Give me five.

Frank Sinatra’s fan, I ain’t. I don’t care much for Lata Mangeshkar, either. Give me a Noor Jahan http://digbig.com/4yxxb, a Suraiya, a Geeta Dutt, a Suman Kalyanpur or a Shamshad Begum http://digbig.com/4yxxd any time. But that’s neither here nor there. The story I’m about to tell you is of the very first song in English I remember hearing being played on the family gramaphone http://digbig.com/4yxxe at 233 Khetwadi Main Road. http://digbig.com/4xyxy. The 78 rpm disc had, if memory serves, a blue or green EMI label. The singer probably was young Sinatra. This was in 1946 when I was just ten. He had apparently recorded what may have well been a cover version of the Gordon ‘Tex’ Beneke hit single Give Me Five Minutes More. Tex was the lead singer of the Glen Miller Band in those days. The song in the blues/jazz genre was originally sung by Phil Brito in a B-grade movie called Sweetheart of Sigma Chi. http://digbig.com/4yxxf. The Tex Beneke hit was on the charts for five weeks at the No.4 spot in the US, it seems. I distinctly remember the refrain of the song:

Give me five minutes more, only five minutes more.
Let me stay, let me stay, in your arms.

P.S.: The reason I went to the trouble of Googling the old song is that I have a strong feeling that there is some happy memory connected to it. Try as I might, though, I cannot fathom what.

Mannerisms, not manners.

If William of Wykeham's "Manners makyth man", also the motto of Winchester College and New College, Oxford, has a grain of truth, equally true for the Indian films of yore is the just-coined maxim: "Mannerisms makyth the hero". This profound truth dawned on me while watching a part of Humjoli (1970). This super-hit film had a totally ludicrous Jeetendra with his absurd mannerisms in the male lead. The other two Hindi film stars with distinct mannerisms who readily come to mind are Dev Anand and Rajesh Khanna. They were a bit more tolerable than Jumping Jack. Speaking of tolerance, the level of this rather rare quality in the Indian moviegoers of that era must have been phenomenal. Imagine accepting J as hero, buying a ticket and patiently watching him for two and a half hours. Of course, those were the Jurassic Age, pre-multiplex days. You didn't have to pay through the nose for the seat or the snacks. (And, of course, even in those days, the scalpers made avid moviegoers pay prices comparable to what the multiplexes now charge.) Going back to the forties, Noor Jahan too had to make do with timid, insipid, vapid costars. There's a story narrated by Naushad about how she used to make the timid Surendra Nath nervous while recording a duet with him for Anmol Ghadi. http://tinyurl.com/37yhyr. She would sing her portion of the song and, instead of yielding the mike to him and turning away, would keep staring at his face. For that matter, even Suraiya's leading men were equally uninspiring. Shyam, Suresh, Karan Diwan and Bharat Bhushan, to cite just four instances. In such cases the willing suspension of disbelief http://tinyurl.com/66c7h4 had mainly to be about the male lead, I reckon. P.S.: By the way, Humjoli (1946) starred Noor Jahan who also sang two fabulous songs Raaz Khulta and Phoolon Mein Nazar Yeh Kaun Ayaa which I simply love.

May your car never stall in the street.

Having just written about the pedal powered scooters, cars and bikes of my childhood, it's time to tell you about a hilarious song Suraiya http://tinyurl.com/5urtpx & http://tinyurl.com/5t6cxx sang for the movie, Moti Mahal (1952), in which her co-star was Ajit of the much later Loin fame. What's wonderful about the song is the verve and comic timing with which she sang it. This is remarkable because she was known for her sad songs. I've translated this wonderfully happy song into English staying as faithful to the original text and true to the English idiomatic usage as possible.

May your car never stall in the street.
May you never have to stand helpless in the street.
May your car never stall in the street.

Clothes dirtied, face blackened
Never mind whether you're Suraiya (ahem!) or Madhubala (tra-la-la!)
The mightiest become the butt of a joke in the street.
May your car never stall in the street.

You crank the handle again and again.
Push the car again and again till you're light-headed.
She's virtually made mincemeat of you in the street.
May your car never stall in the street.

You feed her oil, top her water level.
To no avail, because the shrew's stone-hearted!
Cry your eyes out, remember all your forefathers in the street.
May your car never stall in the street.

The world is absolutely right.
Only she who runs deserves to be called a car.
A car with a puncture is akin to a bullock cart, no less.
May your car never stall in the street.

May your car never stall in the street.
May you never have to stand helpless in the street.
May your car never stall in the street.

I'm sure my rendering is nowhere close to the original Hindustani lyrics spraklingly penned by Mulkraj Bhakri and set to foot-tapping music by Hansraj Behl. The text I followed is on p.35 of Hit Filmi Geet, Suraiya compiled and edited by Ganga Prasad Sharma for Manoj Publications, Delhi.

I would like to end this post with a bit of Hindi film trivia. Suraiya and Madhubala were obviously big names by 1952. (This was the year I passed my SSC examination, by the way.) Suraiya was obviously the bigger of the two (she mock-coughed while singing her own name in the song in the second stanza). Mahal (1949) had already boosted Madhubala's popularity and star value. Coincidentally, Madhubala was to star six years later in Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi, the hit comedy that got its name from a line in the song above (the second line in the fifth stanza: "Only she who runs deserves to be called a car"). The back page blurb of the song book I mentioned earlier informs me that Suraiya used to do her daily riyaz with the help of a gramophone or phonograph. She would play a 78 rpm record and sing along. Suraiya acted with Prithviraj Kapoor http://tinyurl.com/44dzbz & http://tinyurl.com/6boovk in Ishaara (1943) when she was 18. Later, she also acted with his sons Raj Kapoor in Daastan (1950) and Shammi Kapoor in Shama Parwana (1954). I was surprised to find out from the same source that she knew Marathi apart from Hindi, Urdu and Farsi. Like Noor Jahan, Suraiya could team up with any hero and still make a success of the film she had starred in. Phenomenal!

Intermission.

Listening to good old Noor Jahan http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2007/12/mallika-e-tarrannum-and-i.html and Suraiya songs takes me back to the Intermissions (or what we then called “Interval”) of countless Hindi movies seen in matinee shows at the Imperial Talkies on Lamington Road, close to 233 Khetwadi Main Road. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/12/medicine-cabinet.html. The mood at that moment used to be a mixture of part yearning to step out for a cool orangeade (or, was it orange crush?) served in a tallish glass beaker with a straw stuck in the neck, part curiosity about what was going to happen after the break and part certainty that it was all going to turn out all right. Or, sometimes not. Pity, I have never had since that kind of feeling. But, then, I have not been a nine-year old since then. At the Imperial, you stepped out from the stalls almost directly out in the open under a thatched covering to protect you from the afternoon sun or the monsoon shower. The booth selling the cool fizzy drinks was a few steps away. You stepped out with the song just before the light came up still swirling in your head. You handed over the one rupee coin to the vendor. You walked back to your seat with the drink in your hand. Maybe, you even bought potato wafers wrapped in cellophane – never quite crisp enough to deserve the title “potato crisps”. The song had still not stopped playing in your mind. The ad slides had already started. The lights were dimming gradually. Soon, it would be pitch dark once again with the light reflecting from the silver screen lighting up the faces of the movie goers and the rest of the movie would start unrolling.

Mallika-e-tarrannum* and I.

Incredible as it may seem to you, I used to be a student of music as a child of ten. A music teacher used to come to 233 Khetwadi Main Road http://digbig.com/4xyxy to teach me to sing and to play the harmonium and the tabla. Incredible as it seems to me today, I abhorred those music lessons. I was fond enough of film songs of the era, though. I used to listen to them on a hand-cranked gramaphone and on the radio. I distinctly remember my poor hapless teacher once coyly singing Noor Jahan’s Aayee Ghadi Yeh Suhani from Dil (1946) – the film eclipsed by her super-hit released the same year, Anmol Ghadi – and Hum Khelenge Aankh Mein Choli from her 1942 hit, Khandaan – in which she co-starred with Pran. I also recall my music masterji trying to entice me with Tu Kaunsi Badli Mein, also from Khandaan. To no avail. I just did not make any progress in my singing or harmonium-playing. Using the desperate excuse that the music lessons and the (non-existent) riyaz were eating into my study and play time, I managed to wriggle out of the hated chore. This memory morsel came to me while listening to NJ’s old songs which I often do while working. My love for film music as a listener continued apace, though. Later on, goaded by snobbery no doubt, I began to listen to Western pop and classical music and – wonder of wonders! – even enjoy it. There’s something undefinably charming about old 78 rpm Indian film songs – specially from the 40s and 50s – that nothing done since seems to possess. Oh, I forgot to mention that the NJ oldies are on a CD that somehow came into my possession. Whoever sent it my way deserves a ton of thanks. Apart from the cream of Mallika-e-tarrannum’s pre-Independence repertoire, it has songs by Suraiya, Shamshad Begum, Suman Kalyanpur and Geeta Dutt. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2007/05/music-for-soul.html. I may not be able to make you understand the immense joy these 40s. 50s and 60s no- Lata, no-Asha musical feast gives me. Imagine Noor Jahan leisurely crooning raag-based poetic lyrics, as if she had all the time in the world, often repeating a line or two with complete command, confidence and authority. Imagine the range of her voice and style variations. And, the subtle nuances. One thing that really amazes me is how the music directors never went over the top. In other words, no overdramatization, no crescendos. All that crept into Hindi film music soon afterwards, though, after NJ's exit. Take her duet with Mohamed Rafi from Jugnu (Yehan Badla Wafa Da). There’s an eerie, chilly feel they convey by their quiet rendition, a sense of inevitable disaster ahead. Brrrrr! Listening to these songs stirs the pool of memory. For instance, I get the feeling that I’ve seen some of these movies in theatres (Majestic, Imperial, Central, Krishna). Anmol Ghadi and Jugnu for sure. Khandaan, I’m not so sure about. And, I somehow cannot get rid of the feeling that the song, Aayee Ghadi Yeh Suhani from Dil, is sung in the movie just before the interval. By the way, there’s a story, probably apocryphal, about how Noor Jahan met the young Lata and Asha when she was starring in Vinayak’s Badi Maa in which both the Mangeshkar sisters were playing supporting roles. During the breaks, Noor Jahan used to ask Lata (“Latto”) to sing with her. She sensed her new friend’s potential and told Vinayak about her discovery in no uncertain terms. They evidently continued their friendship even after NJ went to live across the border after partition. P.S.: Apart from learning music briefly, I also did a short stint in Urdu as a young kid. Which reminds me: *Mallika-e-tarrannum = Queen of Melody.