Chhaayaageet #110- “This young guy, this Madrasi is not going to work.”

He arrives at the composer’s house for an audition. The filmmaker had heard him previously in Tamil movies and felt he may have a chance to sing in his upcoming Hindi film.

The composer is part of a duo composer team. Still, he is the one responsible for the compositions and the other half takes care of the execution making sure the orchestra is prepared and ready to play the composition.

The singer's staple audition song is a Filmfare winner originally composed by the same composers and sung by Mohammed Rafi. It didn’t matter where he was auditioning, he would sing the same song. This is destiny that he will get to perform in front of his favorite composers.

The main composer is an expert mandolin player. He brings the mandolin to his ear, strums a few times, then goes back to his harmonium, and then sings a bit. He keeps repeating this a few times. “Ok, go ahead and sing now.” The composer is comfortable now and ready to hear him sing as he plays the tune on the harmonium.

The singer is completely lost by this time. With all the tuning, the back and forth with harmonium and mandolin, he is not able to focus. He goes ahead with the song. The song falls flat. He can see that the composer is not impressed.

“This young guy, this Madrasi is not going to work.” The composer decides to take it up with the filmmaker. “Why, what happened?” The filmmaker knows him from his days in Tamil cinema. He has been singing for the last 13 years over there. “He is not even able to pronounce basic Hindi words. How’s he going to sing?” The composer is already thinking of other options.

The filmmaker has a smile on his face. “I think I forget to tell you about our hero and heroine in the film. It's the debut Hindi film for both of them. The hero's character is not supposed to know any Hindi initially. In fact, I want the singer to sing exactly like someone who doesn't know proper Hindi. He is perfect for this.” It's hard for the composer to argue against that. Reluctantly he returns back knowing very well that he will have to deal with this singer now.

The singer reaches the studio on the day of recording. He is excited about his debut performance in Hindi films but nervous at the same. Nobody has communicated with him about the song, tune, etc. There have been no rehearsals. This is not how they do things back in Madras.

He finds the main composer in the voice room. “Sir, I am really nervous about singing this song. I haven't heard the song let alone rehearsed it. Not sure what is happening.” The composer senses the nervousness coming across from him. “Calm down. The hero of the movie cannot speak Hindi. So this first song even though it's a duet, you have only 2 dialogs.” The singer can feel the ground slipping away. “But sir, I wanted to sing in Hindi films…” The composer pacifies him. “Don’t worry, you will sing other songs, but not this one.”

The singer starts rehearsing the couple of dialogs he has to say in Tamil. He wants everything to be perfect. No mistakes.

Suddenly there is some noise and he sees that the entire studio is distracted. The female singer or better known as the nightingale of India walks into the voice room. In a white sari, she appears as an embodiment of Goddess Saraswati.

The composer introduces the young singer to her. She speaks in the softest possible voice. “I have heard a lot about you. Wish you good luck.” It is almost like getting blessings in a temple for the singer. “Thank you so much. It's my honor to be even standing next to you.”

For some reason, he still can’t shake off the nervousness. The pleasantries are all done and now they are sitting in the studio chairs next to each but his heart is pumping like there is no tomorrow.

“Sir, some chai.” The chaiwallah is there to offer both of them a cup of tea. A ritual before the recording begins.

He starts drinking tea with one hand on the saucer and the other on the cup. What is that sound? What is that rattling sound? He realizes that his own hands are shaking and hardly able to contain the tea inside the cup.

“Is everything ok?” The female singer senses there is a problem. As he is about to respond, his hand gives away and ends up spilling the entire cup of tea on her white sari.

The entire studio’s attention turns to him. There is anger and anguish in their eyes. He can feel their stares like knife stabs. “That’s it for me. My days in Bombay are numbered. Better plan to go back to Madras and resume my career over there. How do I even recover from an incident like this?” He starts thinking to himself.

Everyone is patiently waiting now for her reaction with their heads down. The prediction is she will leave the studio immediately. The singer has ruined the entire recording day for everyone.

“There is nothing to worry about. This is actually a good omen before starting something big. I wish you all the best in the Hindi film industry. You will do great.” She signals the composer to get started with the recording.

Lata Mangeshkar and S.P. Balasubrahmanyam (SPB) sang the song Tere mere beech mein in the film Ek Duje Ke Liye. The music was composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal, lyrics by Anand Bakshi and film direction by K. Balachander. There are two versions of the song. The female version was sung by Lata ji, and SPB was there to say a couple of dialogs in Tamil. SPB did the playback for Kamal Haasan who was playing the role of a South Indian guy having recently moved to Bombay and could not speak a word of Hindi. There is another version of the same song that was sung by SPB. It took him 7-8 takes before it was finalized by Laxmikant Pyarelal.

In his initial audition, SPB came to meet the composers but only Laxmikant ji was there. SPB was planning to sing his favorite Rafi song Jaane Walo Zara from the movie Dosti which incidentally was composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal and they also won the Filmfare Best Music Director award for that film. Laxmikant ji liked to have his mandolin around when he was composing or auditing someone. While he was doing that, SPB became nervous and the audition did not go well. As a result, Laxmikant Pyarelal were very hesitant to take SPB as the male playback singer for Kamal Haasan. The director, Balachander pushed for him knowing very well what kind of playback voice and Hindi pronunciation he wanted.

SPB sang several other songs in the that film such as Mere jeevan saathi, Hum tum dono jab mil jayenge as well as the title song Hum bane tum bane ek duje ke liye. SPB won the National Award for Best Male Playback Singer for the song Tere mere beech mein. Anand Bakshi won the Filmfare Best Lyricist award for the same song.

The youth in India went crazy over this film. It is even reported that many young lovers committed suicide after watching the film since in the movie both Kamal Haasan and Rati Agnihotri’s characters commit suicide in the end. K. Balachander had shown a preview of the film to legendary filmmaker Raj Kapoor before its release. Raj ji liked the film but not the ending, which he found to be overly sad. He suggested to Balachander to change it to a happy ending, but the latter refused and stuck with the sad ending.

The music of Tere mere beech mein has been popular even with western singers. Britney Spears’ song Toxic took samples from two separate sections of this song and mixed them together.

Hip Hop artist Tony Yayo did something similar. He also sampled the song in his number Love My Style.

Singers: Lata Mangeshkar, S.P. Balasubrahmanyam
Music: Laxmikant Pyarelal
Lyrics: Anand Bakshi
*ing: Kamal Haasan, Rati Agnihotri
Director: K Balachander
Producer: L.V. Prasad
Film: Ek Duje Ke Liye (1981)