The Hindu : New Delhi News : History of Indian music on record

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 12, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

History of Indian music on record

NEW DELHI, JULY11. Ensconced in the narrow lanes of Meena Bazar near Jama Masjid here is an innocuous shop, whose looks belie its worth. Stacked in every nook and cranny of the shop are rare records of Hindi films, which the three generations of the Syed Zafar Shah are painstakingly preserving for posterity.

The Shahs need one LP record to enter the Guinness Book of World Records, they have every other LP of film songs that was ever produced in India. ``I am yet to lay my hands on the 1972 Feroz Khan-Mumtaz starrer Apraadh,'' says Zafar. Another song they are frantically looking for is `Dhalte Jaye Raat' from the Nirupa Roy-Jairam starrer Raziya Sultan. ``The record accidentally fell down and broke,'' he says.

The Shahs have all records (both filmi and non-filmi) of Md Rafi, Mukesh, Talat Mehmood, Kishore Kumar, Hemant Kumar, G M Durrani, Lata Mageshkar and Asha Bhonsle. Alongwith all the records of music director O P Nayyar, they have some rare records of music by Madan Mohan, Naushad and Usha Khanna. They have the records of first film of Suraya (Natak), Naushad (Prem Nagar), Ravi (Vachan), Dilip Kumar (Jawar Bhata) and Raj Kapoor and Madhubala starrer Neel Kamal.

The qawwali collection includes Habib Painter, Mumtaz Shabbir, Ismail Azad, Kalwa Banne, Adbur Rahman, Kanchawala, Kallan Khan Secunderabadi. Most of these records went out of circulation decades ago, says Shah.

They have some rare collection of songs sung by Meena Kumari , Raj Kapoor, Madhubala, Sunder and Master Madan. "We have all the eight records of Master Madan, while most of us know only two exist,'' he says.

Zafar is proud of his collection of unreleased songs. It includes one Hindi song of a Bengali Film `Jalsaghar', two songs of `Mera Naam Joker', Part-II, two songs by Mukesh from an unrelesed movie `Pukaar' and another song, `Na Kajre Ki Dhaar', which was later used by Viju Shah in the blockbuster `Mohra'.

He also has an unreleased song of the Shah Rukh Khan starrer `Asoka'. ``I also have the records of the song `Koi Ham Dam Naaha' in Jeeven Naiyya from the film `Jeeven Naiyya' sung by Kishore Kumar in the voice of Ashok Kumar and Md Rafi's `Na Aadmi Kaoi Bharosa' in the voice of Mahendra Kapoor, he says. It began with Syed Ahmed Shah. ``He was fond of qawwalis and lost no time to collect the records of Bibi Dholki and Kalla Khan, when their qawwalis were transferred on to vinyl in 1930,'' says the third generation Zafar Shah.

His interest grew for film music and he began buying records sung by Noorjehan, Shamshad Begam, Malika Pukraj and K L Sehgal. ``He would buy two records, one for his collection and one for listening. The 78rpm cost 12 anna, a princely sum at that time,'' he says.

He passed on a formidable collection of records to his son Syed Akbar Shah. He carried forward the legacy by embarking on a collecting spree to Teheran, Amsterdam, London, Lahore, Karachi, Barbados, Singapore and Hong Kong.

He picked up records from private collectors, old curio shops and even junk market. ``In a kabadi market in Hyderbad, he bumped into a rare record of 1954 film Shaan-e-Hatham that contained Md Rafi's soulful rendering of ``Sabak Raza Ka de Gaya Karbelawal``,'' says Zafar.

The Shahs through their network trace people with rare music records and buy them. According to Zafar, the passion requires a lot of investment of both money and time. However, he is proud of the collection that includes the first song ever recorded of the film `Madhuri' to the last film `Dil To Pagal Hai' that produced the songs on LP records.

Four books stacked on over the other in a corner are encyclopedias of film songs that date back to 1930. Zafar has tick marked the records that are in his family collection. ``I have four godowns full of records and a few collections at home,'' he says.

HMV has re-recorded 80 film songs of 1940s, which it didn't have in its library, with the help of the Shahs. ``FM, All India Radio, Sunrise Radio (England), ABC (Australia) have recorded songs from our collection,'' he says. - PTI

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