Subhash K Jha shines the spotlight on Raj Khosla and shares Filmistan praise for the noted producer, screenwriter and director. Along with the great films, focus also turns to the outstanding music he selected to enhance and expand his films -the man, his movies and the music.
Once while we were speaking about Raj Khosla, the great Manoj Kumar said to me, “How can the man who made suspense thrillers like Woh Kaun Thi and Anita with me make family dramas like Do Raaste and Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki? I wasn’t part of Khosla’s family films or his dacoit dramas (Kachche Dhaage, Mera Gaon Mera Desh). But I couldn’t miss his versatility. No one could.”
Adds Sanjay Leela Bhansali, “I am a huge fan of Raj Khoslaji. Especially his music sense… My God! This is the genius whose films featured some of Hindi cinema’s best songs , ‘Aankhon hi aankhon mein’ (CID), ‘Chal ri sajni’ (Bambai Ka Babu), ‘Lag ja gale se’ (Woh Kaun Thi), ‘Chup gaye saare nazaare’ (Do Raaste), ‘Kali palak teri gori’ (Do Chor), ‘Kya meri prem kahani’ (Prem Kahani). Do you know the great Begum Akhtar had once singled out ‘Maar diya jaye’ from Raj Khosla’s Mera Gaon Mera Desh as her favourite song of Lataji.”
Most cineastes think of Raj Kapoor as the showman of the Indian cinema. But in my opinion, Raj Khosla was just as passionate and versatile . His music sense rivalled Kapoor and sometimes out did it. The songs that Laxmikant-Pyarelal composed for Khosla were very frequently superior to what they gave to Kapoor.
Like Kapoor, Khosla was a musician himself. He did two films with composer Madan Mohan where the music is considered all-time greats. In Khosla’s Woh Kaun Thi Madan Mohan created the most important song of his career ‘Lag ja gale se’. But who’s to say that Lata Mangeshkar’s other songs of the soundtrack ‘Jo humne dastaan’ and ‘Naina barse rimjhim’ are any less exquisite ?
After the stupendous soundtrack of Mera Saaya containing chartbusters like ‘Jhumka gira re’ and ‘Mera saaya saath hoga’, Khosla suddenly switched from Madan Mohan to Laxmikant-Pyarelal. No one knows what went wrong between Khosla and Madan Mohan. But in his next project Anita, which encored the Woh Kaun Thi team of Manoj Kumar and Sadhana, Khosla got Laxmikant-Pyarelal(L-P) to do the songs. Although the film flopped L-P composed all-time hits like ‘Tum bin jeevan kaise beeta’ and ‘Samne mere sawariya’ for Anita.
In Raj Khosla’s blockbuster family drama Do Raaste L-P composed one of Lataji’s most beloved songs ‘Bindiya chamkegi’. The iconic Mumtaz who danced the tune to eternal glory in her trademark orange-coloured saree, says she had no clue she was dancing to a song that would become synonymous with her image. “None of us thought much of ‘Bindiya chamkegi’ when we were shooting it. We were like, theek hai (it’s okay). I personally thought it was a little slow in tempo for a dance number. But I was wrong. It is the biggest song of my career.”
Lataji once said that Raj Khosla was a singer himself. “He used to sing and compose his own songs. Some of my career’s biggest hits were for Raj Khosla’s films: ‘Lag ja gale se’ in Woh Kaun Thi, ‘Bindiya chamkegi’ in Do Raaste, ‘Maar diya jaye ke chhor diya jaye’ in Mera Gaon Mera Desh, ‘Main tulsi tere angan ki’, ‘Teri aankhon ke siva duniya mein rakha kya hai’ in Chirag. Even Raj Khosla’s unsuccessful films had some of my best songs, like ‘Allah meri payal bole’ in Do Premee and ‘Jaane kya baat hai’ in Sunny.”
There are some exceptional filmmakers in Hindi cinema whose sense music matches their filmmaking skills . Raj Kapoor, Vijay Anand, Manoj Kumar and Raj Khosla come to mind immediately. In the 1970s and 80s when Khosla made a slew of dacoit dramas he miraculously merged magnificent songs into the action. Khosla’s dacoit dramas Mera Gaon Mera Desh , Kachche Dhaage and Maati Mange Khoon has exceptional songs and music.
The unsuccessful Maati Maange Khoon in 1983 saw Khosla switch from Laxmikant-Pyarelal to R .D. Burman with astonishing results: ‘Main ghunghat na kholungi’ , ‘Lo Sahib phir bhool gayi main’ are among Lataji’s career-best compositions.
Shatrughan Sinha who worked with Raj Khosla in two films describes the filmmaker as a visionary. “What a great sense of music Raj Khosla had. In Dostana, the film I did with Amitabh Bachchan, Laxmikant-Pyarelal composed some great songs like kBane chahe dushman zamana hamara’ and ‘Dillagi ne di hawak. In my Maati Maange Khoon I remember the great Ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali Saab singing ‘Yeh dil yeh paagal dil mera awargi’. Raj Khosla was a genius. He deserved a lot more recognition than he got.”
Recalls actress Asha Parekh, “Raj Khosla gave me one of my career’s best films. Then when he wanted me to do Main Tulsi Teri Aangan Ki I was not sure. The whole film revolved around Nutan’s character. I had just fifteen minutes in the film. But what an impact it made!”
Asha Parekh played the Other Woman in Main Tulsi Tere Aangan. Khosla was obsessed with that character. the mistress, the outsider, the homebreaker . He visited the Other Woman in film after film: Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki, Sunny, Daasi. He was also fascinated by the traditional screen vamp. Bindu in Do Raaste, Laxmi Chhaya in Mera Gaon Mera Desh and Sona in Kachche Dhaage were more pivotal to the plot than the heroines.
There was so much to the cinema of Raj Khosla that remains eclipsed by the absence of a proper evaluation of his work. I would call him an unsung genius but we are still singing his songs from the 1950s and early 1960s like from ‘Leke pehla pehla pyar’ in CID, ‘Achcha ji main haari chalo maan jao na’ (Kala Pani), ‘Hai apna dil toh awara’ (Solva Saal) and ‘Deewana mastana hua dil’ (Bambai Ka Babu), ‘Aap yuhi agar humse milte rahe’ and ‘Bahut shukriya badi meherbani’ (Ek Musafir Ek Hasina).
