1956 – Lata Mangeshkar

Nowadays I eagerly await the yearly review post of Lata Mangeshkar's songs. Though the series is not getting very much appreciated, I'm not going to be disappointed. The week when I work on these posts proves to be one of the most enjoyable weeks. It's at times physically and mentally exhausting to go through the …

Jana Pehchana Sa Ajanabee

(Remembering lyricist, Asad Bhopali on his 101st Birthday) There were a few lyricists in Hindi films who penned popular and meaningful songs for a few decades, yet unfortunately couldn't get their due. Asad Bhopali was one of them. His career spanning over four decades saw him writing songs for various composers, and a few of …

1949 – Lata Mangeshkar

Last month when I started the yearly review of Lata Mangeshkar's songs, I was welcomed and adored by the readers. In addition to the comments on the post, some of the readers sent their responses on e-mail too. I'm thankful to all of them for their encouragement and good wishes. I was aware of the …

Rafi sings with Geeta Dutt

I have been thinking of writing about Geeta Dutt's songs for a long time now. But due to some reason or the other, I couldn't do it. This year I had plans for the 4th anniversary of my blog (which falls on 16th July) and to come up with another post on 20th July, on …

Triad of Singers

Let me first explain my idea behind the title Triad of Singers. Usually a single playback singer sings all the songs for a particular character in a movie. There are instances where a couple of singers lent their voices for a single actor or actress. This is relatively common and usually doesn't evoke an interest …

Hindi songs with Tonga (Ghoda Gadi) beats

Maharashtra state is experiencing the second wave of covid. Tension is building up and once again we find ourselves in need of a stress buster. While I had tribute posts for a few weeks, I was not in a mood for another. While I was churning these thoughts in mind, I absentmindedly opened the music …

(Part 2) Hansraj Behl – A Forgotten Composer

I hope you all enjoyed my last post as much as I enjoyed writing it. Here I am with the second and last part. I'll try to summarize the remaining period of his career, 1956 onward. He composed some wonderful songs in the later part of the 1950s. But after 1960, slowly his songs lost …

(Part 1) Hansraj Behl – A Forgotten composer

Hansraj Behl (19th November 1916 to 20th May 1984) He was a talented music composer. He was also respected by the singers, they used to call him Masterji. Veteran singer Madhubala Jhaveri always called him by that name. Even after composing a number of melodious songs in the late 1940s and 1950s, he never got …