Today marks the death anniversary of legendary musician Naushad Ali, who is rightfully known as the first superstar-composer of Indian cinema. The music director, composer and writer has revolutionised Hindi film songs by introducing classical Indian music in a way that was enjoyed and consumed by everyone.
Born in Lucknow on 25 December 1919, Naushad grew up loving music. He not only learnt Hindustani classical music under maestros like Ustad Ghurbat Ali, Ustad Yusuf Ali and Ustad Babban Saheb, he also started learning how to curate music in films at a very young age. In the 1930s, when the talkies came to India, Naushad was mesmerised by the way music was used in tandem with storylines. Despite his parents’ disapproval, he joined a theatre group and eventually ran away to Mumbai to make it big in the film industry.
While his career in Mumbai started out with Naushad sleeping on the sidewalk across Broadway Theater, it ended with his greatest hits playing in that very theatre. Some of his contributions were remarkable, especially in the way he used classical raags and involved singers like Amir Khan, D.V. Paluskar and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. In an earlier interview to this writer, he described at length how he used raags ‘Bhairav’ with traces of ‘Kalingda’ (on ‘Mohe Bhool Gaye Saawariya’ ), ‘Darbari’ ( ‘O Duniya Ke Rakhwale’ ) and ‘Malkauns’ ( ‘Man Tadapat’ ) in Baiju Bawra , and ‘Hameer’ on ‘Madhuban Mein Radhika’ in Kohinoor .
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A large chunk of his work was with lyricist Shakeel Badayuni, and it’s often discussed how they would sit for hours at Naushad’s Ashiana bungalow on Carter Road, Bandra, to create songs. Naushad revolutionised sound mixing and the concept of having separate tracks for vocals and orchestra. Naushad was well-versed with Western arrangements as much as Indian classical and folk music.
Naushad in his composing career spanning 65 years (1937 to 2005) scored music for 65 released films with 636 songs to his credit; 373 solos, 115 duets and 148 chorus and mixed numbers. He achieved quite a phenomenal record of success as 19 of his films were rated as silver jubilees (running 25 weeks), eight golden jubilees (running 50 weeks) and six diamond jubilees (running more than 60 weeks). Having made a brilliant career in film music, Naushad had also been conferred with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award (1981) and the Padma Bhushan (1992). After working in films for decades, Naushad died on May 5, 2006.
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