at a rakish Nawabi angle) always made you wonder what would have happened if B.S. Chandrasekhar had not been bowling for his own South Zone and India. Still India's gut problem then was tackling pace. And, here, no Indian of his era was quite Tiger Pataudi's match in meeting fire with fire. As the first one to bring `style' to Indian batsmanship and captaincy alike, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi was the Nawab of all he surveyed. Beauty Queen Naseem's daughter, Saira Banu (I noticed when on my studio beat), came to be rather fancied by Tiger. But the Tagore in Sharmila had other ideas. The seven letters of Pataudi just dovetailed into the seven letters of Glamour. And the Sharmila Tagore connection imparted further charisma to the Pataudi aura.

As a swinging pair the two, to this day, come across among India's glitterati. How does the C. K. Nayudu Award, then, enhance Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi's stature? It burnishes his image in the sense that it fleshes out the Junior Pataudi as a cricketperson first and a social celebrity after. Tiger it was who brought the Indian cricket team out of its slavish British fixation, a fixation abiding in the 1960s. Tiger inspirationally let it be known that each member of the Indian team simply had to learn to stand shoulder to shoulder when face to face with the white man on the field of play. Tiger's being in no way awed by the white-skinned opponent helped cut the Gordian knot of the Indian team's facing the `Englishman to man".

Maybe it was under Nari Contractor that India won its maiden Test series (1961-62) against England (led by Ted Dexter). But it was Tiger Pataudi's 64 and 32 in the December-January 1961-62 Eden Gardens Test, followed by his classic 103 (just 155 minutes) on the opening day of the Corporation Stadium Test, that helped India clinch that breakthrough series 2-0. As we won the final Madras Test by 128 runs, AIR, startlingly, departed from norm to lead its 2.00 p.m. national news bulletin with India's 2-0 victory feat! That 103 signalled Tiger's best as yet to come. The discerning, since, must find it difficult to envision, as Tiger's career best, anything but Pataudi's December-January 1967-68 Melbourne Test 75 and 85 (on one leg with one eye in his very first appearance for India in Australia).

That 75 and 85 underscored the fact that Tiger reserved his finest, for India, on the more testing pitches abroad. Indeed, that Melbourne star-turn came close on the heels of Tiger's rousingly striking 64 and 148 in the June 1967 Leeds Test, after Brian Close's England had run up a total of 550 for 4 (decl). Actually, Tiger valued the runs he hit on sleeping-beauty Indian pitches so much and no more. This should be manifest from his written noting: "I got 200-odd (against Mike Smith's team) in the (February 1964) fourth Test at Delhi, which wasn't a great innings. My first 90-odd runs were helpful, because they came at a time when India was trying to save the match. The remainder (up to 203 not out) had no bearing on the result."

From Prasanna to Bedi to Chandra, each one of our spin trio felt comfortable only in the captaincy custody of Pataudi. Prasanna talks eloquently of times when, after bowling his first ball, he would turn to Tiger for a field-placement change. Only to discover Pat to be, already, in the process of moving the man to the exact position he wanted! Yet the Vijay Merchant die-casting vote, lop-sidedly, turned the spotlight on India's 17 Test losses rather than 7 wins (up to 1969-70) under Tiger Pataudi. After Merchant moved on, upon Pataudi's comeback as India's captain for the 1974-75 series at home, our spin trio's viewpoint came into perspective. In an incredible rearguard, India (after being beaten black and blue in the first two Tests by the West Indies), turned the tables on Clive Lloyd and his men with a vengeance by spinning back the series 2-2.

The tragedy of being Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi is that, even as these his Eden-Chepauk Sourav-vein Test wins softened the blow of that no-confidence motion carried against him by Vijay Merchant, Tiger himself was no longer up to it with the bat. Scores of 22 at Bangalore; 36 and 8 at Calcutta; 6 and 4 at Madras; 9 (at no.9) and 9 at Mumbai certainly dimmed Tiger Pataudi's lustre as India's welcome-back captain. Whereupon Tiger opted out of the game itself without fuss or fanfare. Tiger's pithy point - if he was no longer good enough to address the thunderbolts of Andy Roberts on Indian wickets, there was no sense in lingering for the tour of the West Indies on the anvil. If only - after having condescended to play under Ajit Wadekar starting with the January 1973 third Test at Chepauk in which he hit that super 73 - Tiger Pataudi had chosen to tour England in 1974! But it was one thing, I suppose, for Pataudi to play under commoner Wadekar in India, another in England. Remember, in Britain, `The Noob" was still viewed as a ruling prince!

Where Papa Pataudi came to captain India only when past his prime, the Tiger cub took charge in the shadow cast, across the Caribbean playing arena, by Nari Contractor's traumatising head injury. Maybe it still needed Chairman M.Dutta-Ray's casting vote (midway through the 1963-64 series at home against Mike Smith's England) for Tiger Pataudi to seize the reins for keeps. For certain other selectors, while confirming Pataudi as ad-hoc captain up to the third Test at Calcutta (after his scores, for India, of 0 and 18; 10 and 0, at Madras and Bombay), had counselled: "Will you have your eye checked, because we are not sure you can see so well!" Five-and-a-half years after that, as Tiger was viewed to be slow to sight two possible catches in his pet cover-point region (during the September 1969 first Test at the Brabourne Stadium vs Graham Dowling's New Zealand), similar doubts were re-raised about the man's vision. But the Dilip Vengsarkar manner in which Tiger proceeded to `fix" two skyscraper catches (Ken Wadsworth and Dayle Hadlee), on the long- on boundary-line right under Vijay Merchant's chairmanly nose, laid that bogey momentarily to rest.

Indeed the same Vijay Merchant had, at one time, sought to focus on how much Tiger could have accomplished with both eyes! Chandu Borde (Tiger's peer in playing pace until the 1967 tour of England) came up with something `revealing', in this light, the other day. "Raju," said Chandu, "do you really believe that the Nawab couldn't see at all with his right eye? I say he could see just enough with it to get to terms with John Snow at his sharpest! Ask me who faced Roy Gilchrist and Wesley Hall at their fastest. I say it's impossible to bat without any vision at all in your right eye. The Nawab was a great one for pulling wool over our eyes. He could see the movement of the ball just enough, with his right eye, to fix it with his left!" Well, Tiger himself looks the problem in the eye as he writes: "So we batted and, for my own moment of trial, I decided to wear a contact lens in my right eye. To my discomfort, I found I was seeing two balls - six to seven inches apart. By picking the inner one, I managed to score 35 runs before tea. Then I removed the contact lens and, keeping the bad eye closed, completed a top score of 70. (Soon) I found that the best way to play was to pull the peak of my cap right over my right eye - to eliminate the blurred double image I otherwise saw. I did consider wearing a pirate's patch to cut out the right eye altogether. But this would have stopped all light from coming in - and a little light is helpful to my good eye.

"There you have the angle from which freshly to view Chandu Borde's rider to Vijay Merchant's theory on Tiger's range of vision! If, given such limited vision, Tiger Pataudi could score 2793 runs in 46 Tests from 83 innings (ave.34.91 - 6 hundreds, 16 fifties), would he not have hit many, many more runs for India minus his right-eye blockade? I wouldn't know, for I found our Tiger skipper to be a `visionary' at all times. Who knows, maybe Tiger emerged as the extraordinary batsman he did only because he developed that ball-sighting problem. With both eyes open, Tiger could well have been the kind of laidback performer easily bored by the runs he was slamming.

Short point - the Junior Nawab of Pataudi lives for the day, not the morrow. And that is where Tiger Pataudi and Vijay Merchant failed to see eye to eye. Tiger liked to see the ball land on the sightscreen no less than he loved to watch Sharmila play-act on the silver screen. The romantic Sharmila link, is that what has seen Tiger's magnetism endure? The fact that Vijay Merchant's soft-spoken wife, Prabha, did not talk to the Chairman of Selectors for a week after the casting vote (seeing how, overnight, it had snapped her Sharmila line) is a pointer to how Tiger chose the right girl (as the right ball) to hook. C. K. Nayudu it was who had backed the Senior Nawab of Pataudi (as captain for India's 1946 tour of England) against Vijay Merchant! Now the C. K. Nayudu Award to the Junior Nawab of Pataudi sets the seal on Tiger as one who, in his own words, always wanted to win "within the written laws of the game and the unwritten laws of sportsmanship". As the Junior Nawab tellingly observed: "Cricket is a hard game - to be played by men using a hard ball. But it is only a game, not war."

It is war today and that is why you no longer see the peaceable Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi in the commentators' box.

Tiger belongs to the `amateur" tradition symbolised by C. K. Nayudu. Yet this C. K. award is but another passing happening in Pat's life and times. "I have," as Tiger underlines, "always made it a point never to betray emotion on the cricket field, nor in public life." Philosophically therefore did Tiger accept the fact that he lost his stranglehold on the Indian captaincy in the very glamour hour in which Sharmila Tagore went upstage to receive her Filmfare Best Actress award for `Aradhana'.

RAJU BHARATAN

Only the best preferred

A study of the history of the Hindi film music industry reveals that in the golden era (1940s and 1950s) so much talent was available that music composers tried different singers for various stars. Once the system settled down, certain groups emerged and survived for years, observes

V. GANGADHAR.

God created music ... Yes.God created the Mangeshkars ... Okay.God created Monopoly ... Did He?

I AM also not sure about the third answer. But many people who follow Hindi film music, associate not God but the Mangeshkars, particularly Lata and Asha (Bhosle) as the creators of Monopoly. Experts in the field had argued eloquently and also written books on how Lata and to a lesser extent, Asha, through their machinations, had kept down rival talent and played havoc with the careers of budding singers.

But several keen followers of the music industry denied the allegations against the Mangeshkar sisters. They did not want to be quoted. ``This controversy is dead, so why start it all over again'' asked a well- known music director from the past. ``In every field, the best are preferred. It was the same with Hindi film music,'' he explained.

Yes, monopoly in the world of film music did exist in the past. But it did not apply only to the Mangeshkars. From the 1950s to the mid-80s, Lata Mangeshkar and then Asha Bhosle cornered most of the songs tuned in by talented music directors. At the same time, can we deny that the 1960s saw the total domination of Mohammed Rafi among the male voices and that he sang for practically every hero, from Mahipal to Shammi Kapoor? The same Rafi was subsequently eclipsed by Kishore Kumar. After the resounding success of ``Aradhana'', Kishore enjoyed a golden period which was even longer than that of Rafi. And if we consider music directors, did not Shankar-Jaikishan have a tremendous streak during the 1960s? They provided music to an astounding 25 top films from 1960-65.

Yet no one talked of the Rafi, Kishore or Shankar-Jaikishan monopoly. Why then single out the Mangeshkar monopoly? The Mangeshkars are still alive and they have had the longest tenure in the world of film music. When a singer or music director passed away, details and controversies of his career were buried along with him.

A study of the history of Hindi film music industry tells us that in the golden era, between the late 1940s and 1950s, so much talent was available that music directors experimented with different singers for different stars. Thus, even Mukesh sang for Dev Anand (``Vidya''), Rafi for Raj Kapoor (``Dastaan'') and even Kishore Kumar for Raj (``Pyar''). Once the system settled down, certain groups emerged which survived for years. Naushad saab always chose Rafi for Dilip Kumar, Mukesh was the natural playback for Raj Kapoor with Shankar-Jaikishan as music directors while S. D. Burman preferred Hemant Kumar and then Kishore Kumar for Dev Anand. Sometimes, there were exceptions, when Talat Mahmood sang several memorable songs for Dilip Kumar (``Daag'', ``Babul'', ``Sangdil'' and ``Tarana''). Manna Dey did the same for Raj Kapoor.

There was less competition among women singers and Lata asserted her superiority. A singer herself, actress Suraiya preferred Lata to sing for her. Shamshad Begum's slightly harsh voice did not suit the emerging soft heroines, Geeta Dutt had to contend with personal problems. Other singers in the field like Kamal Barot, Sudha Malhotra, Meena Kapur and Suman Kalyanpur were no match for the Mangeshkars. In the era of golden compositions, the music directors and audiences wanted only Lata. It was not monopoly, but the need of the hour.

Monopoly, in the field of music, is a harsh term. It implies ruthlessness, putting down rivals in the field. While the media speculated on the issue, there had never been clear proof of Lata and later Asha, being guilty of doing this. Observed one of the new wave music directors, ``Even today, given the choice, we will run after Lata didi. Do you know that in the past, some of the music directors wanted Lataji to sing for them so much, they shelled out some extra cash from their own pockets, if the producer was not able to afford her rates?''

The music world was unanimous that the other singers were not a patch on Lata and Asha. ``Vani Jairam had a heavy voice with poor diction. Runa Laila was too modern, Usha Mangeshkar had no voice to speak of. Suman Kalyanpur came closest to Lata in voice and range but lacked staying power. That was why she was called the poor man's Lata'', explained a producer who had a string of musical hits.

While talking about the Mangeshkar monopoly, we should also remember that the rival singers were often the choice of music directors who were not in the top bracket. Vani often sang for Vasant Desai and occasionally for Ravi Shankar, who were not in the rat race. Runa Laila, Sulakshana Pandit, Kanchan, Hemlata, Indrani Mukherjee and others were chosen by music director who really did not count for much in Bollywood.

How true was the allegation that Lata was not grateful enough to producers and composers who built up her career? Some of her immortal numbers were no doubt composed by Shankar-Jaikishan who, however, dug their own grave when they opted for Sharada over Lata. Then Jaikishan who was clearly not happy with the choice died. Shankar lost his direction and blamed Lata for this decline. This was not justified. Similarly, Raj Kapoor thought he could get along without Lata, who was a lucky mascot for RK films. Came ``Mera Naam Joker'' without Lata and it sank without a trace. Raj saab quickly got back to Lata.

If the Mangeshkar monopoly, throttled talent in Hindi films, how did one explain the success of music director Ravi, who while scoring music for B. R. Chopra films, preferred Asha? Or take the success of the inimitable O. P. Nayyar who, without ever using Lata, scored dozens of hits in the 1960s? We cannot deny that Lata split with C. Ramachandra and later with S. D. Burman on personal issues. But such splits were common in the high profile Hindi film industry and Lata and Dada Burman quickly made up.

Today, no one mentions monopoly in the world of film music. It is open to anyone. Any song can be sung by anyone. The heroines do not have their own favourite singers. If Alka Yagnik were not available, the songs went to Kavita Krishnamoorthy and it went the other way too. But music directors would be happier if they had Lata or Asha sing their classical numbers. Thus Lata-Asha sang for ``Utsav'' and ``Lekin''. Asha had the best numbers in ``Umrao Jaan''. Who can forget the soft, sweet numbers sung by Lata in films like ``Henna'' and ``Nachhe Mayuri''?

As far as Lata is concerned, the argument that any singer could sing any song did not work. Alka Yagnik was chosen to replace Lata who was too ill to sing a particular soft number in ``Prem Granth''. The song did not click. Most music lovers firmly believed that no singer (new or old) could sing numbers like ``Ayega Aanewala'', ``Tandi Hawaiyaeen'' or ``Aaje Re Pardesi'' immortalised by Lata. Have Alka and Kavita sung numbers which we feel could not be sung by anyone else? This is the test of a true singer. Anuradha Poduwal, with the help of the late Gulshan Kumar, re- recorded several Lata melodies, but the effect was not the same. Let us admit it, Lata was incomparable. She was so much better than her rivals that she did not need a monopoly.

4 Shah Rukh acters know you Bollywood's fere biggest hero. But whatever Shah Rukh does, he does to perfection. Everybody in the film industry thought he was putting his career at stake when he accepted Darr and Baazigar. But they were not villainous roles. They were more anti-hero parts. His ultimate evil role was in Anjaam. The only way you can sit through this DVD is by concentrating on the superb negative performance by Shah Rukh.

3 Jeevan: He transformed from Naradmuni to one of the silver screen's most feared villains. After that, it was difficult to cast Jeevan in a positive role. From the villain of Naya Daur to a man who sells his daughter in Giraftaar, Jeevan portrayed evil with aplomb. He was the Indian Freddy Krueger of A Nightmareon ELM street.

2 Pran: You want the ultimate symbol, the ultimate face, the ultimate eyes of a villain? Watch Pran in Ram Aur Shyam. His power in his decades of on-screen villainy was so great that no one in the country named their new-born ‘Pran'. He was a villain among villains.

But even he was superseded. Take India's biggest blockbuster. Take the greatest Hindi film ever made… Take the biggest starcast ever assembled… Then take a raw newcomer standing alone in front of this mammoth starcast. Now give the credit of the success of the biggest blockbuster ever made to one man...

1 Gabbar Singh aka Amjad Khan: Never before in the history of Hindi cinema had audiences flocked to a Movie to cheer the villain. The most imitated line, which even people who haven't seen the film recite, is ‘Are O Samba. kitne aadmi the'. Another gem of a portrayal that showcases the versatility of this late great actor in a negative role was in Inkaar. Amjad Khan was undoubtedly the greatest villain of Hindi Cinema of all time. VAMPS If men can be bad, so can women. I haven't rated my list of vamps according to their S** appeal but how well they embodied evil.

5 Nadira: She added oomph, class and poison to every role she essayed and was the Mata Hari of black and white cine ma. Nadira oozed deadly sensuality from her eyes alone. She put the audience in a confusing dilemma – to like her or the heroine of the film?

4 Aruna Irani: A great and versatile actress who took on diverse roles like the heroine, the item girl, the vamp and comic parts as well. But two of her performances put her on this list. One, in Qurbani (1980) and the other in Beta (1992). While in Qurbani she was the deadly villain's vixen sister, with high heels, a machine gun and green contact lenses, in Beta she gave an award-winning performance, which unfortunately won no awards, as the evil stepmother who pretends to be nice. The finest thing about this performance is that she did not scream, shout or ham as any other actress, given this role, would have done.

3 Bindu: You can't list vamps without mentioning Bindu. From cabaret dancer to villain's moll, she has done it all.

But I think one of her best performances as the ultimate vamp was for the Vinod Khanna starrer and college drama Imtihaan (1974). In it she accuses the professor of rape. Very few actresses could have pulled off such a role where the character has absolutely no morals and is proud of it.

2 Manorama: She was evil yet very funny. Her classic role was the malevolent aunt in Seeta Aur Geeta. She is not just the villain of the piece – she also has a hen-pecked husband. Since she had all the characteristics of a vamp ex cept the S** appeal, Manorama makes it to this list.

1 Lalita Pawar Alfred Hitchcock's classic Rebecca had a vamp who was the scariest character in the film. In the '60s, when Rebecca was remade in Hindi as Kohraa, Lalita Pawar reprised this character. The ef fect of her performance could be compared to the impact Gab bar Singh had in Sholay.Audi ences were shell-shocked. Oh, by the way, the same role was played in Hamesha (1996) by Aruna Irani.

MAUSAM HAI MUSICANA - Rebel without a pause


Raju Bharatan

This column's moving to Tuesday last week meant missing the Monday of O P Nayyar's first death anniversary. Trau matised had I felt on that January 28, 2007 upon hearing OP was no more. To have lost inside a year Nayyar and Naushad was a jolt from the blue.

"Hum ne Naushad ke bahut gaane churaaye," frankly acknowledged OP. With Naushad I temperamentally tuned, but friends often wondered how I drew close to OP, seeing we were souls apart. Candid confessions I admired OP for pulling no punches. Typically forthcoming was Nayyar in admitting that his 1956 C I D chartbuster picturised on Kum KumJohnny Walker, Yeh hai Bambai meree jaan, if a cult-song today, was then a straight lift of O my darling, o my darling, o my darling Clementine.

Who but this rebel composer would've candidly confessed that pathbreaker Anil Biswas and O P Nayyar chummed up, on Sa Re Ga Ma, to neutralise, on stage, Naushad's unique musical aura.

"Here in films, the enemy's enemy is your friend," chuckled OP, when I pointed to the irony of his openly siding with an Anil Biswas instrumental in halting Nayyar's recordings, following his 1954 Aar Paar breakthrough.

A breakthrough happening when Naushad was at his peak. OP cared neither for Naushad nor for Lata Mangeshkar. To the end, Lata hated OP's guts in projecting Asha Bhosle as a potential challenger. Face-off time The face-off began when Lata publicly refused to sing for Nayyar as he arrived with Aar Paar.

"But I never asked you to sing for me, madam," OP shot back in a rejoinder stunning the industry.

Yet, Lata but recently suggested to interviewer Ameen Sayani that Nayyar's pique arose from her spurning singing his Piyaa aan basey in his 1952 debut film, Asmaan. Whereupon I asked Nayyar: "Honestly, tell me, OP, did you phone Lata to sing Piyaa aan basey?"

"Never!" thundered OP. He even wanted me to carry a contradiction. Nayyar was in faraway Thane by then, it hurt like hell to view OP so reduced to PG digs.. after the way I'd seen Nayyar reign, alongside Shanker-Jaikishan, on the Marine Drive seafront.

If you encountered OP on a seaside-morning walk, he'd nod and pass, straight as a ramrod. Only to call later and explain he was as disciplined while walking as while recording. Getting even OP - if always soft-spoken with santoor wizard Shivkumar Sharma - never bowed to either sitar ace Raees Khan or flute virtuoso Hariprasad Chaurasia. "Piano pe gaana le lenge," he'd threaten. They fell into line, knowing OP could conjure a Puchchon na hamein in a trice via Asha. Nayyar initially handled even Asha strongly.

"Asha those days," explained OP, "lost vocal poise if the two sisters' common Prabhu Kunj maidservant reported didi as recording a wondrous number. At such times, I had to push Asha, reminding her that our sole aim was to get even with Lata."