Harjap Singh Aujla

Born, brought up and trained in Amritsar, Master Ghulam Haider became the first iconic music director of Punjab. Before him Rafiq Ghaznavi and Ustad Jhande Khan entered the field of music direction, but they quickly left Lahore to explore the greener pastures of Bombay. Ghulam Haider established himself as a popular film music director in Lahore between 1934 and 1944 and after attaining stardom he moved to Bombay. Ghulam Haider was considered a great discoverer of vocal musical talent. His first discovery was Umrao-Zia-Begum, a singing actress, who later on became his better half. In 1939, Ghulam Haider discovered a child singing sensation Noorjehan while composing the music of a Punjabi film “Gul Bakawli”. He had heard the versatile voice of a radio singer Shamshad Begum and featured her voice in the 1940 block-buster Punjabi comedy “Yamla Jatt”. In 1943, Ghulam Haider spotted two more great voices of Mohammed Rafi and Surinder Kaur. His fame in Lahore took him to Bombay.

But, Ghulam Haider’s biggest discovery of singing sensations was in Lata Mangeshkar, whom he discovered not in Lahore, but in 1947 in Bombay. It was a chance meeting between a future singer and a brilliant talent hunter. Like everyone else high and low, while commuting between one recording studio and another in Bombay’s famous electric railway, Master Ghulam Haider saw a frail and anemic looking female teenager mumbling something, perhaps in Marathi. The voice appeared to be very shrill and sweet. Ghulam Haider asked her to sing on his tune. He quickly improvised a tune and asked the girl to sing. The girl rendered the raw tune quite proficiently. An obviously elated Ghulam Haider introduced himself as a music director and asked the girl to show up on a given day for an audition in one of the recording studios. The excited girl reached the studio much before time and waited patiently for her turn. The audition went off smoothly and the girl was approved as a play-back singer. This teenager was none other than the famous icon Lata Mangeshkar. This is how the honor of discovering India’s most brilliant and most prolific singer Lata Mangeshkar went to a music director from Lahore.

Ghulam Haider shared the news of his new discovery with two other great composers of film music Anil Biswas and Khem Chand Prakash. Soon the word of mouth spread in the tinseltown and the first set of music directors who came forward to groom Lata Mangeshkar as a playback singer included mostly Punjabis, who had migrated to Bombay from Lahore during the 1940s.

Master Ghulam Haider used Lata Mangeshkar’s voice in film “Majboor” (1948). Somehow Lata’s Ghulam Haider tunes did not become very popular. Punjabi block-buster film “Chaman” was planned in Lahore in 1947, but owing to exploding communal strife in the city, the shooting of the film could not even start. Music director Vinod of Lahore, a Shagird of Pandit Amar Nath of Lahore was entrusted with the task of composing its music, which he conceived in Lahore but composed in Bombay. Vinod composed two songs for Lata Mangeshkar. Both songs, “Gallian che firde dhola nikke nikke baal ve” and “Raahe raahe jandiya, akhiyan milande aa” became super hit. Music director Shyam Sunder, who came to Bombay from Lahore during 1943-44, was composing the music of two films “Bazaar” and “Lahore” found Lata’s voice enchanting and captivating. Shyam Sunder was composing highly melodious music during those days. Two of his songs in the voice of Lata Mangeshkar “Baharen phir bhi aayengi, magar hum tum juda honge” and “Duniya hamare pyar ki yoonhi jawan rahe, mainbhi vahin rahoon mera saajan jahan rahe” from film “Lahore” became the most popular songs in 1949. Anil Biswas used Lata Mangeshkar’s voice in films “Anokha Pyar” in 1948 and Khem Chand Prakash used Lata’s voice for film “Ziddi”. All Lata songs became quite popular. But the song “Aayega aane waala” composed by Khem Chand Prakash for film “Mahal” in 1949 put Lata Mangeshkar on a much higher pedestal, from where she never stepped down as long as she was professionally active.

Up to 1948, the duo of music composers Pandit Husan Lal and Bhagat Ram, who came from Lahore in 1944, was working very hard on another Lahore girl Suraiya. Suraiya was deeply emotional and was most suitable for sad and sweet music. But after the unexpected success of Lata Mangeshkar’s songs in Punjabi film “Chaman”, Pandit Husan Lal and Bhagat Ram decided to work harder on the more versatile singer Lata Mangeshkar. For a number of years (1948 to 1957) Husan Lal and Bhagat Ram groomed the voice of Lata through repeated rehearsals and made her also a master of sad music. The other Punjabi music directors like Master Hans Raj Behl, Pandit Gobind Ram, Sardul Singh Kwatra, Roshan, Allah Rakha Quraishi, S. Mohinder, and Khayyam all Lahoris used Lata Mangeshkar’s voice very extensively in their Urdu/Hindi and Punjabi films. Madan Mohan Kohli groomed Lata Mangeshkar essentially for Urdu Ghazal singing and he got the most flattering response from the knowledgeable listeners.

Up to 1960, the Punjabi music directors were at the forefront for extracting the best out of the genius called Lata Mangeshkar. Another great music director who shaped the career of Lata Mangeshkar and who was not a Punjabi was C. Ramchandra, a Marathi and a diehard Lata fan. When Lata became an undisputed queen of Bollywood playback singing, every big and small music director with the exception of O.P. Nayyar (another Lahori) jumped on Lata Mangeshkar’s bandwagon and made him/her popular. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s Lata Mangeshkar became so popular that she could build or mar the career of any music director.

here is no denying the fact that during her formative years, the Punjabi music directors, who migrated from Lahore to Bombay, played the biggest role in her excellence which she attained in later years.