MEDIA FORGETTING LAXMIKANT-PYA RELAL
Forgetting Laxmikant-Pyarelal
By: Rajiv Vijayakar
I am touched. A company which did not market a single album of theirs and consequently did not earn a penny from their work - Sony Music - brought out a lovely concert-based compilation under the moving title -I Remember Laxmikant - By Pyarelal. Admittedly, it was released three weeks after Laxmikant’s death anniversary on May 25, but the fact remains — they remembered.
It is very disheartening to realise that the fickle industry has chosen to forget the enormous, nay, colossal contribution of L and P to film music over more than three decades. The live recordings find all the singers except Vinod Rathod in poor form in the Sony album, but the mesmerising magic of compositions as varied as Ram kare aisa ho jaaye (Milan) and Chahoonga main tujhe (Dosti) — their twin titanic breakthroughs, as well as Zindagi ki na toote ladi (Kranti/1981) — when they were in Manmohan Desai’s words and factually Numbers 1 to 10) and Om namah Shivae (from Bhairavi) transcends the very average singing, and drives home the point that there will never be another composing entity like Laxmikant-Pyarelal, ever.
Compare this gesture with the indifference of the four music companies with whom L-P had the longest links - HMV, Universal, T-Seires and even Tips in their last years. A focussed stroll through mega-music shops will convince everyone that despite the S-J-RD-Madan Mohan-Naushad hype in the media, is the L-P re-issues (as solo films or combinations) that constitute the bulk of the evergreen sellers of HMV - Dosti, Milan, Farz, Shagird, Mere Humdum Mere Dost, Do Raaste, Dushman, Shor, Daag, Bobby, Roti Kapada Aur Makaan, Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Sargam, Karz, Ek Duhe Ke Liye, Prem Rog, Hero, Ram Lakhan and Saudagar only leading a list of over a 100 perennial sellers after their 1963 debut Parasmani. Universal Music India (which posthmously felicitated Pancham on the launch day of Universal in India - presumably as a reward for his contribution to their success) - opted to omit Kalyanji-Anandji and LP. And LP have given Universal Music hits and perennials as outstanding as Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Roti, Dharam-Veer, Amar Akbar Anthony, Dostana, Judaai, Naseeb, Hum Paanch, Woh Saat Din and Coolie!
Move down to T-Series and you will find LP doing the film which established T-Series - Pyar Jhukta Nahin (1985), followed by Nache Mayuri, Nagina, Mr. India, the smash hit Tezaab and Chaalbaaz. And Tips began with LP (Elaan-E-Jung) and in the ’90s had Khal-Nayak (one of five topmost Tips bestsellers to date) and Narsimha with them, apart from good but not very successful scores like Khuda Gawah and Heer Ranjha.
After he died, RD was hyped. After Laxmikant, nothing has happend. Why is this happening? Quoth a know-all music buff, “Laxmikantji rubbed quite a few major people the wrong way towards the end. RD was a saint!” But if that were the criterion, then so many of our giant artistes would be totally ignored today! For as Annu Kapoor, Antakshari anchor, says so succintly, “Never remain under the illusion that a great talent is necessarily a good human being!”
And what about Amar Haldipur’s impassioned statement after working with them for years? “In the industry, LP were considered as ‘langhar’ (a place where the needy can gets free meals as long as they want). They never turned away any musician, struggler or anyone who was undergoing a bad phase. Out-of-work musicians and even senior composers fallen on bad days like Prabhakar Jog were respectfully welcomed. They never grudged anyone a slice of their own profit margins.” Over to the music buff, I spoke of!
Veteran singer Mahendra Kapoor seems to be more on target when he opines on the mystery about why LP are not hyped as much as Pancham or any of their colleagues. Says Kapoor, “Their music was completely Indian. It did not lend itself to remixes and was completely melody-oriented. At the same time, LP’s music always had a classy touch even in their mass friendly numbers. Shanker-Jaikishan were the right mix of mass and class appeal. LP tended to move towards the classy.” And on reflection, this seems amazingly true. Blind following of trends or outright pandering to crass commerce was never LP’s style. They composed Milan and persuaded the film’s distributors and producers to do a Mukesh-based score when the singer was down-and-out in the mid-’60s. After Milan, Mukesh never had a dull phase.
At the height of the Kishore wave, LP always balanced their Rafi-Kishore equation with the finesse and skill of tightrope artistes. In the ’80s when they were miles ahead of the opposition and could have played safe, they boldly experimented with scores like Pyar Jhukta Nahin (which signalled the end of the disco and Padmalaya waves), Utsav and Sur-Sangam and made young singers like Alka Yagnik, Kavita Krishnamurthi and Anuradha Paudwal shoulder major scores like Karma, Mr. India, Tezaab, Eeshwar and Chaalbaaz and came up trumps./B]
This is what is doubly callous and hypocritical about the way LP’s work has been sidelined by the media and the film and music industry. No other composer - solo and duo - have had such a limitless repertoire, such sustained innings, such a towering cavalcade of giga-hits and awe-inspiring songs. But as in every genuine artiste’s case, even these sins of omission and commission on the part of the powers-that-be have not prevented LP from getting their due from the janata janardhan. The less-informed among them may not be knowing about their incredible repertoire (thanks to the absence of hype), but the joys that LP’s songs keep giving them will keep this LP record going forever even in the era of the CD.
Source: http://www.screenindia.com/jun30/music4.htm
|
