Shivkumar Sharma’s melodious contribution to Bollywood

P.K. Ajith Kumar

Hindi cinema has, over the decades, witnessed several melodious collaborations between two musicians. Duos such as Shankar-Jaikishen, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, Nadeem-Shravan, Jatin-Lalit, Anand-Milind and Vishal-Shekhar have tuned several melodies to enrich our popular music.

Shiv-Hari may not have been as prolific, but, then, they have been focusing more on their stellar careers as two of India’s finest instrumental musicians. One half of it, the santoor maestro Shivkumar Sharma, died in Mumbai on Tuesday of cardiac arrest aged 84.

Sharma and flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia came together to compose for only eight Bollywood films. But their songs continue to delight the fans of sheer melody.

Shiv-Hari had made a stunning debut with Silsila, the 1981 romance directed by Yash Chopra featuring Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha and Jaya Bhaduri.

The film featured some gorgeous melodies. Take for instance Yeh kahaan aa gaye hum…, sung by Lata Mangeshkar with Bachchan reciting the poetry part. It is one of the finest songs of Lata in the 80’s. She traversed through the not-so-easy notes only the way she could have. And yes, the way Bachchan, who played a poet in the film, recited was magical as well. On screen too, he cast a spell with the stunning Rekha.

Another lovely song from Silsila is Dekh ek khwab…, rendered by Lata and Kishore Kumar. Perhaps the most popular song from the film is Rang barse bhige chunar wali... It was sung by Bachchan and written by his father Hari Vans Rai Bachchan, one of the great poets in Hindi. The song went on to become almost synonymous with the Holi celebrations.

But, Bachchan’s best effort as the singer in Silsila is Neela aasman so gaya…

Most of the songs in Silsila were written by Javed Akhtar, who had at the time one half of Salim-Javed, who scripted massive box-office hits like Sholay, Deewar and Don. So Bollywood owes to Chopra for giving it one of its finest lyricists of all time.

It was on the insistence of Chopra that Sharma and Chaurasia became music directors. There were doubts whether two classical musicians compose for the mainstream Bollywood and if the musicians themselves should venture into the popular film music. All those concerns vanished with Silsila.

All but one of the Shiv-Hari films were directed by Chopra. Their second film was Faasle. It had one of the lesser-heard duets of Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar – In aankhon ke zeenon se... It should rank among the best duets of the two legendary singers.

The album also features a lesser-known melody by Asha Bhosle too – Yun toh milne ke faasle hai bahut…

Shiv-Hari’s biggest commercial success was Chandni, one of the films that established Sridevi as Bollywood’s biggest female stars of her time. She danced her way to the audience’s hearts, moving gracefully to the chart-topper sung by Lata, Mere haath mein nau nau choodiyan hai…

The pick of the album though is Lagi aaj sawan ki…, sung superbly by Suresh Wadkar.

Another Sridevi-starrer directed by Chopra, Lamhe, too had superb music. It had the foot-tapping Morni baga ma bole... by Lata and the haunting Yeh lamhe yeh pal… by Hariharan, who hadn’t begun singing for A.R. Rahman yet.