Laila and her lilting ditties

It's the jive that makes Runa Laila's performance unique.

RUNA LAILA: Voice honed by rigorous training.  

Born into a middle class family in Pakistan, Runa Laila was a bright youngster brought up in the typical Bengali mould, where the arts, like other fine things of life, were nurtured with just as much enthusiasm as to keep them buzzing happily within the family circle.

A music ustad would visit the family home, to teach classical music to Runa's elder sister Dina Laila. As younger siblings are wont to do, Runa too would sit down and pick it up effortlessly. But the energetic youngster's heart was in dance, and she was enrolled in a school where she learnt Kathak, Bharatanatyam, even Kathakali!

"I think it comes out when I sing," says the lady known for her signature brand of jiving. Picked by music director Manzur Hussain to sing for his film "Jugnoo" while a child under 12, she received intensive training from him, since film singing has different requirements from other kinds of music. Daily music practice early in the morning, followed by school, followed by more practice meant that by the time she recorded the song, meant as playback for a child actor, the take was as smooth as a piece of cake. Many listeners turned up at the studio to see how the child would fare, and at the end of the recording sweets were distributed. To say the next step was stardom isn't far off the mark, since her next song, in the same film, was for the heroine.

One film led to another and Runa Laila, as history saw the creation of Bangladesh, became a star beloved of the sub-continent. The girl who had admired Noor Jehan, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle, Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Mukesh, carved out an inimitable style of her own.

Influence on her career

Besides her classical training, she recalls gratefully the influence of Manzur Hussain on her career, since, instead of pampering her as a child, he told her that while her voice was good, it had certain flaws he needed her to work on. In those days, recording a song meant meeting a crowd of people in the studio, singing along with the orchestra and, should anyone make a mistake, starting over again from the beginning.

No `punching' in of bits and pieces. No track recording in which the singer could record separately from the orchestra, in which the various instrumentalists need play at the same time. Now, says Runa, she doesn't get to meet old friends from the recording industry at award ceremonies.

Yet she feels at heart she is still part of the `old school'. Every performance still feels like the first time. She can't be blasé, because she still worries. Sometimes she frets, but that's life for someone who is resigned to being "a perfectionist".

Combining music and studies was tough, but it paid  dividends. At times I would feel upset at not being able to play with my friends and so on. My mother Amina Laila really stood behind me. She sacrificed a lot. I didn't have the patience for riyaaz, etc., and she would explain that I would reap the benefit later. I have a younger brother and a sister. But I was never a star at home and am still not, and I like it that way.

How did you start singing playback?

We lived in Karachi at the time. My dad was in the Civil Services. I had won an inter-school competition organised by Radio Pakistan in Karachi when I was nine, and when a producer came from Lahore looking for a child who could sing for a 12-year-old boys, they were told they could ask my parents!

How easy was it to take popular music as a profession?

There are pre-conceived notions that people in these industry is `bad'. But you come to know it is work like any other. At first my parents were quite reluctant, but I had always cherished a dream of becoming a playback singer. My mum used to go with me everywhere. My dad was supportive.

Later you added your brand of visual delight to your performances...

Earlier, a male or female singer would just sit and sing. But when I started singing on TV I realised people first see you, not just hear you, so you have to put some mood in it. I had a fortnightly show called Bazme-Laila, in which I sang ghazal, pop, folk, all in Urdu. I started experimenting. For every song I had a different hairstyle, different outfit. Initially it got panned quite a bit. But then the younger set started liking it.

For tickets

Daily tickets priced at Rs. 300, Rs. 200 and Rs. 100 and season tickets priced at Rs. 2,500 and Rs. 1,500 are available at Sri Krishna Sweets (Purasawalkam, Ashok Nagar and T. Nagar), Landmark (Nungambakkam), Odyssey (Adyar), Worldspace (Spencer Plaza), Music World (Anna Nagar and Spencer Plaza) and Fountainhead (Mylapore). Also at Pureit Safe Water Zone — New No. 1, Old No. 9, Anu Arcade, 1st Cross Street, Shastri Nagar. (Helpline - 2823 7373).

For online booking log on to www.thehindu.com/novemberfest

What to expect

Runa Laila's silken voice is associated with a range of songs. Though she is singing at a public performance in India after quite a gap, her fans have not forgotten her. So she promises all the old favourites like "Damadam Mast Kalandar", "Ranjish Hi Sahi", "Mera Babu Chhail Chhabila" and others. Runa brings her orchestra with her from Bangladesh. The accompaniment includes two keyboards, a tabla, an electric guitar, a bass guitar and an octopad.

Runa Laila

Born in a family of music lovers in Bangladesh, Runa started learning classical music at a very early age, and received vigorous training from Ustad Habibiddin Khan. She made her first public debut as a singer at the age of six and cut her first disc for a Pakistani film called "Jugnu" at the age of twelve. Runa's carrier as a singer came by accident. It was her elder sister Dina who first got the break, but on the day of her performance, she developed a sore throat and Runa was asked to stand in. She was so little that she could not hold the 'tanpura'. She held it horizontally and sang a 'kheyal'. And she became an instant hit. Sister Dina would have followed in her footsteps, but she had to give up singing when she married. She later died of cancer. In memory of her sister, Runa held six concerts in Bangladesh and donated the entire proceeds to a children's hospital in Dhaka to build a cancer ward which has been named after her sister.

Runa can sing in seventeen languages. Besides her native Bengali, she is also proficient in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Sindi, Gujrati, Poshtu, Baluchi, Arabic, Persian, Malay, Nepalese, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French and of course in the English language. Runa Laila has also earned wide fame for her stage and TV performances, specially in Pakistan, where Runa Laila is considered as their own. She has been immensely popular with film goers as well in that country. She has had her own television series fortnightly in Pakistan called Bazme-Laila which had been widely acclaimed by critics and audience. She appeared in the popular Pakistan series Yes Sir - No Sir in which she proved to be able match to Moen Akhtar, the celebrated host of the chat show.

Runa has sung and recorded well over 5000 songs to date. She will feature in the Guiness Book of Records for recording the largest number of songs in a single day. This happened in Bombay, where she cut four albums recording 40 songs: 30 of these in three days.

Besides being a household name in her home country, Bangladesh, she is famous in neighboring India and Pakistan too. She is also well known among the Asian expatriates all over the world, including the United States, Europe and the Middle East and Far East.

In India, she is the Dama dam girl, who almost posed a threat to the near-monopoly of the invincible singing sisters of Lata Mangeskar and Asha Bhosle. Runa was an over-night hit when she made a sensational entry into the Hindi filmdom with her Ek Se Badkar Ek which she sang for the film Ek Se Badkar Ek in 1974. Music lovers all over India were swinging to the rhythmic beat of Dama Dam Mast Qalander. Her songs in Gharonda, which was released later, also went down very well with Indian audience. After that she withdrew from Bombay, but still remained popular in the south Asian country. She has since made occasional forays to the "Hollywood of the East" to make albums, all of which turned out to be best-sellers. Her toe-tapping "Super-Runa", which she cut for EMI Music Company along with Bappi Lahiri, has won her gold and platinum discs. She recorded "Loves of RUna Laila", with celebrated film music director of Pakistan Nayyar which has gone double platinum. She has recorded in some more Hindi films since including "Jane-Bahar", "Sapan Ka Mandir" and the Amitabh Bachchan starred "Agni Path".

Runa has travelled to several parts of the world to give performances. She has had concerts in North America and Canada many times and had given recitals at the Kennedy Center in Washington and at the Lincoln Center and Madison Square Gardens in New York. In London, Royal Albert Hall, Wembley Arena and Wembley Conference Center have been venues for her successful programs many times. She has also performed in many other parts of the world, including Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Nepal, Malaysia, Holland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, Oman, Doha, India and Pakistan. She has also done a lot of charity concerts all over the world for several worthwhile causes.

During her long and distinguished career in music, she has received around 150 awards in various countries. They include the Saigal Award in India, Nigar Award (twice), Critics Award, Graduate Award (twice) as well as gold medals by the National Council of Music as the best singer of the year in Pakistan and the Independence Day Award and National Film Award (twice) in Bangladesh.

1. Kya Aese Kam

2. Aese Chup Hain

3. Tham tham Kar

4. Tu Khafa Hai

5. Zakhm Ko Phool

6. Piya Aaja Sawan

7. Badra Le Ja Neer

8. To Aaja Sanwariya

9. Kahe Kiya Maine

10. Saiyyan Ja Re Ja

11. Mera Bhola Sanwariya

poser who last teamed up with Runa Laila for' The Loves of Runa Laila', which was an all-time smash hit, is once again interested in a singer - Ashok Khosla, the soft-voiced singer of ghazals. They are teaming up for a film 'Shair'and between them they will record some 16 ghazals for the film.      0 P Nayyar's fans will be glad to hear the maestro's music again.      Ashok is quoted as saying: "I'm his fan. In my childhood the first songs I liked were his and I leamt singing through his songs, the music of which captivated me. I leave the entire result up to him... He is doing it for the sake of art, more than anything else." Of a  different genre altogether is Bappi Lahiri     Leaning against a round bolster on the massive gaddi in his 'mujhik' roorn with hands folded, he looks very dwarfed. He is lost in ecstasy listening to his new reggae beat and adoring his latest find, Rema Lahiri, nine-year-old, singing to her music director, 'Papa tumne promise kiya tha, Kashmir lekarjaoge'.    "Hamara mujhik always thoda hat ke," Bappi declares. Bappi always does new things; departs from the beaten track.  He is the first to make Alisha, Manclakini, Padmini Kolhapure and Anil Kapoor sing. Great deeds, but to enter the book of records you have to do more. And Rema Lahiri, with her

Runa Laila Unplugged

wth Jaidev

Runa Laila (right) recording at Usha Urrhup's Studio
' Vibration'

A Great Singer of the Yesteryears: Runa’s Reign of Fame

By Anis Ahmed Shakur

A look back at the early sixties offers a glimpse of the golden age of the Pakistan film music.

One of the most prodigious and eminent discovery of those days which the Pakistanis had yet seen was the charming Runa Laila.

I do concur with the popular notion of those music experts, who had predicted in the initial stage of her career that here is a girl (Runa was in her early teens then) who has obviously absorbed something of the fervor radiating from the greatest music directors of the past.

Each and every wish of the highly cherished composers came true.

Moreover, since she was the best bet in the country.

For more than a decade, Runa ruled the music world like a princess. She received the fair share of both songs and ghazals, which eventually paid enormous dividends, primarily, because she did her utmost to meet or exceed the higher standards of her times.

Her dramatic rise was nothing less than a thunder in the domain of playback singing. The richness of her attractive voice and her mastery of the words left the public spell-bound. Partly because of her superb intonation, her songs were recorded for almost all leading actresses of her days, including Zeba, Shabnam, Rani and Sangeeta.  One of her earliest and major breakthrough came in 1965, when she sang a duet "Masoom sa chehra hai" (Runa, Rushdi: Rishta hai pyar ka) this was an instant success which established her as a foremost singer of very high repute. Sky was the limit for her. One great movie was followed by another and one super hit song was followed by another. One of the most potential reason among many for the distinct status of Runa has to do with the splendid compositions of our brilliant composer, Nisar Bazmi. Each and every song which was composed by Nisar Bazmi and sung by Runa added accolades to her already great name. Some of them are:  Aap dil ki anjuman mein (Anjuman) Dil dharkay mein tum say (Anjuman) Kaatay na katay (Umrao jan ada) Maanay na bairi balma (Umrao jan ada) Haataun mein kankna (Umrao jan ada) Mili gul ko khushboo (Naseeb apna apna)

In the mid sixties, "Zia Mohydin Show" happened to be a total triumph for Runa, whose ‘Shakira ki maan ye boli’ still reverberates on ones ear before it evaporates in the thin air.

Runa’s enchanting voice was immaculate for ghazal singing, which, on the one hand, promised further fame for her, and on the other, immortalized those gorgeous ghazals. A case in point is Ubaidullah Aleem’s magnificent "Aziz itna he rakho"

Two of the other noteworthy ghazals are:

Ishq say tabiyat nay.

Bhari duniya ko veeraan.

Likewise, these four accomplishments are more than enough to keep her legacy alive:

Ghar kay chiragh roshan hain aaj.

Naghma o sheir say hai pyar mujhe.

Unki nazroan say mohabbat ka jo .

Piya taras gaye.

A song of a very different nature has always fascinated people and I often wonder that if its lyrics had not found the eloquent voice of Runa, than, perhaps, their would have been nothing. Yes, I am referring to "Mein tau chali sakhio"

Her dazzling disco cassette was released in the mid seventies, two of its celebrated songs were:

Pukaro, tum kahan ho pukaro.

Disco express.

Her adorers have always been, are and hopefully will be ,all praise for her in mirth and misery, in rhythm and rhapsody, for those of us who have seen those good old times have vivid memories of the "Runa –craze" when her dress, her hair-style, her demeanor, her every move were quickly copied by her female fans.

On behalf of all her well-wishers the world over, I must add that we wish her success in every walk of life.

Long live Runa !

Runa's back

ANJANA RAJAN

Scheduled to perform at The Hindu Friday Review Music Festival, Runa Laila refuses to fade.

Think of Runa Laila, think of her hit numbers like "Mera babu chhail chhabeela" or "Dama dam mast kalandar". Remember her dancing across the small screen or on stage in front of her fans. Remember the controversies... There were even some who felt she was an affront to the dignity of vocal music! But through all the criticism and debate, there was never any question of the acceptability of the popular singer as `one of us'. That she carries a Bangladesh passport is secondary to her being one of the most popular singers of the late 1970s and 80s. So it is with any of the musicians from the sub continent. All the political rhetoric notwithstanding, they all belong to `us' - whether Mehdi Hasan, Farida Khanum, the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Noor Jehan or others.

Runa reiterates the feeling when she says, "I've never ever felt that I was foreign. Every time I've performed in India, everyone accepted me in such an open way. I've never found anyone made any distinction on the basis of country, or religion or culture."

And now she is all set to return to India when she performs in Chennai at The Hindu Friday Review Music Festival starting mid-November. If we have not heard from Runa too much in the interim, it is not because she has been idle. Still busy with performances and recordings, she even has two albums recorded with Indian music directors Tabun and Bappi Lahiri. While one is to be a Baba Films release, the other is by Venus. Though recorded about two years ago, they are not yet released, and the singer who started her career as a child star confesses to being in the dark about the reasons.

As for growing up, the music industry has changed almost beyond recognition since the good old days when Runa as a child sat down for rehearsals with the music director and the orchestra before recording, when the entire song had to be taken from the top if any one of the musicians made a mistake, when the recording process was more human than mechanical. "That's life, I guess," she muses on the new situation, where a singer might be all alone in a studio to record only her own track, and never set eyes on her fellow musicians - even provide her own chorus! "Yeah, I do miss the old way," she admits.