Ghazal ka Maalik!

Raju Korti
I had my first dekko of the satiny-smooth Talat Mehmood sometime in 1980 when the Ghazal virtuoso was in Nagpur to deliver a concert while I happened to be there to cover a session of the State Legislature. My use of the word "dekko" has a special rhythm and import to it. I intended to meet the polished and handsome frame from "Sone Ki Chidya" more as a bewitched admirer than a journalist keen to interview him. Little wonder then that Talat had to keep nodding his head most of the time as a hypnotized me rattled off about his songs as if there was no tomorrow.

An air of expectancy had filled me like never before and I wondered about him and his craft, trying to cobble up a coherent string of words in order to strike a raging conversation with him. The door was opened by Talat himself with his equally good looking son Khalid in tow. Both sported mildly amused expressions probably because they didn't expect to bump into a journalist there. Maybe they thought it was one of those regulation interviews they had to go through the motions of. But I had done my homework well so the cobwebs were brushed aside in no time.
After a small talk, the confusion-confounded and not-so-sure looks on Talat's face vanished and the face that I had grew up admiring wore an animated look. The session lasted over two hours during which I also managed to click a couple of pictures with them.
Reams have been written about Talat Mehmood and his craft as Ghazal King, a sobriquet that sat pretty on his sleeves. It is not my case here to reel out the details of what transpired in that meeting but to create atmospheric visuals of that compelling engagement.
The first thing that struck me about him was he spoke rather fast, often sounding like he was flabbergasted about something. He seemed earnest to make a point that was illustrated with the flurry of his index finger. His being in consonance with me reflected in the frequent but dazzling smiles his magnetic face lighted up with. The Talat Mehmood I had met up with was a sort of anti-thesis of the picture I had conjured up in my pre-conceived mind. That image was made up on the languid and dulcet vocals that came to be famously acknowledged as patently his through a matching demeanor that he personified on the celluloid. I was fed on the quintessential Talat Mehmood born to sing "Pyar par bas to nahi hai mera lekin phir bhi" and "Ye mere andhere ujaale na hote." Of course, I could list every other song that seemed to have been created for him and him alone. I say this because of the oft-mentioned controversy on the Burman Dada's Sujata gem "Jalte hain jiske liye" where the composer was more intent on Mohammed Rafi. But somewhere at the back of his mind, Talat had to demolish Dada's prejudiced mind. He did that and how!
Not C Ramchandra, not Salil Choudhari, not Madan Mohan not Pandit Govindram, not Shankar-Jaikishen, not Khayyam or not even Anil Biswas. My Talat Mehmood lay elsewhere in the hands of the two composers commercially not in the same league. And I was dying to convey this to my hero who probably watched my kiddish song and dance with knowing smiles.
"Talatsaab I am besotted with your voice and each song is etched in my mind, but today I want to tell you that these three songs have me under a timeless spell." Of course, I felt terribly guilty and incommoded that I was not going to mention any of the bigwigs from his repertoire.
To begin with, I pyretically referred to Madan Mohan's Chhote Babu beauty "Do din ki muhabbat mein hamne kuchh khoya hai kuchh paya hai" and I got the feeling that the singer extraordinaire was dealing with a fan who had delved deeper in his armory. "And which are the others", he asked me on cue.
I rather sang out the first line of that 1958 film Maalik for which Ghulam Mohammed composed the very arresting "Zindagi ki qasam ho chuke unke hum" lip synched by the gentleman-hero-singer himself. For the next few minutes, I kept waxing as eloquent as I could to say how the crooner had summoned all the honey in his throat to sing that one. There is a strange mix of pathos and romanticism in the song that was designed only for Talat's unique, trembling voice. It transports the listener into a vacuous but tranquil world. Wasn't it the same film where Talat romanced in the tuneful company of the majestic Suraiyya to the charming rhythm of "Man dheere dheere gaaye re, maalum nahi kyon". I think the words were customized for the Talat persona. Even his romance was as dignified. Talat just watched my school-boyish enthusiasm and smiled. He must have met a legion but at that moment, I was with THE Talat Mehmood.
My other chosen ditty was from another obscure film called Chandi Ki Deewar (1964) where N Dutta, riding on Sahir's philosophy, got Talat to convince us "Ashkon mein jo paaya hai, wo geeto mein diya hai. Us par bhi suna hai ke zamaane ko gila hai." This is another number where Talat straddles words with the same intensity. Talat acknowledged with a shake of his head.
In the parting, I begged to be profusely excused for not dwelling as assiduously on so many other songs that continue to make air waves. I was happy that Talat understood how exercised I was about the songs I had mentioned to him.
The following day, I also attended his concert when in the midst of the milling admirers, he spotted me and shook his head in recognition. That nod and the affectionate arm that he put around me afterwards still gives me goose-bumps. His warmth exuded from his core beyond the jacket that he wore that day. Khalid watched this session without a single word but I sensed his appreciation in the cassette of his songs that he gifted to me.
My Mission Talat was truly and well accomplished when I met him again a few years later at his Bandra's Perry Cross road residence and the latter welcomed me with a wide smile that reached up to his twinkling eyes.
Talat's 800-odd songs are for a lifetime. His memories come peppered from Khalid, a friend on Facebook. A session with him is long overdue and my loss of this wonderful singer would be tempered by his straight take off on his father.
Pyaar karke nibhaanaa badi cheej hai
Dil ki duniyaa bhi aakhir koi cheej hai
Yeh na hogaa ke ham unse munh mod len
Dor taqadeer ki baandh kar tod den
Aadami wo jo waade pe kaayam rahen
Zindagi ki kasam......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1XoEyrK-Dc

Me as Rafi, Dev, Hasrat and S-J!

Mai aur mere khayal aksar ye sochte rehte hain....

Raju Korti
Howsoever smitten I may be about the handsome Dev Anand or the voice that serenaded the ethereally beautiful Sadhana in this B&W film of the early sixties, I just cannot but help being in the shoes of those two and translate from real into reel. There is something endearing and enduringly romantic about the Hasrat Jaipuri lyrics that puts the adrenaline in me.
The romanticism of the sixties always pumps me, no matter who the almighty Mohammed Rafi sang for because it afforded me the vicarious pleasure of being that hero when the song overtook my senses for the next three or four minutes. But when Hasratbhai's pen dripping with romance wrote lyrics -- more so for someone who could be a permanent mascot of the youth -- love would bathe in honey.
Sample this: "Duniya ek ajaayab khana lekin phir bhi faani, Is dharti par amar rahegi meri prem kahaani. Chahe jitney roop mein aaun tera rahunga, Are mar jaunga pyaar agar main dooja karoonga." If you ignore the sheer utopia that comes through the words, you have Dev Anand's Adonis-like face to give it the mortal expression. And if you still thought that this was romance out of a Bollywood leaf, you had Rafi to reckon with. His vocals would make an ultimate convincing statement that when you put lips to those words, there wouldn't be anyone else left on the Earth to sing it for anyone else. So much for exclusivity!
I distinctly recall my trusted and loving friend Dev Anand once telling me at his Bandra's Navketan Studios that if it were not for Rafi's youth, his own youth would have gone abegging. In that one innocuous statement lay a tribute of a lifetime for a man who handled the romance of Hasrat, Shakeel and a host of others with the aplomb that died with him. I also have vivid memories of that killer trade-mark toothy grin Dev Anand threw at me when I mentioned the song to him. It seemed to be a straight take off from where he had left when Sadhana sported that bashful smile formed out of Hasrat's words and Rafi's emotion.
Devsaab is no more. So are Rafi, Hasrat, Shankar-Jaikishen and the man who made that film -- Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Their labour of love  lives on. And so do I as a parasite.
Please do not ask me why I singled out this song amongst thousands of many. It just kept nagging me all through the day, but I reveled in it. I was Rafi, Dev, Hasrat and S-J all rolled into one and in my fertile imagination, Sadhana with all her pristine smile, had to cope with all of me.
(This one is for you Kishwari Jaipuri, Hasratsaab's daughter.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sgKeQwzg2w 

The liberty of statues!

Raju Korti

Pic only for representation

The juvenile but sentimentally exploitative game being played out on the political turf over the statues of national leaders reminds of a popular detergent advertisement on TV where a perplexed character says to another "Bhala aap ki kameez mere kameez se jyada safed?" (How come your shirt is cleaner and whiter than mine?)
Having done practically nothing to merit any worthwhile mention, the Maharashtra government -- often billed as progressive on its past laurels -- recently made it known to people through a cabinet decision that it had earmarked Rs 100 crore to erect a statue of the Maratha warrior king Shivaji off the Mumbai coast. The Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who otherwise is usually tongue-tied, suddenly seemed to have something to boast about. "It will be the tallest statue in the world", he said without letting out any details of how. Not quite surprisingly therefore the announcement was seen as a puerile attempt at countering Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who not long ago had made a similarly pompous announcement of erecting Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's statue in Gujarat. The message may be veiled but it is clear: "Tumhara Patel hai to hamara Shivaji hai."
Statues may be inanimate objects but they are powerful symbols of public sentiment. In the times of elections these tokens spring to life influencing a large section of unsuspecting voters. When in power, political parties cash in on this sentiment and erect statues of their leaders doling out money from the state exchequer. The statue then attains the status of a shrine. No one dare touch it or shift it elsewhere for hurting popular sentiment. A desecration is often a blessing in disguise since it brings more popular support and sympathy in its wake.
If Modi, the prime minister in waiting, is to be believed, Rs 20 billion will be nationalized on the statue which at 182 meters will not only be the tallest in the world, it will also stand almost twice high as the Statue of Liberty in New York. For the sake of record, the statue to be completed in 42 months will be 30 meters taller than China's Spring Temple Buddha -- currently the tallest at 153 meters -- and will be set on a river island close to the Narmada. An amusement park and a garden will lend a picturesque locale to the place and expected to be a major tourist attraction.
Behind this apparently laudatory move is a deft political manoeuvre to co-opt one of the leading lights of the Indian freedom struggle. This grandeur of thought stands on the rationale that the "World will be forced to look at India when the statue stands tall." The country should be gratified to know that it hasn't occurred to Modi's high-thinking ideology that a statue few hundred meters higher could have been visible in all parts of the world!
In the early eighties, this blog writer was flabbergasted to watch then actor-turned chief minister of Andhra Pradesh NT Rama Rao commissioning 33 repeat 33 well-sculptured bronze statues of people from the region's political and religious history who he believed played an iconic role in the development of Telugu culture. The statues lined on the scenic Tank Bund Road in the capital of Hyderabad do look majestic but it is kind of sobering to know the kind of money NTR government squandered to showcase 'Telugu pride'. In one of his visits to the US, NTR had seen the Statue of Liberty and his starry thinking immediately took fancy to the idea of doing something similar, albeit with his own touch (!) in his home state.
NTR's penchant for such political souvenirs did not rest at that. After a long search he found a solid granite rock on a mountainside 40 kms outside Hyderabad and thereafter, for over a year, hundreds of labourers slogged day in and day out to erect a statue of Buddha that stood 18 meters tall. It was (and still is) world's tallest monolithic statue of Buddha installed on a special platform (interestingly called Rock of Gibralter!) in the middle of the Lake Husain Sagar.
This was all to the good and before the people had stopped marveling at this bombastic idea, the statue tipped and sunk into the lake while it was being carried on a trailer vehicle to be erected on the platform. The accident killed more than ten people. The tragedy was bizarre not only for the way it happened but also for the fact that the architect of the opulent idea, NTR had already been ousted from power by then. For two years, newspapers across the country carried unfailingly reports about the salvage operation that lasted two years and drilled a big hole in the government coffers.
In politically dicey Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati carried this political gaming to the extreme. In her quixotic tenure as the chief minister she erected so many statues of herself and her mentor Kanshi Ram that people finally stopped counting them. Among other things, it led to a huge public outcry and a complaint to the Supreme Court. The self-styled Mayawati couldn't care less that the government treasury was being bled white in one of the least developed but most populous states of the country. These statues are now white elephants, ironically the BSP's political symbol.
Official figures say Mayawati spent over Rs 15 billion on the exercise, which mercifully was cut short or else UP would have seen 10,000 more such statues mushrooming across the state. The best was probably reserved for Noida where reports say 20,000 trees were felled to erect giant statues of Mayawati and Kanshi Ram. The only ones to be happy with the idea were probably the pigeons around the park. Back home in Maharashtra, the embers of the debate on Bal Thackeray's statue in Shivaji Park, Mumbai refuse to die down.
I am sure every time a statue is erected the police probably shit bricks shuddering at the thought of the law and order problem a desecration might create. Do the politicians care about the strident criticism of their politics of statues? The answer is "no".
A statue is not known to have been erected in honour of a critic.