Surveykshan on Anil Biswas

Vinay Jain has been organizing a "Surveykshan" for a while. Its a nice little exercise where music lovers list out their favorite soundtracks and songs by the great music directors. Such surveys have happened on Salil Chowdhury, S.D.Burman, Naushad etc. and now, its the turn of Anilda himself.

Some RMIM-ers opined that selecting 15 soundtracks for Anilda is a problem of shortage whereas 15 songs is a problem of plenty. Opinions of course differ from person to person. I had a hard time selecting 15 tracks of Shankar Jaikishan for example which a few found amazing. To me, a great soundtrack isone where at least 60% of the songs are great and a soundtrack becomes desert-island worthy when that percentage nuber becomes 90. In my opinion, Anilda has plenty of great soundtracks, but perhaps not too many desert-island ones. But thats equally true of all composers. Note that the emphasis is on the word "great" here and not just "good".

Take "Aaraam" for example. The great songs in this track are "man me kisii kii priit basaa le", "ae jaane jigar" and "mil mil ke bichhaD gaye nain". "baalamavaa naadaan", "shukriyaa ae pyaar teraa" and "ujaDii re mere pyar kii" are good songs while "zindagii hai yo yo" and "ruuThaa huaa chandaa hai" are average. So "Aaraam" may not necessarily be a desrt-island soundtrack (of course, it becomes one for me simply because I cannot survive without 'man me kisii kii' :)). On the other hand, "Taraanaa", "Anokhaa pyaar" and "Milan" are definitely desert-island worthy tracks.

Anyway, the purpose is to select 15 favorite soundtracks and I hit on the below list:

Aakaash - "bhiigii bhiigii raat aaii", "ab is mar mar ke", "so gaii chaandni", "mere dil ke giit chup the"
Aaraam - listed already
Anokhaa pyaar - all the songs
Basant - all the songs
Chhoti chhoti baaten - again, all the songs
Fareb - "aa mohobbat ki bastii", "udaasiyo.n me nazar", "husn bhii hai udaas udaas"
Gajre - "rah rah ke", "duur papiihaa bolaa", "riitam teraa meraa", "baras baras", "ghar yahaa.N"
Hamdard - all the songs
Jalti nishaani - "ruuTh ke tum to", "dil hai beqaraar", "kah rahii hai", "aaj bharii mehafil", "jalane lagaa"
Kismat - all songs
Maan - "mere pyaar me tujhe", "guazaraa huaa", "kah do ki", "dam bhar kaa", "allaah bhii hai"
Milan - all songs
Naaz - all songs
Taraanaa - all songs
Waaris - "raahii matavaale", "duur hote nahii", "kabhii hai Gam", "gazab kiyaa"

As many as 8 of these 15 soundtracks meet my criteria for a desert-island track. You may partly attribute this in part to my own partiality for the man's music. But I hope that I have created sufficient curiosity for you to venture into the wondrously melodious world of Anil Biswas' music

Who composed "saari duniyaa ko piichhe" ?

The kind of musical talent that abounded in the early 1950s is something that is extremely difficult to fathonm for those absorbed in today's music. Its very probable that music chroniclers and historians will tend to just pick at the surface, the composers who managed to hit it big, ignoring the multitudes who remained unknown but occassionally, a magic melody plays and you are totally overwelhmed by the music. You rush to the Geet Kosh to find details on the music maker. You expect to see Anil Biswas or Naushad or C.Ramchandra or S.D.Burman, but no - it is Basant Prakash or maybe V.Balsara or perhaps Mohammed Shafi.

I had a similar experience when I was first totally mesmerized by "saarii duniyaa ko piichhe chhoaDakar" from "Naadaan". The film did not ring a bell and I referred to that Holy Book of film music history, the Geet Kosh. I discovered it to be a Madhubala-Dev Anand starrer released in 1951 and that the music director was Chic Choclate! However, the fact that C.Rachandra was mentioned as a "music arranger" raised a lot of questions about who the real melody maker was. It is a rumor that that C.Ramchandra composed under multiple names, one of which was Chic Chocolate, However, in an interview years later when questioned on this, C.Ramchandra dismissed this rumor saying that Chic Chocolate was one of his assistants who also indulged in musical composition independently. Perhaps it is the fact he was CR's assistant accounts for the fact that his music is so-CRish, both the tunes as well as the orchestration. This is particularly true in case of his Lata meldies like "saarii duniyaa ko piichhe chhoDar" and "aeasaa kyaa qasuur kiyaa" from "Naadaan", "chandaa ko sitaaraa mile", "ham naino.n me laaye hai.n pyaar" and "koii dard hamaaraa kyaa samajhe" from "Rangeelee". The online reference site earthmusic.net adds further confusion by listing "saarii duniyaa ko piicche chhoDakar" twice - one crediting Chic Chocolate as the MD and the other C.Ramchandra.

So the mystery is still unsolved as to who created one of the greatest chorus-backed melodies ever for Lata in "Naadaan" - was it the master himself or was it his assistant? There may be three who could tell us - two of them (the MDs) have passed on and the third, the Lady no longer has a very reliable memory, paricularly when t comes to a man called C.Ramchandra.

Listen to this great song