By Kohinoor Dasgupta
May 9, 2022
Twenty-four years have gone by since the voice of Talat Mahmood fell silent.
A year ago, I was foggy about his timeline in Bollywood. I did know things about the other male playback legends. K.L. Saigal took the country by storm, pre-Independence. Mohammad Rafi was a force of nature whose work spanned decades, ‘Baiju Bawra’ to ‘Hawas’ to ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’. Kishore Kumar was the voice of '70s superstars Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan. Like "Magnificent" Mukesh, he died in his fifties. Like Mukesh, he was in demand till the end. Manna Dey’s Bengali classics played frequently in my home. In Bombay, Dey held on at least until he sang the Rajesh Khanna special, ‘Zindagi kaisi hai paheli’. Bombay was Side B for Hemant Kumar who, just like the Mangeshkar sisters did in Bombay, straddled half a century in Bengal.
But Talat Mahmood? Was he even real?
Why, if Mahmood was not important historically as Saigal or Rafi were, if he did not blaze a trail or could not shore up the popularity of heroes from Bharat Bhushan to Rishi Kapoor, why, if he only sang a few songs and faded away, why then did he persist in my memory like a great enchantment, like clouds I saw from a plane when I was five?
Because he is.
A great enchantment. TALAT MAHMOOD.
Shaam-e-gham ki qasam
This year I found out that Mahmood was twenty years younger than Saigal and exactly ten months older than Rafi. To the day. There are two 24s in each artiste’s date of birth.
Also, now I can put down a year against ‘Shaam-e-gham’, the song that is synonymous in my mind with Mahmood. ‘Foot Path’, Zia Sarhadi’s film about crime and punishment, was released in October 1953. Bear in mind, though, that films of that time had to clear many hurdles to make it to theatres. Maybe the song was recorded much earlier. Written by Sardar Jafri and Majrooh Sultanpuri and composed by Khaiyyaam, ‘Shaam-e-gham’ crossed over effortlessly into this century. Although Wikipedia asserts that 'Foot Path' was a modest hit of 1953, Meena Kumari, the film's heroine, wondered, in an interview recorded after she worked with Dilip Kumar in 'Azaad', what became of 'Foot Path'. How widely was the film seen? The song was most certainly more widely heard, via radio, and had its own trajectory to fame. Even today, many recognize it at the first chord. Even today I wait for Mahmood’s voice to utter the first words after the orchestra picks up plaintively. Radio was immensely evocative, and many of us, only hearing the song decades later, wondered why the girl did not keep the date. Having watched ‘Foot Path’ some years ago, I know why. The girl whom the man longs for is also his last hope of deliverance from an immoral life. The song conveys both the man’s sense of isolation as well as his petulance. Did she not get it that poverty was the real disease? Why should poor people play by the book when the rich did not? Who could have sung this song better than Mahmood?
Born on February 24, 1924, Mahmood was not thirty when he recorded that song. Khaiyyaam was three years younger. A two-man Beatles, brimming with ideas and insanely talented. They must have recognized each other: the clue is a 1954 non-film Mahmood hidden gem, ‘Kaun Kehta hai tujhe maine bhula rakkha hai’, written by Jan Nisar Akhtar, which was composed by Khaiyyaam. They did not find very many opportunities to work together in Mahmood’s heyday. However, the two perfect gentlemen managed to wrest one film from the competition in 1958: the lighthearted historical ‘Lala Rookh’, in which Mahmood himself played the role of an unconventional Sultan opposite Shyama’s Shehzadi Lala Rookh.
Mahmood was to reveal later that he was never at ease in front of the camera. Despite that, he was seen in eight Hindi films at least. The film he was most proud of, 'Raftar', he told Sarita Sethi in a long interview produced and directed by Sita Nanda, was not released. He was seen with Shyama before, in ‘Dil-e-Nadan’ (1953). In that film, Mahmood and Shyama acquitted themselves well playing stubborn characters on a collision course.
Mohabbat tark ki maine
Mahmood was a prodigy, first heard on All India Radio (A.I.R.) in 1939. Two years later, in Calcutta, he was noticed by established singer Pankaj Mullick who offered him a job at New Theatres. Mahmood put the offer on ice and returned to Lucknow to finish undergraduate studies at Marist College. Believe it or not, those three years at college were the long and short of his formal training in music, and that too he was not great, he mentioned in an interview decades later, at Theory! At twenty-six he was in Bombay, singing for screen idol Dilip Kumar.
The Bombay film industry, in its wisdom, allotted Mahmood a decade and a half of full-time work. He went to Bombay in 1949 and, despite his considerable success in Bengal as “Tapan Kumar” (singing in Bengali), faced rejection until music director Anil Biswas gave him ‘Ay dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal jahan koi na ho’ for 'Arzoo' (1950). That song silenced the naysayers. Up until 1964: that year poet’s composer and ex-fauji Madan Mohan had to stand his ground valiantly to keep Mahmood on for ‘Jahan Ara’, even after he had recorded ‘Phir wohi shaam, wohi gham yohi tanhayi hai’, which speaks to loneliness through the discordance and surround noise of today, and, as if that weren't enough proof of what he was still capable of, also the do-you-remember song: ‘Main teri nazar ka suroor hoon’, both written by Rajinder Krishan. How old was Mahmood in 1964? The same age as Mohammad Rafi: forty.
Main teri nazar ka suroor hoon
In 1954, Mahmood got a lead role opposite Suraiya, the popular heroine who did her own playback. That film, ‘Waris’, has a scene in which Mahmood sings two lines sans instrumental music. It was a Benjamin Button moment when I saw the familiar, tremolo, death-by-chocolate layer-cake voice emanating from an ethereal young man! A much older persona had been lurking in the foggy bottom of my imagination. I associated gravitas with the voice even when I did not know that word. The song in question was ‘Kabhi hai gham, kabhi khushiyan’, written by Qamar Jalalabadi and composed by Biswas. Although it played in full (as recorded, with accompanying music) during a previous scene, the unity of "TALAT MAHMOOD" and the young man struck home, as I said above, only when Mahmood's character casually sang those two lines.
Mahmood’s work shows up the ‘Student Driver’ sticker on anyone who sang with him in the fifties, except the charismatic Geeta Dutt. At a time when most artistes were in search of a distinctive identity, and when the young women, especially, were fearfully focused on playing back the composer’s sound as skilfully as they could, Mahmood was a runaway original. He dipped each song in a magic potion that would baffle Druid Getafix. His voice had intangible add-ons like cultural memory and the smoke and wine of civilization. He was the real article.
Regardless of how well or badly a song was staged − it was, after all, a time of big ideas, big talent and shoestring budgets − no matter what a hapless actor’s brief was, for example, Pradeep Kumar stumbling about in a ruin while the fawn behind him gained celluloid immortality in a song from ‘Shirin Farhad’, no matter what, Mahmood conveys a pure state of mind. Find a clear version of that fawn song from 1956, ‘Sunaoon kis ko afsana’, written by Tanvir Naqvi and composed by S. Mohinder! What a song!
Dil jalta hai
‘Daaera’, made in 1953 by Kamal Amrohi with his new wife Meena in the lead, was not released. No one who has seen the film recently on YouTube is likely to forget it. Mubarak Begum and Mahmood sang the main songs, full of an inconsolable pathos and deserving to be as famous as the songs of ‘Pakeezah’ for the way they build a beautiful cage in which a bird counts its last breaths. Jamal Sen scored the music and Majrooh Sultanpuri and Kaif Bhopali wrote the songs. My jaw drops when I reflect that it was the sunny young man of ‘Waris’ who brought the pooled-up tears and suffocating desire to the ‘Daaera’ songs ‘Ansoo to nahin hai ankhon mein’ and 'Aa bhi jaa, meri duniya mein' a year earlier.
Let us dwell a little on the timelessness of Mahmood’s work. I must limit myself to only a few examples.
First, look at the song “Apni kaho, kuchh meri suno’ from Parchhain (1952). It was written by Noor Lucknavi and composed by C. Ramchandra. Ramchandra, the ‘Gore gore, banke chhode’ hit maker, was a maverick. His hip songs tend to be so fearlessly silly that they are genius. He had a beautiful voice himself and sang many popular songs. He was a man of ideas. ‘Parchhain’ itself includes ‘Wo zalim pyar kya jaane’ by Mahmood (I will not get into that picturization), and the whispery Mahmood-Mangeshkar duet “Dil dil se keh raha hai”. Speaking of Ramchandra, listen to a lesser-known number that he composed for Mahmood for the film 'Kavi' (1954), 'Main peeke nahin aaya'. The song is unusual for Hindi films for its style of rendition and showcases Rajinder Krishan's flair for dropping a script into a nutshell. Manna Dey, who remained friends with Mahmood till the latter's death, came to mind when I heard the tune, but Mahmood's "soft" style dragged me out of the comfort zone of typecasting. How facile it is to associate Dey with 'Chalat musafir moh liya re' and 'Phir wohi shaam' with Mahmood, and 'Phir kahin koi phool khila' with Dey (I have this never-to-be-fulfilled wish to hear this song in Mahmood's voice) and 'Ansoo samajh ke kyun mujhe' with Mahmood, though each accomplished artiste would have sung the other song with verve and made it different, the way Mahmood made 'Main peeke nahin aaya' a poet's pose rather than a buddy song guaranteed to grab attention. It was not as if Mahmood could only handle soulful songs if they were slow in tempo.
‘Apni kaho’ is in Ramchandra's hip mould, but everything about the sequence has dated − except the parts sung by Mahmood. The song is an important dialogue between the man and the woman. She is giving him peppy reminders to live in the present. He is unconvinced. The situation, sans the film’s backstory, is commonplace. Every family has these sorts of dialogues at least five times a month, but no one wears a fancy woollen coat over the shoulders and does a jig while having that talk. I could have sworn that no one did so even in 1952, but am no longer sure. Lata Mangeshkar notwithstanding, the duet is only bearable when Mahmood voices the man’s rejoinders. His poise and sophistication suit V. Shantaram's character and make even his outfit look sharp.
Another song to talk about in this context is “Shukriya ay pyar tera”. I have loved it forever, hearing it on radio. YouTube recently threw at me a young Mahmood singing his own song in a sequence from ‘Aaram’ (1951). Everyone looks like creaky old furniture in the static scene, Mahmood himself, Durga Khote, Madhubala and Prem Nath. Prem Nath’s dapperness and smoking somehow dates the sequence even more! But the song itself, a young man’s jeering ode to love, across time, lands the punch and spite of Taylor Swift’s best. Thank goodness for radio.
Badal jaye duniya, na badlenge hum
Now for the last example: the duet ‘Kehta hai dil tum ho mere liye’ from ‘Mem Sahib’ (1956), a successful effort all round. The song was written by Rajinder Krishan and composed by none other than Madan Mohan. Prakash Malhotra’s camerawork, under R.C. Talwar’s direction, gets you into the swing of the flirtation. Shammi Kapoor does very well, playing a different sort of suitor, a "modern" man for an educated rich girl. As everyone knows, Shammi Kapoor was one of Rafi’s voices. Rafi had the well-earned reputation of being able to bring a particular actor’s idiosyncrasies into songs. Rafi was key to Shammi Kapoor’s colour rebranding, with songs like ‘Yahoo! Chahe koi mujhe jungli kahe’ (and no, I will not argue that Talat Sa’ab could have sung that one). Back in the day, though, as Shammi Kapoor said charmingly many years later (I translate loosely), “it was a wish fulfilled” when he got to act with Mahmood's numbers. He mentioned 'Laila Majnu' in the context. That film has the duet "Aasma wale teri duniya se", written by Shakeel Badayuni and scored by Ghulam Mohammad. The song draws a sharp contrast between Mahmood's timelessness and Lata Mangeshkar's childlike and weepy sound which was a situational formula for women's playback at the time. Compare Mangeshkar's sound with her own later work, for example in 'Piya bina bajena' (Abhimaan, 1973).
Psst… long aside warning! ‘Kehta hai dil’ presents an opportunity to draw attention to one of Mahmood’s underrated abilities, underrated by himself as well. Let me put it this way: rather than adapting to an actor, Mahmood kept in mind the idea animating the role. Having experience as an actor, he knew how to do it. Anyone familiar with Shammi Kapoor's part in ‘Mem Sahib’ should listen again to the honey-sweet, almost self-mocking softness of Mahmood’s work in this duet. Now listen to a similarly paced song, a Mahmood solo from the very next year’s ‘Captain Kishore’: ‘Badal jaye duniya’ written by Tanvir Naqvi and composed by Chitragupt. It is sung differently. Why, it sounds like boring old commitment! A sleight of voice, a tiny variation of tone.
Acting in playback
According to Khaiyyaam, Mahmood was not one for small talk at work. There is no doubt, however, that he took care to ask why a character would be thinking those thoughts at that juncture of the storytelling. He was interested in the discussion that took place when a song was made. He paid attention to the lyrics. They were written by professionals who understood the character and cinematic situation. Mahmood probably never even thought that he was doing anything more than what was expected of him. ("Acting'' in playback, he told Sarita Sethi in the interview referenced above, was difficult for him. Obviously Mahmood did himself no favours! He acted effortlessly in his playback but "ACTING IN PLAYBACK", in his mind, was something more hyperbolic, like pretending to be "dead drunk" and drawling on without music for a certain scene in 'Devdas'.) Did cinema-going listeners of the time notice Mahmood’s subtle adjustments? Doubtful. However, the best brains operating in the industry at that time must have noticed. People loved him for many reasons and people wanted him gone for as many. Certainly, we have lost those words if his peers publicly acknowledged these subtle aspects of Mahmood’s playback.
Back to ‘Kehta hai dil’: Asha Bhosle voices the formidable Meenaji in the duet. Darling though her effort is, coquetry (but not Meenaji’s expressions) is an anachronistic sound.
Sidebar: Unlike the dapper Prem Nath in the earlier example, in the quirky way cinema works or does not, Kishore Kumar, spotted in ‘Kehta hai dil’ in brahmachari garb, ironically, is a modern and fashionable rebel with a cause.
Talat Mahmood & Dilip Kumar
Mitwa
“Dilip Kumar jaise khoobsurat aur lajawab artiste shayad hi paida honge. Yeh meri khushnasibi thi ke Bombay mein aakar pehle unhi ke picture mein playback dene ka mauqa mila. Waise toh bahut se picture-on mein unka playback diya hai. Meri awaaz unki awaaz ban gayi thi. Jaise Raj Kapoor aur Mukesh ki jodi hai, waise hi meri aur unki jodi ban gayi hai.” − Talat Mahmood
Loose translation: “An artiste as beautiful and matchless as Dilip Kumar isn’t born every day. It was my good fortune that I got the opportunity to do playback for him as soon as I came to Bombay. I have sung for him in many films. My voice had become his voice. Just as Raj Kapoor and Mukesh are a pair, so are we.”
I had not come across this quotation when its truth, that Mahmood was the voice of Dilip Kumar, dawned on me. I watched bits and pieces of a bunch of early Dilip Kumar movies before he passed away on July 7 last year. I had watched some of them long ago on Doordarshan and much later on YouTube. Looking for Dilip Kumar, I found Mahmood's songs too, above all, ‘Mitwa’ from Bimal Roy’s ‘Devdas’ (1955), written by Sahir Ludhianvi and composed by S.D. Burman. It is one of those perfect songs of Hindi films, perhaps more difficult to sing than to act with. Anyone who doubts my earlier observation on Mahmood’s grasp of the animating idea of the character may want to hear this song again.
Much of Hindi-Urdu speaking India realized at the time that there was something about Dilip Kumar and there was something about Talat Mahmood. Their art was complex and minimalistic at the same time. What they achieved appeared to be simple for them and organic. Born a year apart, in different parts of India, they both sought artistic work in Bombay during a time of post-Independence pride and idealism. They were given opportunities to shine. It is wonderful that when asked to pay tribute to Mahmood after his death in 1998, Dilip Kumar also used the adjective “khubsoorat” (beautiful) to describe Mahmood’s personality.
By 1998 both Dilip Kumar and Mahmood had spent time in the wilderness or in retirement, whatever you will. Forty years had gone by since the heady days when they turned out the crowds together. To artistes, forty years can seem like four lifetimes. Maybe that was why Dilip Kumar forgot that Mahmood was his voice. Maybe not. Mahmood was not the only person to sing for the actor. But Mahmood, nearing the end of life, told us. So, we know for sure that there was a time when there was such a pairing. That Mahmood was considered Dilip Kumar’s voice.
Yeh hawa yeh raat yeh chandni
But, like I said, I stumbled upon this truth on my own. I do not know whether Rafi, who sang for the star afterwards, had a style for him too. All I know is that Mahmood did not. He stuck scrupulously to the idea animating whichever character Dilip Kumar was playing. It must have been a bitter pill for Mahmood to swallow when he was pushed out, but for listeners like myself, their collaboration shines with innocence and inspiration inside a drop of amber.
Look how Dilip Kumar’s glance at Munawar Sultana in ‘Milte hi ankhe dil hua’ (duet with Shamshad Begum, ‘Babul’, 1950) is awkward, almost intimidated, and how Mahmood miraculously has the same bashfulness in his voice. I enjoy the theatre of ‘Yeh hawa yeh raat yeh chandni’ in ‘Sangdil’ (1952), which, incidentally, was an earlier effort of the ‘Kehta hai dil’ team of Prakash Malhotra and R.C. Talwar. Such a deeply deceptive song! Stuffed with loaded words like “bekhabar” (unwitting) by Rajinder Krishan and composed by the one and only Sajjad Hussain, this is the Dilip Kumar-Mahmood team at the top of their game, dripping fake charm for one woman while pensively yearning for another. I would feel sorry for Mohini/Blanche, played by actress Shammi, who faces the double onslaught of charm, were she not faking love for Thakur Shankar/Mr. Rochester.
In ‘Aadmi’ (1968), one of Dilip Kumar’s later films, unbeknownst to the general listening public, a possibility arose that Talat Mahmood’s voice would be heard, if not on the lips of Dilip Kumar, but at least in a sequence that featured him. Mahmood recorded that song with Rafi. It is included in the CD collection released by RPG after Mahmood’s death. The film song was re-recorded with Mahendra Kapoor singing for Manoj Kumar. Kapoor, at thirty four, had already taken away a huge playback honour from his much-awarded mentor, Rafi. He won the inaugural National Award (Silver Lotus) in 1967 for the muscly patriotic hit 'Mere desh ki dharti sona ugle’. Kapoor was hot property at the time. Back in 1963, he charmed all of India with the elegiac 'Chalo ek bar phir se.' In 1968, two of his songs, including 'Desh ki dharti', were nominated for the prestigious Filmfare award. He won for 'Neele gagan ke tale'.
Notably, these playback awards were instituted years after 'Shaam-e-gham'. Years after 'Mitwa'. Years after Madan Mohan's classic 'Meri yaad mein tum na ansoo bahana', for 'Madhosh' (1951) written by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. Or 'Jayen to jayen kahan' composed by S.D. Burman, written by Sahir Ludhianvi and brought to screen in Hollywood B&W by the Anand brothers. Or, if popularity is the metric for snagging an award, Mahmood's most-played song, 'Ay mere dil kahin aur chal' from 'Daag' (1952), which was written by Shailendra and composed by Shankar-Jaikishan. 'Jalte hain jiske liye' is Mahmood's only song to make it to even Filmfare nominations. It lost out to 'Sab kuchh seekha humne'. Mahmood, being Mahmood, must have applauded for his friend and confidant, Mukesh. Healthy competition did not faze a man of his stature.
Ashkon mein jo paya hai
Imagine that you sang the ‘Chhaya’ (1961) hits − solos and duets with Lata Mangeshkar, written by Rajinder Krishan and composed by Salil Chowdhury. Imagine that your voice gleefully adapted to new musical ideas and bigger orchestras and sailed through the Hasrat Jaipuri-Shankar-Jaikishan composition ‘Tum toh dil ke taar ched kar’ for ‘Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja’ (1961). Imagine that you gave measure for measure to Lata Mangeshkar while suiting a young Shashi Kapoor in ‘Prem Patra’ (1962) in the duet ‘Sawan ki raton mein’ written by Gulzar and composed by Salil Chowdhury. Imagine you sang 'Phir wohi shaam' and were not even nominated for a Filmfare award. Imagine that you breathed life into Sahir Ludhianvi’s hymn to selflessness, ‘Ashkon mein jo paya hai’ (composed by N. Dutta), for ‘Chandi Ki Deewar’ (1964), which song, by the way, may be listened to as a companion piece to the Rajinder Krishan song from 'Kavi', if you love what words do and if you want to appreciate Mahmood's versatility. Now imagine getting less and less work and hearing whispers about your smoking and health and staleness. Imagine being left out of big-banner Lucknow-based movies like ‘Mere Mehboob (1963) and ‘Palki’ (1967) when no other top singer epitomized the idealized soul of that city like you did.
Before anyone starts feeling sick, let me provide an antidote, a nugget of information. Long after Bollywood moved on from Mahmood, when he was fifty-six, he courageously rerecorded a few songs from the 1950s. He had a point to prove. Artistes are sensitive people. Performing artistes need new material and an audience. Playback artistes need box office hit movies. However, the Arena does not care about prodigies or injuries. In an industry that sells Love, there is little love for artistes who had to stop to take a breath.
Fifty-six is a reasonable retirement age for an ex-prodigy, a star at twenty-six. Man proposes, God disposes.
Hain sabse madhur woh geet
“Kyunki main sadiyon purana hoon (translation: Because I am centuries old),” Mahmood murmured drily during his Vishesh Jaimala, presented in the mid-1980s, and proceeded to air a ‘Lala Rookh’ (1958) duet with Asha Bhosle, ‘Pyas kuch aur bhi bhadka di’, written by Kaifi Azmi.
Mahmood had scores to settle with the word “purana”, old. He may have drawn the line at self-deprecating word play, but Time is merciless towards all. By the mid-1980s many singers and poets and composers, many directors and producers, many heroes and heroines and character artistes had tasted, in a relentlessly commercial industry, what was shoved down Mahmood’s throat in 1964: redundancy. Heroes who found Mahmood's style antiquated had been replaced by newer faces and bodies and even newer styles of acting or means of cornering audience share. That is the problem with grinding a colossus to dust just because you can: you no longer have help in being memorable. You are on your own. The colossus is always alone. With whatever materials Mahmood had, he went where only he could in the early 1950s. He was centuries old already. Everything of value is eternal.
Several playback legends who worked immediately after K.L. Saigal’s era have paid tribute to him. Lata Mangeshkar famously sang him a shraddhanjali as well. Mahmood himself was in awe of Saigal and got acquainted with him when he returned to Calcutta after graduation and worked for New Theatres in the 1940s. He was present when Saigal recorded a song for ‘My Sister’ (‘Do naina matwale’) and even years and years later recalled being swept away.
Ay gham-e-dil kya karoon
Listening again to Mahmood’s songs, not just the ones he sang for Dilip Kumar, I cottoned on to the best kept secret of Old Bollywood’s music industry: Talat Mahmood was the unsung guru of Hindi/Urdu playback, the first modern playback professional. He was a pioneer even coming on the heels of K.L. Saigal, and working alongside the likes of Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle and Rafi. By the way, Rafi, another prodigy, got his break in Hindi films five years earlier than Mahmood, in 1945.
Mahmood was the erased link between Saigal and Rafi, missing because no one in a position to draw attention to the truth that hid in plain sight had the grace or humility or courage to do so. It was obviously easier to openly acknowledge a debt to Saigal, who was dead, than to a living contemporary who showed the way.
Saigal died in the beginning of 1947. An era of music began and ended with him.
A new one began with Mahmood, twenty years younger than Saigal, but barely four years apart if you consider Saigal's 'Jab dil hi toot gaya' (1946) and Mahmood's 'Ay dil mujhe' (1950). Yet, an era had rolled over in four years. Mahmood's sound is very, very different from Saigal's. It is revealing that younger artistes like Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh, also pioneers, were interested in Mahmood's work. Popular artistes Rajendra Mehta, Anup Jalota and Pankaj Udhas have shared their thoughts on various aspects of Mahmood's style. Anil Biswas, who debuted Mahmood in Hindi films, said on record decades later (I translate): "Talat had something that no other playback singer working at the time displayed."
How deep was Mahmood's love for his métier! His "soft style" was devoid of mannerisms and gimmickry. He knew how to modulate his voice. He was word perfect in Urdu. Just the way he says the words puts him past Saigal. There is no better way to utter the beautiful sound of courtly Urdu. Listen to Saigal's famous 'Jab dil hi toot gaya' (from 'Shahjehan') and Mahmood's work in the duet (with Shamshad Begum) 'Duniya badal gayee', both songs composed by Naushad Ali, three-four years apart.
Mahmood's experience of emotion was that of a refined person. That does not mean that he did not know raw emotion or did not understand that he would be trendier in the Colour era if he made his style more theatrical, more obviously passionate and formulaic. He grew up during a time when Mahatma Gandhi moved masses without screaming. People had few luxuries and big joint families. Grief or joy were rarely allowed to become spectacles. Emotion was nuanced. Heartbreak did not have a particular sound and neither did romance. Mahmood left pointers to the way he understood playback music with his work and by picking out, without a moment's hesitation, during an interview with A.I.R.’s Vijay Choudhry, the four qualities he admired in Saigal's playback, among them, “jazbaat” (emotion) and “alfaaz ki adaegi" (the way sounds are articulated in order to infuse meaning).
Above all, Mahmood's voice, very different in timbre from Saigal's gorgeous voice, also conveyed passion and pathos and gravitas. Dilip Kumar said in the tribute that I mentioned earlier: “Us awaaz mein ek qism ka gudaaz tha, ek anokhi qism ki khasiyat thi … aur hum jab khud gaate the unki gaana, toh woh enjoy karke gaate the.” (Loosely translated: “That voice had a kind of emotional appeal, it was a unique quality … and when I sang his song, I enjoyed the song myself.”
For a man who said of Saigal’s rendition of songs like ‘So ja rajkumari': “… vakayi dil nikal ke rakh diya hai unhone” (loose translation: "truly, he cut out his heart and put it on display"), it was probably enough for Mahmood in the end that he connected with a million people (at least) who discovered that same extreme commitment in his own best work. In fact, he said something like that in conclusion to a superb ‘Legends’ compilation (RPG) arranged by Sanjeev Kohli: (I translate): “These songs, all I pray for, to my listeners and to Allah Ta’ala, is that I’m remembered for these songs. If I gave anything to the songs, if they’ve been of benefit to anyone, that’s the award.”
The mystery of why Mahmood persisted in my memory was solved when I listened to a lot of his playback work again. I realized that nearly everything he sang was popular and beloved and continued to be played by discerning radio jockeys at Vividh Bharti in the 1970s. Doordarshan showed films like 'Sujata' and 'Dekh Kabira Roya' and we heard Mahmood's songs in them and sometimes in the weekly programme featuring film songs. Fans who could afford it bought LPs and cassettes and later CDs and heard the songs again and again. As for me, years passed and I had less and less time to listen to Hindi film music, even what I had collected. I assigned quite a few of Mahmood's songs to other singers, mainly the more feted and remembered Rafi, songs like ‘Tum toh dilke taar ched kar’, close in meaning to ‘Khoya khoya chand’. Now I know better.
A few months ago I heard a HMV "Version" recording of ‘Chal ud ja re panchi’ sung by Mahmood and uploaded to YouTube by Mahmood's son, Khalid, who maintains a website dedicated to the artiste. Just like I still hold my breath for the first word of ‘Shaam-e-gham’, I now listen to 'Ud ja' and wait for the couplet ‘Bhool ja ab woh mast hawa, woh udna daali daali/ Jag ki aankh ka kanta ban gayi, chaal teri matwali". Mahmood winds his voice, huskier than it was in the 1950s, tenderly round what is only a whimsical orchestral effect in Rafi’s official song. I feel the breeze. To the word "chaal", in a blink, Mahmood endows a swagger. I see the bird.
By the end of the song, I am often teary-eyed. Rafi hits the high notes masterfully, godlike, or a blind bard. Mahmood is one of the uprooted people trudging onward. His feet bleed and tears run down his dust-covered face.
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