A middle-aged doctor in a striped shirt and crisp trousers takes the microphone to sing a duet. His partner for the song, a homemaker, is perhaps a few years older. It’s an oppressively humid day, and the lone airconditioner in the largish kindergarten classroom in Andheri offers little comfort. Their song is the breezy ‘Hawa ke saath saath’, from the 70s movie Seeta aur Geeta , where young lovers Sanjeev Kumar and Hema Malini whizz through hilly terrain on roller skates.
The coach is Chintamani Sohoni. He is part of a growing tribe of entrepreneur-musicians in Mumbai that has plugged into what is clearly an undying passion: the nostalgia and love for what is regarded the best era for Hindi cinema music — the 1930s to the 1980s. Fans are not content to just listen to YouTube or attend retro concerts. They want to immerse themselves in it, sing it, understand its timelessness.
In the Andheri classroom, the woman attempts to reproduce playback singer Asha Bhosle’s ‘Ah-ah-ah, ouch!’, part of a playful joust between the lovers. Sohoni signals a pause. “ Aapne ‘ouch’ mein kanjoosi ki (You held back with the ‘ouch’),” he tells her. “Think of how Asha tai sang for the actress, or how Kishore Kumar produced a certain sound for Sanjeev Kumar.” He asks them to start again. “This song needs masti, mazaa (mischief, fun).”
The singers, not exactly carefree youngsters, don’t stop till they get closer to what he wants; they know he is a perfectionist. He is no grim martinet though: he keeps rhythm with feet and fingers, and when he corrects muffed lyrics, an off-beat phrase or a departure from key, he does it with a smile or a joke.
The coach
Chintamani Sohoni at one of his workshops.
Every week, in workshops in several Mumbai suburbs, Sohoni teaches people who once loved to sing but have lost touch, helping them bring back their passion.
He focusses on Hindi cinema music’s golden era, because “These songs are linked to everyone’s life.” He loves them because their composers “believed in depth, in the rooh (soul)” of the song. “When an artist played an instrument, the feelings that emanated from it would make their way into the song. Nowadays, most songs emanate from a machine.”
He lays out an array of film songs for his students to learn, from singers like Lata Mangeshkar to Kishore Kumar and music directors like Madan Mohan or Shankar-Jaikishen whose songs have been performed in different styles. He has them pay attention to the lyrics, their expressions, and importantly, what went into their making..
To Sohoni, it is important to have a base in Indian classical music. But since his students are beginners, he gives them pre-recorded exercises to practise at home. His enrolment criteria: a sense of taal and sur , and willingness to learn. He also insists that his students listen to the songs over and over, and picks those who sing well to perform in his own shows. (There are also shows for the others, once in three months.)
For someone who gave up an electronics business for music, the workshops give him immense satisfaction. “When I began my singing career, a lot of people would tease me, but no one ever corrected me. What I didn’t get, I give to others. It’s that simple.”
The fan
At the Ravindra Natya Mandir, Dadar, composer Madhav Ajgaonkar briefly plays the R.D. Burman composition ‘Mera kuch saamaan’ to explain its nuances to a mixed-age-group audience. The moment the music stops, the audience lets out a collective sigh. “Let’s hear the song fully, please,” says a woman seated in the back.
Like his audience, Ajgaonkar is an R.D. Burman devotee. He has been listening to — and learning from — Burman’s music since he was eight; he has no other training. “There are things about him I’m still learning. R.D. Burman was not just a music director: he is a thought; a university.”
The shows and workshops Ajgaonkar does are called Panchamtantra, which he defines as the science behind the music of Pancham (as Burman was called).
At his workshops, he focusses on the composer’s team spirit, innovation, openness and interpersonal skills. “Pancham da knew how to make a person feel at home. He was not one man; he was a team.”
Madhav Ajgaonkar at a Panchamtantra show.
Ajgaonkar describes his shows as an intellectual give and take: there is music, film clips, fun exercises, and above all, a two-way emotional tug between him and his audience. He reels off minute details of Burman’s life and work, collected over years of research and from spending time with people close to the music director.
Four decades ago, he says, Burman had the courage to change the ‘sa’ (the primary note in Indian music) in a song. “In Western classical music, it’s called a ‘transpose’; but we don’t do that in Indian music.” Or how he used the dual track, when it was unheard of in India.
Amrapali Chowdhury, who has come with her 20-year-old daughter, the rest of her family and friends, describes them all as “blind RD fans.”
Charuta Naik, a designer, has attended two of his shows with her little son. “At each show, I get to hear new stories of R.D.; my love for his music is a kind of madness.” Rishikesh Khare, 15, says he doesn’t relate to contemporary music: “It’s too harsh.” Pancham, he says, is more melodious.
Young people regularly come up to meet him after shows, and that gives him hope. “There was this girl who was born in 1997, four years after Pancham died. And then there was another 12-year-old girl who said she listened to his music.”
Today’s generation, he says, doesn’t understand what a musical arrangement is, what creating sound or rhythm from scratch is, because it’s all about computer programming.
“Back then, 60 musicians would record together, rehearse from morning to evening, and then do one take. When musicians come together, there’s an energy in the room. Today, the flautist plays on the first day, the singer comes the next day, and it’s all mixed together,” says Ajgaonkar.
He is convinced Pancham’s music — and old Hindi cinema songs in general — can never fade out. “There’s a beautiful line by Javed Akhtar: ‘Time is kind to great people.’”
The aesthete
On a hot afternoon at the Powai campus of IIT-Bombay, a bunch of engineering students and professors have taken time off from the pursuit of science. They’re learning about Rabindranath Tagore, and in an unusual way: through Hindi film music. The song playing is, ‘Tere mere milan ki yeh raina’ from the 1973 movie, Abhimaan , based on a Tagore composition.
“The youngsters loved it,” says Tushar Bhatia, the presenter. “When we ended with ‘Kajra mohabbatwala’ ( Kismat , 1968) and ‘Reshmi salwar’ ( Naya Daur , 1957), they were dancing away.” He is unsurprised: “Those songs have transcended time. Tagore composed the song in 1904. S.D. Burman took it up in 1974. And we are hearing it in 2017. It’s so beautifully done.”
Composer Tushar Bhatia (second from right)
Bhatia, a sitarist and composer (and also music director for the film Andaz Apna Apna ), with his group, Swardhara, conducts lecture-demonstrations and live shows on music, poetry and dance. He often showcases the works of old Hindi cinema’s composers, like with a commemorative on Pankaj Mullick’s centenary, and one on 25 composers in Hindi films a few years ago. “My programmes are study-based, right from R.C. Boral and Pankaj Mullick to R.D. Burman,” he says. “I want to give more meaning to my shows.”
He approaches each song from an aesthetic perspective: its poetry, music, cinematic and situational components.“Take ‘Waqt ne kiya’. Apart from brilliant lyrics by Kaifi saab (Kaifi Azmi) and brilliant melody by S.D. Burman, Geeta ji (Geeta Dutt) has put her heart and soul into the song. What an amazing thing Burman’s arranger, Sebastian D’souza, has done. And see the way V.K. Murthy has picturised it, with that lone beam of light coming into the room, and, wow! It’s really wow! It’s perfection.” And then he says, “This is a song from a 1958 film, Kaagaz ke Phool . Which song of today is going to last 60 years?”
He has spent time with music directors like O.P. Nayyar, Naushad, Jaydev and Anil Biswas, among others, and he also brings this personal element to his shows. Years ago, on a vacation in Lonavla with lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri and his family, the writer told him how the lullaby, ‘Nanhi kali sone chali’ from the 1959 movie Sujata came into being. Sultanpuri’s wife was putting their daughter Saba to sleep, and the entire situation was replicated in the movie. Years later, Bhatia invited Saba to one of his shows on Sultanpuri. He called her on stage and told her, to her delight, that she was the ‘nanhi kali’ in the song.
He says audiences keep coming back for the melody in old Hindi film music which, in a way, is embedded in our collective subconscious but is missing in today’s songs. “ Khade bol ke gaane ban rahe hain abhi (the songs of today are staccato): ta-ra-ri-ri-ra ,” he says, striking each note with his fingers. “The curves, what we call the meend , the andolan , are just not there. That’s because no one is enjoying ragas or folk music these days. Everyone wants to dance to songs; no one wants to sit in peace and listen.”
When he did Tomar Shurer Dhara, a show on Tagore, he says he had “the lungi dance crowd” in attendance. “They came and told me, ‘We didn’t know such things were there.’ Life and perceptions have become so plastic that you don’t even know what is the real thing.”
