A few days after Kishore Kumar’s birth anniversary, the ring tone of his son and singer Amit Kumar echoes a song befitting the occasion, Ye mahfil yun hi sajegi.. ye duniyan yun hi chalegi… jo dhadkan kisi ki ruke tum ruko naa..(The celebrations will continue, the world will go on…if a heartbeat stops somewhere..don’t stop with it..go on)
That Amit Kumar does not pick up the phone is another story but yes, the world seems to be going on even without Kishore Kumar. And yet, not really. His songs still rule the airwaves and the age of definitive playback singing seems to have ended with him because no other voice has since then been identified with an era the way his was. He is still being remixed, resung and there is even a rumour that Ranbir Kapoor may play him in a biopic.
A recent provocative ad featuring Purab Kohli, a bar of soap and the female gaze used the Kishore and RD Burman classic, Aise na mujhe tum dekho to animate the seductive subtext. And every year, his birth and death anniversaries are occasions for non-stop Kishore trivia. Among the many people the media draws upon to talk about the mercurial singer, composer, director and actor, is Manek Premchand. Premchand is one of the leading film music historians in India and has written acclaimed books like Romancing the Song: Hindi Cinema’s Lyrical Journey, Yesterday’s Melodies, Today’s Melodies and Musical Moments From Hindi Films. He never got a chance to meet Kishore da but has extensively researched his life and has also met his son Amit on many occasions.
And he believes, there was more to Kishore Kumar than the madcap genius we know him to be. But first he gives us a few glimpses into what made Kishore Kumar so unique.
When Kishore songs were banned!
This anecdote came from Gulzar saab. When he was making Aandhi (1975), the country was under the state of Emergency. So when VC Shukla, the Information and Broadcasting Minister of that time, asked Kishore da and a few other singers to promote Indira Gandhi’s 20-point agenda in events organised by the ruling party, he said, “I don’t subscribe to your philosophy.” And since he was punctilious about money matters, he refused to sing without a fee.
So his songs were banned from June 1975 till March 1977 on AIR. Now, please remember that this was a time when radio was the only space for film music and so it must have been a tough time for Kishore da. However, things changed when the power equations changed. Nasbandi (1978), a film that mocked Sanjay Gandhi’s forced sterilisation drive, had Kishore da singing a scathing indictment of Emergency (Gandhi tere desh mein ye kaisa atyachar). So in his own way, he got back at the government!
His unusual sessions with RD
With RD Burman, he shared an unusual equation. In fact lyricist Gulshan Bawra once told me that their sessions resembled something straight out of a madhouse. Kishore da would be mumbling and singing to himself and RD Burman would be tinkering with the harmonium. When Bawra would drop in, he and RD would down a few pegs! Yet, what magic these absorbing sessions yielded. They would have six hour long rehearsals or sometimes in no time, they would come up with gems like, Kitne bhi tu karle sitam. They shared a great synergy and a high level of humour.
Kishore, the man of quirks
Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma who is a good singer and harmonium player apart from being a legendary santoor player had once shared an anecdote about Kishore da. When Yash Chopra told Kishore da that Shiv-Hari would be composing the music for Silsila (1981), he just vanished and refused to take Yash ji’s calls. Finally, when Yash ji got to speak to him, he said, “I will not work with these two. They are classical musicians and it will be tough to work with them.” Then Shiv ji recorded a rough cut of Dekha ek khwab to… on a cassette in his own voice with just the harmonium playing and sent it to Kishore da. Only when he heard the song, did he agree to sing for the film!
I have also heard that once he appeared during a shoot with half-a moustache and when asked why, he said something to this effect, “This is what you get when you pay just half my fee.’’
Another time, while recording Inteha ho gayi.…for Sharaabi (1984), Bappi Lahiri asked him to put more expression in the song and he said, “You put more money, I will put more expression.”
The man of ironies
There were many ironies in his life. He did not want to become an actor and his elder brother Ashok Kumar was more keen on acting. And yet, Dadamoni had to sing initially in his films and Kishore da had to act before he could establish himself as a singer. He married four times and was a sequentially unhappy man during his first three marriages. Who is to say who caused the pain or if it was self-inflicted but Ruma Guha, his first wife left him and got married again. His son Amit Kumar was almost an adult before they could spend a lot of time together as he had grown up in hostels. Kishore da married Madhubala and no one really knows the reasons why these two got together. I was told by a source close to Madhu that he was not a good husband but the fact is that she had a hole in her heart and was seriously ill for almost all of the nine years that they were together and the circumstances did not make for a happy marriage. His third wife Yogeeta Bali walked out on him on his 49th birthday and married Mithun Chakraborty shortly after. He also had income-tax issues. I always recall the instance when he showed some tattered papers to Pritish Nandi, the then editor of The Illustrated Weekly Of India and said, these were his tax papers..and good enough only for rats to nibble at!
Lingering regrets
The best phase of cinematic melodies beginning with the 50s was ruled by Mohammed Rafi even though all the greats like Talat Mehmood, Manna Dey, Mukesh, Hemant da had their space too. In the sixties, with the arrival of Rajesh Khanna, things changed and people wanted a break from a certain kind of playback singing. It was the right place and the right time for Kishore da. He countered the dense bass of erstwhile singers with a crystal clear treble. He became the voice of Rajesh Khanna and then Amitabh Bachchan and sang for all the leading actors. He had a healthy respect for Mohammed Rafi but he was perhaps aware, that when the dust settles down , history would compare him with Rafi saab. He had, as far as I know, no really close friends and he kept saying that he would retire to his native town, Khandwa, even though it had little or no comforts. He died at the age of 58, while Mohammed Rafi passed at the age of 56. It was not an age to go. It was too soon.
with
Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and where she can write more books, paint, listen to music and just be silent with her cats.