Who Gave Music of Aradhana? - Page 3

dear mdroy ji, we have had many discussion on this topic before, it is unlikely that some one of Raju Bhartyan's stature who has written books on evolution of Bollywood music and who has served as editor of entertainment section in ToI will write some thing so wrong.
(reference-the article sited by me)

Being musicians ourselves it is easy for us to make out the chords and progression used in this song (roop tera mastana), which is typically Pancham's.

If there is truth in the conversations quoted may I suggest humbly to put them in form of article and try to publish in a news paper of big repute.

Interestingly when Ankush asked Kersi about (in front of a big audience) a piece played by Kersi Lord in one of the 70s music , he couldn't remember how and when he composed it..! But he is a true genius and so is his brother Bujji Lord (drummer).

Q. Even the start which is there, you know starting with 'Roop tera mastana', that is done by SDB only himself?

KL. Yeah! Yeah! S.D. Burman and his team.

See, I only go for the recording. So, when I went to the studio, it was at Famous-Tardeo, so Burmanda called me to one side, "Suno".

He always talked in mono syllables, not long sentences. "Kersi, yeh bahut romantic gana hai. Ek fire place hai. Ek hero ek heroine hai. Baarish mein bheege hue hai, aur ekdam romance mein hai. Tumko jo bhi karna hai, karo."

"Whatever you want to do, you do it." That is what he told me.

So, lots of things I played on my own. Most of the things were given by Manohari, but all the fillings in the song, some extra things in the music which I felt like playing, I played it. And they liked it. When they appreciate it, you feel like giving more and more.

(Regarding wrong reprting, this is what Kersi has said,)

Q. Par yeh normal hai, naturally assistants have to give suggestions to improve it. SDB aprove karenge nahin karenge, unke upar hai. That's what I feel.
MS: Correct. Wohi baat hai, assistants always suggestion denge, accha suggestion hoga to woh lelega, line daal bhi dete hain aisa, kuch gaane mein, do char sur ke liye gaane ka roop hi alag ho jaata hai. Aisa hota haina na, so why not accept it, aisa bhi hota hai.
Credit goes to Burman. Haan, Kersi correct bolta hai.
'Aradhana' ka music sab S. D. Burman Saab ka hi hai. Poora music Burman Saab ka hai. Haan, RD is mein involve nahin hai. Nahin, RD is mein involve nahin hai.

....................................
Finally, I am willing to accompany anyone of you, who would like to meet some of these legends who are fortunately still alive. That would include Kersi, Bhupindra Singh and those who have met Shakti Samanta. Clear all your doubts before it is too late. Truth should be welcomed, not shunned.

With regards,

Moti Lalwani

Dada Burman had been in a coma for nearly a year before October 31, 1975 -- the Friday on which he finally passed away. It was a coma that followed a stroke SD suffered while recording Kishore Kumar -- set to go, unforgettably, on Amitabh Bachchan (opposite Jaya Bhaduri playing Mili) as Badee soonee soonee hai zindagee yeh zindagee.

That traumatic Dada breakdown accounts for why Kishore Kumar handpicked this 1975 Badee soonee soonee hai mood song to figure among his Ten All-Time Bests in The Illustrated Weekly Of India cover story (titled Genius), on him, done by Pritish Nandy.

1975 was also the year by which Dada Burman had virtually replaced the multi-faceted Mohammed Rafi with the multi-hued Kishore Kumar in his repertoire.

Having done that, Dada vainly tried to soften the blow for Rafi by getting this singer to duet with Kishore (in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Chupke Chupke: 1975) as Sa re ga ma, aa ha, ma sa re ga.

It was Rafi here going on Dharmendra (the superstar-that-almost-was) in a ribtickling role opposite the superstar-that-already-was: Amitabh Bachchan.

Dada Burman had personally recorded Sa re ga ma before he slipped into that coma. A prolonged coma from which, Rahul Dev-Burman told me, he once ventured to shake Dada awake by conveying to football buff SD the glad tidings that his East Bengal had thrashed Mohun Bagan!

"Dada nodded just enough to make it clear that he had heard and absorbed The Happening!" Pancham told me.

Nor was Dada Burman into football alone. I had seen SD (seated enthusiastically on the front stone-bench) during a hockey final at the stadium adjoining the Churchgate Station in the sporty metropolis of Bombay. In fact, Dada Burman was the Master Conductor at a Music Nite organised (at the same stadium venue) to raise funds for the Bombay Hockey Association.

Here, at that Nite, was where I beheld S D Burman patting Mohammed Rafi on the back, as that tenor gave super expression to Dada's 1958 Raag Chhayanat Majrooh-written classic on Dev Anand in Kala Pani: Hum bekhudee mein tum ko pukaare chale gaye.

It was from the muezzin's call to prayer that Dada Burman had picked up the tune-idea for Hum bekhudee mein tum ko pukaare chale gaye -- a call running as Ahl-e-rasool mein jo Musallama ho gaye.

Any wonder Rafi gave such heart-stopping articulation to Hum bekhudee mein?

Ha, Mohammed Rafi! Did this stalwart performer deserve, finally, to be treated the way he was by Sachin Dev-Burman, even granting that Rafi's easing out from Dada's recording room came about following an Aradhana breakthrough by Kishore Kumar that sigalled the arrival of Rajesh Khanna as the superstar to upset all settled values in our films?

Roop tera mastaana pyaar mera deewaana; Mere sapnon kee raanee kab aayegee too; even that Raag Pahadi duet of Kishore with Lata, Kora kaagaz thha yeh man meraa, weren't these tunes initially envisioned, by Dada Burman, to go in the voice of Mohammed Rafi on a still-to-arrive Rajesh Khanna?

Since SD's tunes here were to be picturised on a hero (Rajesh Khanna) yet 'on the fringe', Dada Burman had, anticipating the demand of the razzledazzle film trade, logically chosen, as his main male singer for Aradhana, the then voice of every other leading man in films: Mohammed Rafi.

Indeed, by getting the first two songs that were recorded for the film, Baaghon mein bahaar hai (with Lata Mangeshkar) and Gunguna rahe hain bhanwre (with Asha Bhosle), to be by Rafi, Dada Burman had already indicated his choice of voice for Aradhana.

But this was the point at which S D Burman fell critically ill.

And here is where we come to the gut point about certain readers holding me to my 1994 view that it was "R D Burman, and not S D Burman, who conceived and executed the music score of Aradhana."

So it was -- but only after those two duets came to be "conceived and executed" (that is, recorded) by S D Burman in the voice of Rafi!

That was the norm in our films then. That, first, two songs of a production had to be recorded -- as the launching-pad. Plus the news of such a recording had to appear as a published item in an industry-respected paper like the weekly Screen.

Only after that would finance for a film flow. So it was as finance for Aradhana was set to flow that SD fell ill.

So ill that R D Burman, behind the scenes, took over the remaining music of Aradhana for Kishore Kumar really to happen. Happen after that peerless singer had been, for a full 23 years, 'on the periphery' -- always a vibrant voice, but never quite there, in the topmost echelons of a field right then dominated by Mohammed Rafi, as a playback performer way ahead of the rest towards the end of the 1961-70 decade.

Aradhana would be remembered in the annals of history as SD B creation with RDB lurking all over. Period.

Not beleiving Amit Kumar, Asha , Times of India, Rediff, books on histoy of Indian music just to prove (some how) that R D Burman was no way involved in music of Aradhana is some thing no one with any insight in music will agree to. In fact to come out with a personal interview trying to discredit R D Burman is some thing which will turn people away from taking this discussion seriously.

So good bye, have a nice time and if you believe in your interview please do publish them in a paper of good repute.