Written by Jitendra Motavar
A man who was a magnificent composer, a prolific musician with mastery over a dozen of instruments including tabla, piano, accordion, sitar etc, a wrestler, a dancer, an artist well versed with indian classical and western music styles, a strict disciplinarian; a man who along with his equally magnificent companion, ruled the golden era of hindi film music and set the standards yet to be matched by anyone; is none other than Shankar Singh Raghuvanshi, our beloved ‘Shankar’ of the the magical duo Shankar Jaikishan. I wrote this post as my heartfelt tribute to the legend on his 98th birth anniversary last year, and thought of reposting it for those who might have missed it. The article is quite lengthy in 6 parts and I will be posting each part on every Monday, today onwards…!
Shankar was born on 15th October 1922 in Punjab. Later his father Ramsingh Raghuvanshi got settled in Andhra Pradesh, and hence Shankar spent much of his childhood in Hyderabad. He was a trained dancer and an expert tabla player, and initially worked with dance master Sohanlal’s dance troupes. Later, during his work at Prithvi theater, he learned and mastered playing several musical instruments and started assisting the composer duo Husnlal Bhagatram, where he nurtured the ambition of becoming an independent film music composer.
On one special day, Shankar was waiting for a music assignment in a director’s office and he saw Jaikishan (A good looking 17-18 year old Gujarati boy whose father was a musician in the then Royal Court of Dharampur), came for the same purpose. Having similar musical interests, there and then, they became a lifelong mates and decided to work together. Shankar took Jaikishan to Prithvi theater as an aspiring harmonium player and after getting hired, they befriended with RK and started assisting Ram Ganguly for RK’s “Aag”. Later when Ram Ganguly was working on RK’s upcoming “Barsat”, RK caught Him selling a tune composed for this film to another producer, he fired him immediately and offered Shankar to do “Barsat” after listening his preliminary “Ambuwa ka ped hai gori munder hai, aaja more baalma, ab kaahe ki der hai…” Shankar suggested to include Jaikishan and work as a duo composer, upon which RK agreed. Later Hasrat Jaipuri and Shailendra too joined the team and a phenomenon called “Barsat” got created and the rest is history….
From the very first film they started a whole new golden era of hindi film music and delivered innumerable masterworks one after the other, revolutionized the whole film music genre and ruled the domain “together”, until 1971.
After witnessing an unprecedented success and fame as a duo, on September 12, 1971, Jaikishan passed away untimely and unfortunately, leaving Shankar emotionally hurt and broken. Nevertheless he continued to work alone under SJ banner and kept the banner alive till his last breath. But during that “post-Jaikishan” period, significant changes arose and evolved, not much in Shankar’s music but, in its perception, interpretation and acceptance by the industry and audience. What and how did Shankarji face during that dark phase is known to almost all SJ fans, and has been discussed multiple times in this group. In spite of these hardships, Shankar gave a marvelous and commercially successful album “Sanyasi” in 1975 with an intact SJ magic, which hopefully could have opened the doors of bright possibilities for him, but, unfortunately it couldn’t. Even after giving some genuinely beautiful scores in films like Garam Khoon, Chorni, Atmaram, Do Jhoot, Duniyadari etc., nothing helped him much to revive his musical career like before. Majority films had poor scripts, non musical plots, strained budgets and mediocre directions, and many of their beautiful songs got wasted or went without attention. The time, the trend and the musical scopes everything were changing in late 70s films and all the artists were measured just on the basis of their commercial success and popularity. Shankar, a man of dignity and honor never preferred to “beg” the producers for work and assignments. and the reducing work further reduced his interest and enthusiasm for composing. What he wanted is just to create some beautiful music, but, lack of opportunities and support ended his will and motivation significantly.
During 80s, he did few more projects upon their well-wishers’ requests and got some work for television too, showing some sparks of his creativity. In spite of all these disloyalties, abandonment and neglect, he never blamed or cursed anyone anytime, but remained polite and thankful to others, as seen in his interviews. He kept on missing his friend and soulmate Jaikishan and those golden days, rest of his life, and on the night of 26th April 1987, he took his last breath and left this mean world unsung. Only his family members attended the funeral. The media and film industry got to know about his death only after the cremation only. A golden chapter in the annals of Indian film industry was silenced forever…..
If at all there is a magical baton, SJ surely possessed that, because whatever they created together, came out extraordinary and revolutionary. But, when the equations changed after 1971, Many started claiming that this magic was missing in their “post-Jaikishan” era music. Actually SJ set their own standards so high in 50s and 60s that, even their majority of 70 and 80s songs were of good and excellent quality as per the time and trends, they seemed little less classy with less caliber, to the general public. Of course, one man’s genius will always be less than a combined genius of the two, but I think Shankar’s later works too could have been seen with broader eyes and open hearts, as many deserving creations got lost in oblivion just because of an improper reception and ill fated destiny.
We may find hundreds of articles on SJ’s ‘pre-70s’ period and their extraordinary works and achievements during that period, but hardly few or none about their later years or Shankar’s ‘post-Jaikishan’ creations. Unfortunately, even the stage programs and function related to Shankar Jaikishan too focus more on their 50s and 60s songs only, rarely presenting those after 1972. Moreover, I have seen some of the SJ fans too criticizing Shankar’s ‘post-Jaikishan’ works badly without even listening them carefully.
I was curious to know what Shankar created in his bad times and why his later works were mislabeled as ‘low profile, ordinary, forgettable and mediocre’. To understand this, I started searching and listening all of his available songs from 1975 onwards films, repeatedly, and what I discovered was completely different…! Almost all songs were definitely above average and majority of them were excellent and remarkable with intact SJ magic, albeit in a different way and form. Not only that, many pieces and styles from the songs were used and adapted by many other composers later. Even in some of his least popular songs, Shankar incorporated so many minute details and innovations, that once we realize (and that’s only possible after repeated careful listenings), we start enjoying them, as their earlier great songs.
My purpose of this post is solely to highlight such songs and their qualities to all the SJ music lovers to make them more and more heard and enjoyed, at least now, when almost all songs are available on just a single click. Being Shankar Jaikishan fans, it would be great if we can appreciate these deserving creations and make sure that they are shared and presented on a wider scale in music platforms, programs and media.
So, if we see, from 1975 onwards, about 20 films came where SJ (Shankar) composed and recorded around 107 songs (not including sad versions and snippets). I didn’t include his two posthumous releases:
1. Gori (1991), which took long to get completed and its already prepared songs (by Shankarji), were later arranged and recorded by Enoch Daniel, and thereafter credited to him, except a Kishor Kumar solo, which was recorded by Shankar ji before his death, and therefore included in my list. The film had total 6 songs with few sad versions.
2. Waqt Ka Sikandar (1990/1993), Shankar’s last signed film, which he couldn’t complete before his demise, and all its 5 songs were later recorded and re-recorded by Sharda, and therefore credited to her name.
I included “Love In Bombay” because it’s shooting started in 1971 and got completed in 1973, but the film got registered in 1975 for release, although couldn’t, until 2013, when it was released on limited screens. Regarding “Mera Vachan Geeta Ki Kasam” release year, few sources show 1974, and few 1977. And as I am not sure, I included it in the list.
Out of these 107 songs, 4 are not available anywhere so far (3 from Ganga Aur Geeta and 1 from Saazish), and after listening and analyzing the remaining 103 songs, I found at least 81 songs genuinely good and full of ‘SJ charm’. Out of these 81 compositions, at least 38 are of excellent category showcasing ‘SJ magic and skills’, according to me.
I will be enlisting all of these songs in my successive posts with some details, first the “top 38 songs”, followed by the “other 43 songs”, to highlight their musical qualities. I hope all the SJ fans will listen and enjoy them, discovering SJ’s hidden treasure and mastery from theirs later years…!
I have tried to keep the chronology as per their excellence and musical richness, according to my observations and perceptions. Please have a look…
To be continued in Part 2, next Monday..
