{"id":2393,"date":"2015-11-19T03:13:04","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T21:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=2393"},"modified":"2025-11-19T11:00:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T05:30:35","slug":"salil-chowdhury-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/salil-chowdhury-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Most Favourite Salil Chowdhury Songs: Indian Melodies, Western Harmonies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Salil

Salilda is a man of whom the term ‘Renaissance Man’ fits to a T. (Pic courtesy: Internet)<\/p><\/div>\n

November 19th<\/sup> is the 93rd<\/sup> birth anniversary of a Colossus of the Indian music world. Salil Chowdhury<\/a>. His contributions to the world of music (and not just film music) are vast; and his death, twenty years ago, left a vacuum that will not soon be filled.<\/p>\n

Choosing just ten<\/em> favourite Hindi songs of music director or singer from a plethora of songs that have given me immense pleasure over the years is probably a Sisyphean endeavour. To choose to do so, from\u00a0the oeuvre of a master who had the ability to weave magic with melody, is beyond audacious.<\/p>\n

Salilda is a man of whom the term ‘Renaissance Man’ fits to a T. That he was a music director par excellence is beyond doubt; however, he was also writer, dramatist, lyricist, script-writer, played multiple instruments, and was possibly one of the few Indian music directors who arranged his compositions himself. He was a very active member of the IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association) as were numerous others with leftist sympathies who became prominent in the film industry. He firmly believed that he wouldn’t have become who he was if it hadn’t been for the IPTA.<\/p>\n

Salilda had written a short story called Rickshawala, <\/em>which was being made in Hindi as Do Bigha Zameen<\/em> by Bimal Roy. In exchange for the script, Salilda wanted to compose the film’s music. (He had composed the music for the original.) And so began his tryst with Hindi filmdom.<\/p>\n

My husband had introduced me to a Salilda site a few years ago – www.salilda.com, a site that is a labour of love, and the result of much hard work on Gautam Choudhary’s part. A site where every one of Salilda’s songs that was ever recorded is available, indexed and cross-indexed to the last note. Cross-indexed, because, Salilda used many of his tunes in different languages at different times. And this is from Gautam’s site<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"Talat

Talat Mahmood and Salil Chowdhury.<\/p><\/div>\n

His phenomenal flair for instruments prompted even an expert like Jaikishen to refer to him as a ‘The Genius’. Raj Kapoor once said, ‘He can play almost any instrument he lays his hands on, from the tabla to the sarod, from the piano to the piccolo.’ He was in fact a composer’s composer, because unlike his market-driven counterparts, he never really set prose to music. To him, the melody was sacrosanct and had to precede the words. The situation could then be adapted.<\/em><\/p>\n

His music has given me much joy over the years, and it is inevitably to his music that I turn when I need some solace. Many of his songs seem very simple at first listening, and then, when you hear others trying to sing them (no, not me, I can’t sing for toffee), you realise how complicated his tunes really were.<\/p>\n

When he heard of Salilda’s death, music director Naushad commented: ‘He was the composer of composers; with his death, one of the seven notes of music has been lost.’ <\/em>And Lata Mangeshkar who sang some of Salilda’s most complicated songs with seemingly little effort, had this to say in an interview: “Over the course of my life I have worked with over a hundred music directors. Of these, perhaps only ten understood both music and cinema. And of these ten, Salilda was the foremost<\/em>.”*<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Salilda died twenty years ago, but he will always remain alive through his music. His compositions will endure, and his legacy will continue as long as music and music lovers remain.<\/p>\n

This is a very subjective list and in no way encompasses all<\/em> my<\/em> favourites, much less the ‘best’ of Salil Choudhary’s compositions. And these songs that I have chosen need not even necessarily be <\/em>his best in terms of music. Because unless Salilda was himself choosing what he considered his ‘best’, I think any such choice would hardly be objective. In any case, even my ‘favourite’ Salilda songs change continually, because I tend to like different songs at different times. (I could make ten ‘<\/em>My Favourite’ lists of Salilda’s songs and still have songs left over for more!)<\/p>\n

However, these ten songs have always been perennial favourites.<\/p>\n

Zindagi kaisi hai paheli haaye – <\/strong><\/em><\/strong>Anand<\/em> (1971)<\/span>
\nYogesh \/ Manna Dey<\/span><\/p>\n

Four songs. Two written by Yogesh (the other was Kahin door jab din dhal jaaye<\/em>), two by Gulzar (Maine tere liye<\/em> and Naa, jiya laage na<\/em>). All of them beautiful.<\/p>\n

\"Anand,

Anand, the journey of a man who knew he had a very short time to live.<\/p><\/div>\n

The single Manna Dey solo in the film, which depicted \u00a0and was making the most of the time he had left, was originally meant to be used as a background song during the credits.<\/p>\n

According to IMDB, it was Rajesh Khanna who persuaded director Hrishikesh Mukherjee to use it as a song in the film. And the lyrics are as philosophical as Anand’s (Rajesh Khanna in the titular role) attitude, which is as light as the balloons he lets soar into the sky. Juxtaposed with the distress that Dr Bhaskar (a.k.a Babu Moshai<\/em> \/ Amitabh Bachchan) and Renu (Sumita Sanyal) are unable to hide, the song made more of an impact than otherwise.<\/p>\n