The Khan's Sohni
ASHOKAMITRAN
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The film was `Moghul-e-Azam' and producer Asif wanted no less a person than Bade Ghulam Ali Khan to sing that song in raag Sohni. Did he oblige?
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The picturisation of the song "Prem Jogan Banke" in the film with Dilip Kumar and Madhubala is considered an unrepeatable cinematic achievement.
Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.
AIR Vividh Bharati broadcasts everyday a 15-minute programme in Hindi called "Sangeeth Saritha." A senior musician talks about a raga and sings a bit of it. If there is time, a film song in the same raga is played. Recently Sohni was the raga demonstrated. The film song, "Prem Jogan Banke" was the one Bade Ghulam Ali Khan sang in the same raga for `Moghul-e-Azam.'
Sohni, we are told, was a favourite raga of Akbar and Man Singh. So it must have been sung for centuries but in 1957 after a Hindi film by a South Indian unit with non-Hindi actors became an emphatic hit, the raga was on everyone's lips. The film was ``Suwarna Sundari," the song "Kuhoo Kuhoo" and the music for the film was composed by Adi Narayana Rao, husband of Anjali Devi.
After the thumping success of the film and its music, one would have expected Adi Narayana Rao to be high on the rungs of the ladder of fame but inexplicably he just vanished, at least from the Hindi scene. It is now almost fifty years since the movie but the Sohni song still has avid listeners, played on AIR and Radio Ceylon thousands of times. And it has been a standard practice to play the song whenever Sohni had to be demonstrated.
But in the recent episode of Sangeeth Saritha it was not ``Swarna Sundari" but ``Moghul-e-Azam." The picturisation of the song in the film with Dilip Kumar and Madhubala is considered an unrepeatable cinematic achievement. The song is heard but you don't see the singer (who is supposed to be Tansen).
The song has a small story behind it.
Bade Ghulam Ali Khan whose residence was in Pakistan visited India in the 1950s and simply enchanted the entire nation. It is told that Morarji Desai even offered a permanent residence in Mumbai for the Khan. In any case, the great singer continued to be in India for quite some time.
Producer K. Asif was then making ``Moghul-e-Azam" and asked his music composer Naushad whether they could try out someone other than the usual playback singers for the voice of Tansen.
Naushad said that if there was one at that time who could be called Tansen, it was Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.
Then why not get him? Naushad was aghast. A musician of such classicism and severity to be thought of for a movie! Asif insisted and together they called on the Khan. They mumbled out their proposal. The Khan was amused. He didn't want to be impolite. He said it would cost a lot of money. "Anything for you," said Asif.
The great musician thought he would wriggle out by quoting a figure he thought would send the two importuning tamashawallas away. Twenty thousand rupees for a song. ``Anything for you," repeated Asif. That is how Bade Ghulam Ali Khan came to sing for a movie. But the Khan wanted to know what was to become of his song and how it was going to be utilised. He hadn't seen a film until then. After Asif shot that part of the film and made a rough cut, he arranged for special show. An unusual thing happened. The Khan was so engrossed by what was shown on the screen that after the song was over and the lights came on, he asked like a child, what happened to the girl!
Years later, Naushad narrated the incident, again on the radio and during a Vividh Bharati interview. And there was not a dry eye when he talked of the great Khan.
(The writer is a well-known Tamil novelist and litterateur)
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