Intoxicated by Music

During the initial days of blogging, my friend Pallavi and I were discussing music composers and singers whom we both loved and wanted to include in my posts. We unanimously agreed on Khayyam Sahab, as we both loved his music and had many a times enjoyed his timeless classics together. Today, as we pay our last respects to him, I wanted to write this post as a tribute. Khayyam Sahab grew up in a family environment filled with books and education. I read somewhere that he was so interested in music and sher-o-shayari that his aim was to become K L Saigal! As a result, he was thrown out of his home. It was during this time that he underwent classical music training. He was highly influenced by the works of Allama Iqbal and the bravery and principles of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. That influence stayed with him throughout his career and he never compromised with his ethics even when he did not get any film music to compose. His humility, his child like simplicity and serene smile stood ou...

What more can one write when so much has already been written for the icon Kishore Kumar! He  was the voice of countless gems of Hindi film music and one cannot write about Hindi music without talking about him.  For those who do not know, he was not a trained singer. There are popular stories about some of the songs such as "Mere naina saawan bhado'. This song was a heavy classical song and he asked Pancham to record Lata's version first so that he could listen to that and rehearse. It is one of the most popular songs of Kishore Kumar today and one cannot even think that he did not have the required training of Hindustani music. Similarly, in the very popular 'pag ghungroo baandh meera naache', there is a part which is purely sargam. He refused to sing the song itself as he was not at all comfortable singing the sargam. Bappi Lahiri who was the music director, had to take another singer just for the sargam so that Kishore Kumar would agree to sing that song....