One song at a time - 21. Saranga Teri Yaad Mein
(Sardar Malik)
The Familial link
Some families are musical families with the offspring taking over the baton from the parent and proving himself / herself to be an equal. In some cases the offspring is either uninterested or not upto the task. Many such cases exist. The third variety is a bit rare. The parent, a talented musician but unfortunately not getting due recognition but the offspring going on to achieve lot of fame. The most classic example of this would be R.K.Shekar and his son. R.K.Shekar, though a very talented music director, never made it big commercially. His son Dileep on the other hand went on to achieve international stardom. Ofcourse, you would know Dileep as A.R.Rahman.
We will talk about one more such talented music director, who unfortunately did not get his due from the film industry. His name is Sardar Mallik. His son Anu Mallik later became a very popular music director in the Hindi film industry.
The song I want you to listen to today is 'saranga teri yaad mein nain hue bechain'. An excellent composition, based on Kalyani, for the film 'Saranga'. This film also had another Mukesh gem, 'haan dewana hun main'. The song of today is sung by Mukesh, one of my favourite singers. Ofcourse Mukesh has been often criticized for singing out of tune, of his voice not having the range and of his voice being only suited for sad songs etc. I will agree to most of these criticisms but when it comes to conveying the required emotion, Mukesh was up these with the best. If the emotion was that was sorrow, no one did it better. The beauty is that Mukesh conveyed this emotion with himself not crying in the song. Many singers tend to do it (depending on who the music director is.) Mukesh avoids this but the sadness of the situation is very clearly communicated by him. This song is no exception.
Maybe it is my predilection for old melodies but if I were to be offered the two melodies from this movie ('saranga teri yaad mein' and 'haan deewana hun main') against all the hit songs composed by Anu Mallik, without hesitation I will pick these two. So lets listen to this wonderful song now and silently applaud people like Sardar Mallik who gave us such treasures but got nothing in return.
Comments
Coming to this song.A fantastic Kalyani as you have mentioned.And the other song "Haan deewaana Hoon Main" is another favourite of mine.Contrary to the thought factualised by people that Mukesh was at his best to Shankar Jaikishan (& Raj Kapoor films), i believe that actually Mukesh was at his best to other composers (& non Raj Kapoor films).And it is in this brack of 'other composers' that i place Sardar Mallik, along with Roshan etc.
Thanks for reminding a long lost song.
PS:So to say, Anu Malik did get 'inspired' (no, not Anu Malik's definition of 'inspiration' but its real meaning in the context of music - taking the essence and traces of an old melody and fleshing out a whole new song that only has mild resemblance but is not a carbon copy) by his dad's song and came up with a pretty decent (compared to Anu Malik's standards) composition in Kareeb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5DNgyqbOh4&feature=fvwk&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
check it out.Opening lines remind you of Saaranga. The kareeb song is one of the 'fewest of few' of Anu Malik's creations that impressed me(dont banish me for this):-)
LOL at the 'pandita putra' comment :)
I fully agree with you regarding Mukesh. Infact I am not a great fan of SJ-Rajkapoor-Mukesh combo. The songs are good but... Mukesh with SJ and KA is probably a bit overrated according to me. I like Mukesh more under others like Roshan. Will definitely be featuring a few Roshan Mukesh songs in this series.
Thanks for the Kareeb song. Yes, the song start reminds you of 'saranga' and it is also Kalyani based, though he develops it differently in the charanam. Infact the pallavi is far better than the charanam I felt. Nice song, so you will not be banished :)
Thanks Suresh..