Chhaayaageet #11 - "Ismein gaana nahin hai. Keval bol hain. Baat karni hai aapko."
"You don't have to sing. These are just words. You just have to converse."
The director is trying to convince the star actor to lend his voice to a song. The director has heard him sing it before at an event and is convinced it needs to be him. The actor is not so sure.
The film is an ambitious project. The director is well known for painting a grand canvas - multiple star cast, beautiful lush locations, and a story that explores the tangled web of extra-marital relationships. All these demand beautiful songs.
But it's the 1980s. Troubled times for Hindi film music. With flimsy scripts, the quality of music also has nosedived. Stalwart composers of yesteryears have either passed away, retired from the business, or fallen out of favor. Melody is lost in the cacophony, and songs are seen as an interlude for a bathroom break in the cinema hall.
A fresh perspective is needed in the music department. The director turns to a duo of classical musicians who have never composed film music before.
A wave of criticism breaks out. How can they compose music for a film? Do they understand the genre? Do they know the pulse of the movie goer audience? It is night and day different from the sophisticated audience that goes to their concerts. How can classical musicians dilute their art for crassly commercial reasons?
The duo is unfazed with all this snickering. The director has immense faith in them. He even agrees to the large assortment of instruments the music composers want.
Next, the director turns his attention to the lyrics department. The trusted lyricist who he has worked with in the past cannot match the schedule.1
After a lot of back and forth, the huge responsibility of writing songs is entrusted to a script writer.
"What is a song in a film? It is but a scene. You have to know the situation, and the ethos of the characters", the script writer explains.
He's never written film songs before. How different can it be? He is a poet after all.2
It is a gamble. For a director who is the master of romance, and for whom songs have always played a prime role in his films, it is a bold step to entrust the music and lyrics to people who have never done it before.
They rise to the occasion, carefully reading the screenplay, understanding the situations in detail. They ask the director for two weeks. They sit together at home and compose the music.
Until they come to this song.
The lyricist feels he is out of range on this one. He can express all kinds of emotions, but has never written poetry for a festival event. It's not yet part of his repertoire.
Options are being considered.
The director remembers that he has heard the star hero sing a folk song before at a festival.3 It is in the UP-style of Hori.
Let's get him to sing it. Ask his father to write it.
"Ismein gaana nahin hai. Keval bol hain. Baat karni hai aapko."
The star actor is not sure this is a good idea. Finally, they manage to convince him. The star actor's father, a legendary poet, is approached to write the lyrics. He is excited to know his son is to sing it. He makes adjustments to an old poem of his that is based on a traditional bhajan of Meera bai.4 Within an hour, he rewrites it in the Awadhi dialect of Hindi and adjusts to fit the situation of the song in the film.
The musicians reflect on getting the star actor to sing this song despite his reservations.
"Allahabad ka hai, usey gava diya, jaise galey mein haat daal ke."
They pulled the song out of him.
The song is a super-hit as the star actor delivers it in a tipsy and folksy tone while expressing his adulterated love.
Arre, bela chameli ka sej bichhaya
Haan, bela chameli ka sej bichhaya
Sove gori ka yaar, balam tarse Rang Barse
Ho Rang Barse bheege chunar waali rang barse
All this while everyone around him in the scene is watching in shame and embarrassment but who cares. It's Holi. Holi hai.
Shiv-Hari, the music director duo of Shivkumar Sharma, a Santoor player, and Hariprasad Chaurasia, a flutist, came together with Javed Akhtar, the first-time lyricist, under the banner of Yash Chopra to deliver music for the classic, Silsila. The song Rang Barse was based on the UP-style Hori sub-genre of music. Hori has both classical as well as semi-classical connections. These compositions are mainly based on the love pranks of Radha-Krishna known for its connection with Vrindavan, the native place of Lord Krishna.
Amitabh reflecting on how he was convinced to sing. Shiv-Hari commended him by saying, "Amitabh practised Rang Barse well; the singing, movements, everything. And he got the inflections perfectly."
1Sahir, who had written the songs of Kabhi Kabhie, was contacted to write the songs. But he was not able to fit in with the schedule.
2Javed Akhtar was brought on to write the songs of Silsila, and he penned some gems.
3Raj Kapoor used to host an annual Holi bash at RK Studios. At one of those Holis, Raj Kapoor saw Amitabh sitting by himself. He went over and asked Amitabh to sing a song. Amitabh sang the Rang Barse folk song that had been written by his father. It was a song that he had grown up hearing at Holi in the Bachchan household, with his father singing it. Yash Chopra heard Amitabh sing it and knew one day he would get Amitabh to perform it in a film.
4Harivanshrai Bachchan's poem Rang Barse was based on a bhajan of Meera bai. First few lines of the original bhajan of Meera bai are:
Rang barse o meeran, bhawan main rang barse..
Kun e meera tero mandir chinayo, kun chinyo tero devro...
Rang barse o meeran, bhawan main rang barse
Lyrics: Harivanshrai Bachchan
Music: Shiv-Hari, Shivkumar Sharma & Hariprasad Chaurasia
Singer: Amitabh Bachchan
Director: Yash Chopra
Film: Silsila (1981)
References:
How music composers Shiv-Hari got Amitabh Bachchan to sing in Silsila by Sathya Saran (Huffpost, Jan 3, 2020)
Secrets about Silsila you never knew by Sathya Saran (Rediff, Feb 11, 2020)
Music and lyrics: The Shiv-Hari partnership proves that quality always trumps quantity by Ganesh Vancheeswaran (Scroll.in, Oct 5, 2020)
This is how Raj Kapoor's Holi bash gave us the iconic song Rang Barse (readnews.us)
Rang Barse on Wikipedia