Bollywood Masala Mix
A music director, however popular, is often forgotten with the passage of time when the trend of music changes. Bulo C Rani was one such composer whose best is buried under the debris of time. When the slow paced melodious music was replaced by the fast paced rhythmic melodies Bulo suddenly lost his relevance as a composer.
Born in Hyderabad, Sindh province, on 6th March 1920 Bulo Chandiram Ramchandani was a prominent music director in Bollywood from the forties until the sixties. His father was also a music director. After completing his B.A. he joined Ranjit Movietone in 1939. He scored music for 71 films from 1943-72.
His initial days in Bollywood were full of struggles and hard work. In his early career, he met some very prominent personalities in the music field such as Ghulam Haider and D. N. Madhok. In the early 1940s, Bulo worked in some films as an assistant to Khemchand Prakash. He assisted Khemchand in movies such as Tansen, Chandni, Sukh Dukh (1942) and Shahenshah Babar (1944). He sang his first playback song "Ruth Na Pyaar Mein" under Khemchand in the film Mehmaan (1942). Though he was an assistant music director, he composed the song "Dukhiya Jiyara" in the film Tansen, sung by Khurshed. The song's credit went to Khemchand Prakash, the composer of that soundtrack. In 1943, he worked as an assistant to Gyan Dutt in two films – Paigham and Shankar Parvati. In the former film, the song "O Jogan O Bairaagi" became a hit. Despite him composing the song, it was credited as a Gyan Dutt composition. However, he managed to sing in six films that year.
His first film as a composer was Caravan (1944). That same year, he sang in a film Pagli Duniya in which he changed his name temporarily to Bhola and kept singing under this name until the end of his career. But he continued as Bulo C Rani for music direction.
In 1945, he composed songs in films like Moorti and Pehli Nazar. Moorti was a popular musical in which Mukesh sang one of his first hit songs, "Badariya Baras Gai Us Paar". Some of Rani's other hits in the forties were in Rajputani (1946) and Anjuman (1948). His best work came in the early 1950s – in Jogan (1950), Wafa (1951) and Bilwamangal (1954). was one of
The songs of Bilwamangal became popular with one number in particular, "Hum Ishq Ke Maron Ko" sung by Suraiya with lyrics by D. N. Madhok. By the late 1950s, with the new generation of composers like Shankar Jaikishan, Salil Chowdhury, O. P. Nayyar becoming prominent, Bulo was no longer as active. However, he continued to compose for films till the mid-sixties.
Almost all the top singers of the day sang for him, amongst them were: Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Geeta Dutt, Shamshad Begum, Suman Kalyanpur, Meena Mangeshkar, Meena Kumari, Kamal Barot, Mohamed Rafi, Sadhana Bose, G.M.Durrani, Ismail Azad, C.H.Atma, Mahendra Kapoor, Naseem Banoo, Zohrabai, Shankar Das Gupta, Talat Mahmood, Khurshed, Hameeda Banu, Suraiya, Pushpa Hans, Amirbai Karnataki, Rajkumari and others.
Bilwamangal (1954) was the last significant film of Bulo C Rani. Suraiya sang one of her most memorable song 'Parwanon se preet seekhli, shama se seekha jal jaana..' and so did C.H. Atma in 'Panghat pe more shyam bajaaye muraliya...' Despite the popularity of a stray song such as 'Hamen to loot liya milke husn Walon ne' sung by Ismail Azad and party in the film Al Hilal (1958), Bulo C Rani just continued to drift because his music had not remained a viable commercial proposition. After Sunhare Qadam (1966) Bulo's career came to an end. It was an irony of fate that the song he composed in the voice of Lata in that last film of his, Sunhare Qadam was 'Maangne se jo maut mil jaati, Kaun jeeta zamane men...' (If death was by wish, then who would want to live on this earth.)
The irony was that in life he asked for death and he got it.
Bulo C Rani's death remained largely unreported in the press. Lack of assignments in later life left him frustrated. He committed suicide on 24th May, 1993 at the age of 73 in Mumbai, after his family sold their house at Shivaji Park and moved to Versova. The eventful career of Bulo C Rani in the 40’s and the early 50’s was forgotten.
The 'Excellence in Cinema' Award this year will be given to the actress, whose film "Hichki" focuses on overcoming a physical challenge with sheer determination and positivity.
"The power of cinema to spread important social messages and enact positive changes is unmatched. As an actor, I have been blessed to have got the chance to be a part of such amazing films that have tried to make people sit up and think about society, the need to preserve human lives and to value each individual's dreams and aspirations," Rani said in a statement.
She said it is humbling to be honoured by the provincial government of Victoria in Australia for a role that called for inclusion and equality of all individuals in our society.
"I'm thankful that my body of work has contributed to making positive change. 'Hichki' is a very special film for me and this honour as part of the colourful Indian International Film Festival of Melbourne makes it even more memorable," she added.
Inclusion is the theme for IFFM this year, and "Hichki" - which delves on how a woman doesn't let Tourette's Syndrome come in the way of her dreams – is a good fit.
IFFM Director Mitu Bhowmick Lang said: "Rani is a rare Indian artiste who embodies the spirit of 'inclusion' in her work and performances."
In an article in The Hindu (19 July 1953), Keskar argued that the country’s appreciation for classical music had “fallen” and was “on the point of extinction” – particularly in north India. The onus of making his countrymen “intimate with (classical music)”, therefore, was bestowed on AIR. “We must make (ourselves) familiar with our traditional music,” he declared.
In 1952, the Indian National Congress party had just had a landslide victory in the first general election and Keskar – a staunch Brahmin and a classical Indian music purist – was given charge of the I&B ministry. To his mind, Indian film songs were straying from their responsibility of instilling national pride in people. “The lyrics, aside from being in Urdu, were generally ‘erotic’,” writes radio historian David Lelyveld in Upon The Subdominant: Administering Music On All-India Radio. In addition, there was a steady rise in the use of Western instruments and Western melodies in the songs, “which Keskar identified with a lower stage of human evolution”.
Songs like "Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui Taqdeer Bana Le", a ghazal which S.D. Burman turned into an upbeat, guitar-sporting number for Baazi (1951), and "Mur Mur Ke Na Dekh" for Shree 420 (1955), which featured an orchestra of Western instruments and had flamenco-style tunes, would not have passed Keskar’s test. He wanted songs that were infused with the sound of the flute, tanpura or sitar instead. And so it was chiefly through radio, he thought, that the country’s musical heritage could be rescued. Keskar would go on to become the longest-serving I&B minister from 1952-62.
To begin with, he mandated that all songs aired on AIR would be screened, and, according to Lelyveld, he imposed “a quota of 10 percent of all program time”. In addition, Keskar ensured that if a film song was played, the film’s title would not be announced, since he considered that advertising. Only the singer’s name would be mentioned.
The film industry was up in arms, of course. Filmfare magazine characterized Keskar as a devious man whose decision was “a calculated blow at the reputation of the Indian film industry, as much as one aimed at ousting film music from the market” (August 1952 issue). In response, film producers who owned the rights to the songs decided to rescind the broadcast licences given to AIR. And, as Keskar anticipated, film music completely disappeared from radio within a mere three months. The void was filled by AIR broadcasting classical music.
Across the shore, Radio Ceylon rose to the occasion – and the opportunity. It created the legendary musical countdown Binaca Geetmala – a show entirely dedicated to Indian film songs. Every Wednesday, Indian listeners would tune into Radio Ceylon and listen to their favourite songs with their favourite show host – the iconic and charming Ameen Sayani, who would engage them with complementary film trivia.
A former editor of Femina, Sathya Saran, who was a young girl growing up in Guwahati at the time, recalls what the show meant to her. “Every Wednesday, I would go and sit near the radio from 8-9pm to listen to Binaca Geetmala,” she reminisces over the phone. “I had this little black diary in which I wrote down every song that played, how many times it was featured, whether it had gone up or down – I would keep tabs, and always sing along, because I knew all the lyrics. And Ameen Sayani was like god to me. I would hang on to every word he said.” Geetmala ran from 1952 to 1988.
In 2010, Sayani, in an interview with Aswin Punathambekar (professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor), recounted how his team would record the show on tapes “every single day. And every week’s quota used to fly by Swiss Air, Air Ceylon or Air India to Colombo. Sometimes, we did get into trouble, especially with Geet Mala, because with Geet Mala we were not supposed to record too much in advance. The popularity poll had to reflect a current mood...(Binaca Geetmala) became an absolute rage... Just like how the streets would be empty when B. R. Chopra’s Mahabharat (1988) or Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan (1986) would be on television, the same thing happened to Geet Mala... Wednesdays came to be known as Geet Mala day.”
As Radio Ceylon’s popularity grew in India, Keskar’s influence waned and the government was forced to lift the ban. In 1957, Vividh Bharati was conceptualized as a service on AIR that offered non-stop film music broadcast. “Vividh Bharati had a tremendous blend of heritage and modernity, parampara and pragati, let’s say. And this soon became quite popular,” noted Sayani in the 2010 interview. By 1967, Vividh Bharati had turned commercial and began accepting advertisements. By the late 1970s, it had become a cultural behemoth, functioning as the primary source of entertainment in Indian cities.
Keskar would be outraged if he heard the music the Indian film industry makes today, but it is ironic that some of the country’s most iconic and memorable songs, produced during the “golden era of Hindi cinema”, were once considered objectionable and would have possibly been stifled by one man’s draconian policies if a radio channel from a neighbouring country hadn’t stepped in.