Column: The marriage of muse and music

Published October 27, 2013
Habib Jalib with Mehdi Hasan
Habib Jalib with Mehdi Hasan

“I have grown up listening to Mehdi Hasan,” said the Academy Award-winning composer A. R. Rahman in the early years of his career. That was the time when the South Indian celebrity hardly understood Urdu. By sheer coincidence, the last public performance of the late legendary exponent of ghazal gayeki, Mehdi Hasan, was in Kerala. Every seat in the hall was occupied and there was hardly any space to walk because some of his diehard fans were sitting on the floor. The venue was in a region where people don’t understand Hindi, let alone Urdu.

Way back in the mid-60s, I attended a ghazal evening in Bombay where most members of the audience were Gujarati speaking. Some of them carried a pocket book that listed words that recur in ghazals with their meanings in Gujarati. There was a stall near the entrance where these books were on sale.

One can safely conclude that were it not for vocal music, poetry would not have enjoyed the wide popularity it does now.

The Calcutta-based writer Kishore Bhimani, whose mother tongue is Kutchi and first language Gujarati, will inform you which ghazal is by which poet. Thanks to his intense love for ghazals sung by the likes of Begum Akhtar and Mehdi Hasan, he can explain the different connotations of the word kaafir as used in Urdu poetry and give you the meaning of words like aah-o-fughan, which even an average Urdu-speaking person is not likely to be aware of. Even someone into Urdu poetry would not know much about Saghar Siddiqi or Razi Tirmizi or even Hafeez Hoshiarpuri, but would nevertheless enjoy the lyrical contents of Mehdi Hasan’s rendition of their ghazals — Chiragh-i-toor jalao bada andhera hai, Bhooli bisri chund umeedein and Muhabbat karnay walay kum na honge.

But it is not ghazal alone which has brought Urdu poetry to the lips of the common denominator; nazms too have done a commendable job. If Gulon me rung bharay baad-i-naubahar chalay has introduced Faiz Ahmed Faiz to the man on the street, so has the Noor Jehan’s rendition of Mujh se pehli si muhabbat mere mehboob na mang. Whenever Faiz was asked to recite either of the two poems at mushairas his standard reply would be, “Ye tou aap Mehdi Hasan se sunye, ye ghazal ab unki hogai hai” (You should listen to this ghazal in Mehdi Hasan’s voice, for now it belongs to him), or “Ye tou Noor Jehan ki awaaz me achchi lagti hai, meri awaaz me naheen” (This sounds better in Noor Jehan’s voice, not mine).

One can also safely say that Nayyara Noor’s exquisite renditions, as captivated in the album ‘Nayyara Sings Faiz’, is just as appealing in the context of music as it is in the context of poetry. That holds good for a couple of recordings by Tina Sani as well.

An avid admirer of Ghalib, I won’t hesitate to confess that I have enjoyed listening to him in the voices of the likes of Begum Akhtar, Iqbal Bano and Jagjit Singh more than merely reading his verse, because the appeal is on two levels, muse and music.

Had the geets of Amir Khusro not been rendered by ghazal singers and qawwals, very few people would have known what a great Sufi saint and a fine poet he was.

However, if there is one genre of music that has brought Urdu poetry to people all over the subcontinent, it is inarguably film music. To begin with, film songs are of a wide variety, folk, semi-classical, classical, naat, bhajan, qawwali, geets, nazms and ghazals, not to speak of national songs, wedding ditties and, the sweetest of them all, lullabies.

The detractors of film lyrics usually offer lop-sided arguments and in the process give examples of inane lines like Eena, meena, deeka and Sar jo tera chakrai ya dil dooba jai. But they seem to forget that film songs are written in accordance with situations in the movies. For example, a man who does head massages will not be shown singing a sophisticated ghazal, otherwise the scene would seem unrealistic.

The same poet who wrote Eena meena deeka (Rajendra Krishn) penned the lovely song, Phir wohi shaam wohi gham wohi tanhai hai / Dil ko samjhane teri yaad chali ayi hai for the film Jahan Ara. The ghazal is picturised on a poet. Likewise, Sahir Ludhianvi, who wrote the tel malish song, is one of the most accomplished film poets and has to his credit many beautifully crafted lines, some borrowed from his published poems and some especially written for the screen. A case in point is the title song of Phir Subah Hogi. In the same film, when the situation demands, he parodies Allama Iqbal’s famous poem and writes, Cheen-o-Arab hamara, Hindustan hamara / Rehne ko ghar naheen hai saara jahan hamara. It was picturised on a man in a cynical and despondent mood.

It was not just Urdu poets such as Qateel Shafai, Sahir Ludhianvi, Shakeel Badayuni, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Rajendra Krishn, Anand Bakhshi, Kaifi Azmi, Jannisar Akhtar, Tanveer Naqvi, Masroor Anwar and more recently Gulzar who wrote memorable film songs. Hindi poets did too. I am referring to Neeraj, Bharat Vyas, Pundit Narendra Sharma and, more than anybody else, the titanic figure of Shailendra. His contribution to film lyrics was second to none. Just listen to merely one picturesque line of the poet, Pattay kaheen kharkay hawa ayi to chonke hum and you will not remain unaffected by the sheer music in his lyrics. Had the reluctant member of the Progressive Writers’ Association not agreed to write film lyrics, the genre of music would have been poorer. Sadly, he died at the young age of 43. There were also some eminent poets who obliged friends and like-minded people by once in a while penning lyrics for their movies. Sheharyar (Umrao Jan Ada) and Makhdoom Mohiuddin were two examples, but the prime example is that of Faiz Ahmed Faiz who wrote songs for Ajay Kardar and Hameed Akhtar. In addition, a number of his published poems were also set to tunes by music directors for movies on both sides of the Wagah border. Another point to remember is that excepting religious songs like bhajans and naats, where you have Sanskritised Hindi and Persianised or Arabicised Urdu, poets, whether they wrote in the Arabic or Devnagri script, used a language embellished with both Urdu and Hindi words.

Every now and then you come across beautiful imagery in films songs, be it in Urdu or Hindi. Some examples which come randomly to my mind are: Tumhare sung mein bhi chaloongi piya, jaisay patang peeche dor (Shakeel Badayuni), and Kuch keh rahi hain aap se seenay ki dharkanein, mera naheen to unka kaha maan jayeeye (Qateel Shafai). In the case of Gulzar, the imagery is stunningly different and original. Just sample this: Hum ne dekhi hai un aankhon ki mehakti khushboo, haath se choo ke isay rishton ka ilzam na do.


The writer is the author of Mehdi Hasan: The Man and His Muse

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