{"id":2670,"date":"2016-02-24T00:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T18:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=2670"},"modified":"2019-02-18T20:00:23","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T14:30:23","slug":"talat-mahmood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/talat-mahmood\/","title":{"rendered":"Hain Sabse Madhur Woh Geet: Melodies of Talat Mahmood"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Talat Mahmood<\/p><\/div>\n

A tall, strapping young man, fair and handsome with a velvety voice who became the uncrowned King of Ghazals among singers in cinema, Talat Mahmood still evokes listeners into falling in love with his music, each and every time they listen to his songs.<\/p>\n

With looks that could give the top heroes a run for their money and a voice that made music directors queue up for him Talat Mahmood had everything going right for him, right from the time he started out in the world of films and popular music in the 1930s, not in Bombay but in distant Calcutta, not as Talat Mahmood but as Tapan Kumar.<\/p>\n

Kamal Das Gupta, the top line music director of those days in Calcutta took him on as his prot\u00e9g\u00e9e and trained him finely in performing a film song or a light modern song. His Bengali records in his pseudonym Tapan Kumar became chart-busting hits in Bengal and rest of India. He was singing in Bengali, Hindi and Urdu languages. \u00a0Most of these were non-film songs, or what is referred to as private songs, adhunik geeti or light modern songs. The ghazal Tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi, ye teri tarah mujh se to sharma na sakegi<\/a> <\/em>(written by Saiyyad Faiyyaz Hashmi) was a resounding hit and pitchforked him into the national recognition in 1944. The ghazal\u00a0remained a hit for many years to come.<\/p>\n

On this day of 24th<\/sup> February, allow me to pay a tribute to the velvet voiced romantic, Talat Mahmood, through some of his\u00a0eternal Hindi film songs and ghazals that our generation is still in love with. In another tribute later, I will explore the films he worked in as hero.<\/p>\n

Anil Biswas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Music director Anil Biswas had told me that on a couple of his visits to Calcutta he had asked Talat to come to Bombay and sing for main stream Hindi cinema. That happened in later half of 1949 and Anil Biswas launched Talat, this time in his original name, with grandeur in Arzoo<\/em>, released in 1950. The song on 78 rpm disc number N 36129 written by Majrooh Sultanpuri<\/a> was, Ae dil mujhee aisi jagah le chal jahan koi na ho, apna paraya meherbaan, naa-meherbaan koi na ho.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Talat<\/a>

Talat Mahmood with Anil Biswas, Lata Mangeshkar and Madan Mohan
(Pic: madanmohan.in<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

Arzoo<\/em>, produced by Hiten Chowdhury and directed by Shahid Lateef, was a big budget film with a hit star cast. The actors, Dilip Kumar and Kamini Kaushal were popular as on screen and off screen lovers. They had just given back to back hits in Nadiya Ke Paar, Shaheed <\/em>and Shabnam<\/em>. The only solo filmed on the hero was given to Talat and as planned, it caught the wings of fire and brought Talat to the forefront.<\/p>\n

In this period, from 1946 onwards Mukesh had emerged as the highest paid male singer in Hindi films. This has been confirmed to me by Anil Biswas himself and also by director\/producer Sarvottam Badami. \u00a0Rafi had already \u2018arrived\u2019 but was yet to become lead player.<\/p>\n

Let me recount an incident Anil Biswas had told me. Producer DD Kashyap had almost completed the schedules for his film Aaram<\/em> (released 1951) starring again a big star cast of Dev Anand, Madhubala and Prem Nath. Mukesh had recorded his solo, Ae jaane jigar dil mein samaane aaja<\/em>, and there was no other male song planned for lead actors. Anil da insisted on a new song in the film by Talat to which Kashyap reluctantly agreed, but Anil da also wanted equal payment for Talat (as was paid to Mukesh).<\/p>\n

Now trouble started, the producer was really wary of this. As a solution, Anil da suggested Talat not only record the song but also enact it on screen as singing in a party scene, but the fee had to be as demanded. This brought super confidence in Talat and by the year 1952 he was the top paid male singer in the industry. Listen to this phenomenal song from Aaram<\/em> penned by Rajendra Krishna as my first choice in this tribute.<\/p>\n

Shukriya ae pyar tera shukriya <\/strong><\/em> ( Aaram <\/em>, 1951) \u2013 Anil Biswas \/ Rajinder Krishan \/ Talat Mahmood.<\/span><\/p>\n