I t was nothing short of a nostalgia attack for those who turned up for a session on the music and films of Nasir Husain.
The Hindu ’s film critic Baradwaj Rangan, in conversation with authors Akshay Manwani and Balaji Vittal, kick-started the session with a medley of music clips from Husain’s filmography. Rangan said the works of people like Manwani, who has recently authored Music, Masti, Modernity: The Cinema of Nasir Husain, and Vittal, a co-author of the book RD Burman – The Man, The Music (which fetched him a National award), are more important than the autobiographies of film personalities that are being churned out by Indian publishing houses today.
What is more interesting for film writers, according to Manwani and Vittal, is the unique combination that Burman (Pancham) and Husain formed.
Tracing the early breakthrough of Burman and Husain, Vittal and Manwani explained how everyone in the Bombay film industry was aware of who their collaborators were, whose family they belonged to and so on. Pancham got his first chance, thanks to Shammi Kapoor and Husain, who started out at Filmistan Studio, worked under producer Shashadhar Mukherjee. Mukherjee noticed how Husain had a natural ear for good music, recalled Manwani, and would often send him to the composer’s studio to give his judgment on his tunes. One anecdote in his book explains how Husain, much younger to Sachin Dev Burman (Pancham’s father), mustered the guts to say how his score wasn’t good enough. “This is the mid-50s. And Nasir must have been aware of what RD’s (the younger Burman) capability was… whether he was as artistic as his father,” said Manwani.
Pancham and Husain brought out youthful tunes in their films. “But what’s this probable wavelength they had that distinguished them from others?” Rangan asked. Manwani, taking the case of Teesri Manzil (1966), said a certain passing of the baton happened from the hero Shammi Kapoor to the composer, Pancham. “Shammi’s dynamism, uninhibitedness, his manic energy, edginess and verve was brought through in RD’s music,” he said. This is probably the reason why Pancham appealed to Husain and they got along so well. “And Husain used music as a way out of melodrama in his films, especially in Yaadon Ki Baaraat, unlike other filmmakers.”
Vittal explained how for Husain, Pancham’s music was more script-centric and how the duo took the score away from the hero. “They said it’s for the youth. It had to be loud, it had to be jarring. It was maybe a brass instrument playing instead of the flute and maybe an electric guitar too. The shift in music can be seen (for Pancham) between Teesri Manzil and Yaadon Ki Baaraat ,” said Vittal. This brought out a lot of firsts in Indian music, such as twin-track recording or the use of the Moog synthesizer, he added.
Delving deeper into Husain’s filmmaking, Manwani spoke of how songs and dances were woven organically into Husain’s scripts, and how he always merged his sensibilities into the soundtrack.
To Rangan’s question whether Husain could be regarded as the first “formula filmmaker”, Manwani agreed. “Breaking down his films, one sees that there are five or six broad strokes — the lead couple set out on a journey or holiday, the setting is almost never in a city, the hero or heroine will always have only a single parent,” he said.
Vittal added how Husain’s scripts always gave a sense of escapism, with examples of how he emboldened his characters to go out of the house. As for his progressiveness, Manwani explained how Husain broke the stereotype of the hotel and club as a sinful den. “Husain never looked at these places as sleazy spaces. ‘Aaja Aaja Mein Hoon Pyar Tera’, one of the most popular songs from a film he wrote, happens at a rock and roll club,” he said. More importantly, it was a space where his women characters could dress up in modern fashion and dance without anyone judging their morals.
“And not to forget that they weren’t a Susie or Jenny, but Hindu heroines, like a Sunitha,” interjected Rangan.
Making a case for the sheer power of the Husain-Pancham combo, Manwani said the director never needed a hero like Amitabh Bachchan even during the 70s to make a hit. “The hero was RD Burman. The moment his score was below average or less than excellent, Husain always compensated with his story,” he said.
