{"id":1715,"date":"2016-02-18T00:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T18:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=1715"},"modified":"2019-02-18T18:49:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T13:19:00","slug":"khayyam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/khayyam\/","title":{"rendered":"Khayyam: Making Poetry Come Alive With Melody"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeet hi lenge baazi hum tum, khel adhura chhoote na<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Khayyam\"

Mohammed Zahur Khayyam (music director) Pic: Google Image Search<\/p><\/div>\n

This duet from Shola Aur Shabnam<\/em> by Mohd Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar, written by the legendary lyricist Kaifi Azmi, turned the spotlight on Mohammed Zahur “Khayyam” Hashmi, better known as Khayyam, who carved\u00a0out his own special niche in the music industry dominated by the likes of S D Burman, Shankar Jaikishan, Madan Mohan, Naushad, O P Nayyar, R D Burman and Laxmikant Pyarelal.<\/p>\n

Khayyam’s music had the touch of ghazal but was rooted in Indian classical music. The compositions were soulful, melodious and emotional, the songs were rich in poetry and purpose and the style was noticeably different from the popular brand of music in those days, which used to be either semi-classical, ghazal or light and peppy.<\/p>\n

However, before the runaway success of Shola Aur Shabnam <\/em>music, Khayyam\u2019s first brush with hit songs had happened with his debut film, the Dilip Kumar-Meena Kumari starrer Footpath <\/em>(1953). “It is largely believed that Khayyam’s first film was Footpath<\/em>. In fact, it was Heer Ranjha<\/em> in 1948 in which he composed under the pseudonym Sharmaji because he felt that his real name Mohammed Zahoor Khayyam Hashmi was far too long. It is with Footpath<\/em> that he adopted his name as Khayyam.” (source of trivia: Anand Desai<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Explains Gajendra Khanna, music enthusiast, record collector, archivist and admin for geetadutt.com<\/a>,\u00a0shamshadbegum.com<\/a>,\u00a0madamnoorjehan.com<\/a> and anmolfankaar.com<\/a>, “Khayyam did Heer Ranjha<\/em> with Rahman Varma who went to Pakistan post partition. He also gave solo music as Sharmaji in Parda<\/em>\u00a0(1949) among other movies. Pt Hanuman Prasad gave him a chance as singer in Rasili<\/em> (1946) in a duet with Geeta (where he was credited as Sharma).”<\/p>\n

“He sang a lovely Naat<\/em> with Geeta ji for Heer Ranjha<\/em><\/a>. Interestingly, they also made Geeta sing a wonderful Punjabi solo Ud Pud Jaaniya<\/em> too which is perhaps fitting being based on a Punjabi folk story after all. Film Parda<\/em> had him going solo as a composer for which he used voices of Zohrabai, Rajkumari, Kalyani, Naseem, Rafi and Asha (who sang for him for the first time). From the beginning he was working with wonderful lyricists. While he had worked with Wali Saheb for Heer Ranjha.<\/em>\u00a0Here he had the great Tanvir Naqvi (and also Swami Ramanand) writing lyrics for him. Another film he had done as Sharmaji was Gul Sanobar<\/em> (1953) in which Bulo C Rani was other composer,” adds Gajendra.<\/p>\n

Teri zaat hai Akbari <\/strong><\/em>(Heer Ranjha,<\/em> 1948) Geeta Dutt & Khayyam<\/span><\/p>\n