O P Nayyar, R D Burman and A R Rahman!

Posted by silkboard

September 20th, 2006

A music connoisseur remembers

By Asif Noorani

The one singer in whose voice O.P. Nayyar would have loved to record his compositions was Noor Jehan. When he made his debut in Mumbai, she was in Lahore. ‘She used to sing with full-throated ease,’ he said of the Malika-i-Tarannum

A couple of decades ago, I played O.P. Nayyar’s songs to pop singer Junaid Jamshed when the band Vital Signs had just made its debut. Junaid was swept off his feet. “This is the music of our times,” he enthused, to which I responded, “I think his music has a timeless appeal. It was trendy yesterday, it is so today and it will remain so for years to come.” I was proved correct the other day when I saw a four-year-old tapping his feet to the pulsating rhythm of the Asha-Rafi duet from the film Naya Daur, Mang ke saath tumhara, Mein ne mang liya sansar.

Yet it was surprising to see that after enjoying two-and-a-half decades of immense popularity, Nayyar went into disfavour with producers. They said he had lost his touch. That may or may not have been true, but he had certainly lost two of his best singers: Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhonsle. “The biggest mistake that I committed in my professional life was to quarrel with Rafi just because he came a couple of hours late for my recording. He was the greatest male singer and was also a very fine person. I had to opt for Mahendra Kapoor, who just did not have the verve or the vocal quality to do full justice to my compositions,” he told Sultan Arshad, the national flag carrier’s former manager in Mumbai, with whom he stayed for a few days after he walked out of his house in 1989.

Arshad had made a lot of friends in Bollywood, mainly those who had anything to do with music, and he was trying to bring about a professional patch-up between Asha and Nayyar. Asha had agreed but Nayyar just did not want to have anything to do with her. She had had a live-in relationship with the composer who had transformed her from a poor producer’s Lata Mangeshkar into a front-ranking playback singer in her own right. Somehow they parted and she got married to a younger composer, R.D. Burman. But by that time, she was in the same league as her elder sister, Lata Mangeshkar.

It was Nayyar’s major achievement that without ever using the Indian melody queen, Lata’s voice, he shared the top rung of the ladder with such composers as Naushad, Shanker Jaikeshan and S.D. Burman. Years later, when Madhya Pradesh Government decided to honor him with what was called the Lata Mangeshkar Award which was accompanied with Rs100, 000 in cash, he declined, saying that it ought to be

given to a singer and not to a composer. This was in spite of the fact that he was hard up for money. He had not managed his finances very well when he was among the three or four most highly paid music directors.

During his heyday, he often took a stand for the under privileged. He was the only one to crusade for the rights of musicians who played for different composers, and was successful in getting them substantial raises.

During my stay with him for a week at Mr. Arshad’s flat in Mumbai sometime in late 1992, he was reluctant to give interviews for he felt that the press often misquoted or quoted him out of context. But two days later, he conceded and we had three sessions. His memory had begun to fail him, but more rewarding were his reminiscences.

“One evening Geeta Dutt phoned me and said, ‘Nayyar sahib, kya mein ab itni kharab singer ho gaye hoon ke ab aap mujh se aik bhi gana naheen gawaynge?’ (Have I become such a bad singer that you would not give me even one song to render?). I curse myself because she died a week later. Like Shamshad Begum, she had sung some of my best songs in the ’50s,” recalled Nayyar. The one singer in whose voice he would have loved to record his compositions was Noor Jehan. When he made his debut in Mumbai after Partition, she was in Lahore. “She used to sing with full-throated ease and she had a full-bodied voice. I haven’t heard her latest songs so I can’t comment on those,” he said of the Malika-i-Tarannum. He did see her in the studios of All India Radio, Lahore, where she used to come in a burqa, perhaps to avoid being mobbed.

He often talked of Lahore, the city where he was born and spent his formative years. When Arshad told him that he had a large fan following in Pakistan, he said that he wanted to go to Lahore but feared that the sentimental person that he was, his feeble heart would not be able to bear the emotional jolt that he would experience on landing on the soil of his favorite city.

Not many people know that Nayyar sahib made his debut as a singer in the children’s programs of All India Radio’s Lahore station and the composer was none other than Master Inayat, who later made it big with his score in many Pakistani movies. All those who pay him tributes call him the rhythm king, which he was. But his compositions were highly melodious as well. For instance his Talat-Asha duet from Sone Ki Chidya — Pyar Per Bus To Naheen Hai Mera Lekin and Asha’s solo from Pyar Jaye Per Vachan Na Jaye — Chaen Se Humko Kabhi Aapne Soney Na Diya are no less mellifluous than the numbers of Naushad, Madan Mohan, S.D. Burman and Khursheed Anwar.

Nayyar sahib was also into homeopathy. He never charged money from his patients. I saw him phoning his patients every morning and enquiring about their conditions.

I last spoke to him on the phone in September and he said: “There is not much time left now. When are you visiting Mumbai to see me?”

I told him very soon.

“How soon?” he persisted.

“Sometime in mid-2007,” I replied. Sadly, it didn’t prove to be soon enough.

Never Say Goodbye…

Veteran music director O.P. Nayyar passed away on Jan. 28, 2007. In one of his rare interviews, he spoke to Anuradha Choudhary for the January 2007 issue of Filmfare.

Apr 16, 2007

We are seated and I narrate the ordeal I had to go through to find him. He laughs full-throatedly and explains that he’s been out of bounds because he no longer lives in his four-room flat at Marine Drive. He’s been estranged from his family for about eight years. He has even switched his profession. Now he practices homeopathy, traveling to far-flung corners to heal patients.

"Apart from third-degree cancer and TB, I’ve cured all other illnesses," he states casually. "Because of my chosen profession, I’m always on the move. Whenever I’m in Mumbai, I always stay at this hotel. Not many people know about this."

There’s so much to quiz him about but I don’t know where to begin. I make a random choice and ask him how and why he entered the movies. He rewinds to the halcyon pre-Partition days in Lahore when, he laughs, a peg of whisky would cost a mere eight annas.

In 1944, Onkar Prasad Nayyar was all of 18. Studies didn’t interest him. Instead, women were his fascination and music his passion. So he dropped out of college to dabble in music.

His first compositions—"pritam aan milo" and "kaun nagar tera door thikana"— were sung by his friend C.H. Atma. "When we took these to HMV, the recording company promptly released the songs on its least popular label, Regal. I was paid Rs. 40, a fairly princely sum in those days for two songs. Then in 1946 I started teaching music at a school in Patiala. But teaching wasn’t really my cup of tea. So I gave it up," he recalls.

Following Partition, the Nayyars shifted base from Lahore to Amritsar. After trying out odd jobs, armed with his dreams, Nayyar boarded a train to Bombay in 1949.

There he met producer-director Krishna Kewal who was making Kaneez. Ghulam Haider and Hansraj Behl were the film’s music directors. "But the background music of the film was composed by O.P. Nayyar," he says proudly. "I was paid Rs. 1,000. I thought I’d made it but I was sadly mistaken. I couldn’t find work for days. So I returned to Amritsar, and started teaching once again. I had resigned myself to a life of anonymity."

Fortuitously, Nayyar met his school friend and classmate (S.N. Bhatia, proprietor of a chemist shop in Lahore), who had close connections with producer Dalsukh Pancholi of the Punjabi film industry. But Pancholi wasn’t impressed immediately. "He took one look at me and threw me out," the maestro smiles with unconcealed irony.

In 1951, Pancholi released Nagina at Regal theatre in Delhi. O.P. Nayyar narrates, "See how destiny works. At the theatre, Pancholi met my friend Bhatia in the cloakroom. Bhatia complained that though he’d recommended C.H. Atma and me to Pancholi, he’d only selected the singer and that he’d missed out on a promising composer. Pancholi immediately sent for me. That also happened to be the day of my marriage.

"I reached Delhi and Pancholi had already signed me as the music director for his next film Aasman even though he’d had a successful partnership with Shankar-Jaikishen."

Then followed P.L. Santoshi’s Chham Chhama Chham and Guru Dutt’s Baaz.

"I was excited," Nayyar rewinds. "Santoshi dropped Naushad to accommodate me while Guru Dutt who never worked with anyone but S.D. Burman opted for me. But all three of them were super-flops. Needless to say, I was shown the door again."

Dejected, Nayyar wanted to pack his bags and leave for Amritsar. He went to Guru Dutt for a pending payment of Rs. 3,000. "I had no money to even feed my family. But Guru Dutt refused to pay me. He said he was broke. I told him to sell his possessions to pay me my dues. He was furious at the very suggestion and told me to leave. But producer K.K. Kapoor of Kardar Productions intervened. He advised him to sign me for Aar Paar as compensation for my dues. Guru Dutt agreed and also paid me Rs. 2,000 as advance."

The real reason why Guru Dutt's marriage collapsed