Emperors of Playback- Kishore and Rafi Duets

The first time Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar shared the microphone together was in 1949, both in their twenties and yet to achieve superstardom. The song was by and large a duet of Rafi and S D Batish-“Duniya mein ameeron ko aaraam nahi milta”, where Kishore gave some fillers with yodelling and gabbles.

The first proper duet these two legends sang together was in 1953- two duets in the movie Mallkin, music directed by Roshan Lal Nagrath or Roshan. Both fun filled duets- “Kahin se oonchi kahin se neechi” and “ Dhoti aur patloon mein” are not remembered much these days. Composition wise, there is nothing great in them, just occasional peppy numbers.

Throughout the fifties, Kishore and Rafi came together for male duets in quite a few movies like Mastana(1954, Madan Mohan), Paisa Hi Paisa(1956, Anil Biswas), Fifty Fifty(1956, Madan Mohan), Bhagam Bhag(1956, O P Nayyar), Naya Andaz(1956, O P Nayyar), however barring those of Naya Andaz, the rest all can safely be forgotten. It is important to note that, post-Baiju Bawara(1952), as Rafi grew stronger and stronger as a playback singer throughout the fifties, Kishore gained ground more in acting with his singing taking a clear backseat. So, in most of the cases, the duets were either picturized on Kishore for funny songs (obviously) or on some other comic actors to whom Kishore gave playback.

Sixties belonged to Rafi. Mere figures cannot explain the mammoth like impact he had on the industry. In the sixties, in Hindi playback singing, 1 to 10 were Mohammed Rafi and it remains an achievement of its own! Even if some competitions were there for the top spot in the fifties with Talat and Mukesh, Rafi ensured there was none in the sixties. With rock and roll and rhythm getting more importance, Rafi proved to be the only true blue versatile singer out of the lot, and the rest remained in their niche as specialists. Hemant Kumar slowly moved out of Hindi music fraternity, Talat was into hibernation by mid-60s and Mukesh was called for special sad numbers only. Mahendra Kapoor, even though his lifetime collection would consist of mainly 60s songs, in terms of impact, he was nowhere close. And Kishore Kumar was virtually jobless by mid-60s. His movies were not doing well, his problem with income tax and Madhubala shattered him further and he had far too distanced himself from playback singing by then.

Sixties had hardly any significant Rafi-Kishore duet to talk of. They came together in some sporadic instances like Krorepati (Shankar Jaikishen, 1961) and Akalmand(1966, O P Nayyar)- both Kishore Kumar starrers.

With the advent of seventies, Kishore Kumar as a playback singer grew large, very large.  And this marked the decade where Kishore and Rafi sang significantly remarkable male duets.

My all time favourite remains “Yaadon ki baarat” title song-1973. While Kishore sang in his inimitable full open throated singing style, Rafi gave his signature soft touch and made this duet very memorable indeed.

Both Kishore and Rafi had been the mainstay of the compositions of legendary Sachin Dev Burman. But, somehow, SD could never make a Kishore-Rafi duet before, until in 1975- in one of his last released movies, Chupke Chupke. Kishore was all over the duet and Rafi aptly supported him for the sweet “Saregama masarega” duet.

Composer duo Laxmikant Pyarelal needs a special mention here. Here was a duo who had no clear cut preference of one over the other, unlike many other MDs in the 70s, and equally distributed their creations to both of them throughout. They kept on bringing these two stalwarts together throughout the 70s, with memorable duets in Humjoli(1970), Parvarish(1977), Ram Balram(1980) and Deedar-e-yaar(1982). My personal favourite remains “Mere dildaar ka baankpan” from Deedar E Yaar, penned by the great Sahir Ludhianvi.

Shankar Jaikishen also recorded some popular Kishore-Rafi duets in Ek Naari Ek Brahmachari(1971), Jungle mein mangal(1972) and Love in Bombay(1975).

During the late 70s, double hero concept became very popular, and two different but prominent voices were required for two heroes, ahem, angry young men! Kishore Kumar and Mohammed Rafi recorded maximum duets in that period of 1977-1980. Rajesh Roshan recorded as many as 4 K-R duets in a single movie called “Aap ke Deewane”(1980). One of my favourites “Tum ko khush dekhkar” belongs to that movie.

Silence Mightier Than Words- Chaplin in Talkies

Charlie Chaplin stuck to his theories for a long time. In the talkies era, he made two silent movies- City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936); although the latter had some talkies part, including a song and dance scene by the genius himself, it can safely be clubbed under the silent movies.

Chaplin made 5 talkie movies in his lifetime, out of which in 4 of them- The Great Dictator(1940), Monsieur Verdoux(1947), Limelight(1952) and A King In New York(1957)- he was the protagonist and one- his last movie and the only colour movie of his lifetime-A Countess from Hong Kong(1967), he directed and played a small cameo.

Following the path of a Genius- Exploring Kishore Kumar's Unfading Popularity

In the highly competitive arena of Hindi film music, to leave a mark of your own itself is such a huge task, leave apart becoming the Numero Uno. And to maintain the top position for years together is even tougher. With the industry studded with innumerable musical talents in the Golden Era of Film Music- from 50s to 70s- there had been a privileged few who, with the Good God’s Grace, were distinctly genius.  

Who can be called a Genius? Can we safely define him as a person who can perform a task to the perfection without ever learning the general and widely acknowledged process of performance and developing a new process of his own! So, if sending a cricket ball outside the boundary with a Willow Bat is a task, Sunil Gavaskar learnt the process of accomplishing that task traditionally by studying and practising, while Viv Richards developed a process of his own! And the path followed by the Genius is also very difficult to follow by others- resulting in limited number of genius and more number of traditional students, as a law of nature. Not that Sunny is lesser than Viv by any circumstances; we can still safely give the crown of a “Master” to the former and the crown of a “Genius” to the latter.

Never follow the path of a non-conformist- warn the traditionalists! You might mess it all up and end up at nowhere. And people to be on the safer side, follow that instruction also.

So, when Pandit Ajay Chakraborty of the Patiala gharana mentions in an interview that he was highly influenced by the singing style of Kishore Kumar and Manna De, you can't help getting stunned! As the latter can be safely called the Sunil Gavaskar or Rahul Dravid of Hindi playback singing, the former has always been a Viv Richards or Virendra Sehwag- people awed at him in appreciation sometimes and criticizing him outright some other times.

But the fact is what Ajay Chakraborty depicts indirectly- Kishore Kumar and his style of singing is present generation’s obsession. What do they follow about Kishore- a man who sang more than 3000 songs in a career of 40 years without having any formal musical training? What aspect of this amateur singer’s singing could have attracted people like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Ajay Chakraborty, Prince Rama Verma to Satyajit Ray, Lata Mangeshkar to an entire generation of young and aspiring singers? Even a trained Rabindrasangeet singer Suchitra Mitra, who had taken training under the Great Poet himself, sent a letter full of praises to this maverick singer after listening to his album of Rabindrasangeets?

National Award winning director Sandip Ray made a comprehensive documentory on Kishore Kumar