LIFE-A MUSICAL JOURNEY

 

Music first entered my life when I was 7 or 8 years old. I was living in Bharatpur, the only child of a very young mother who having been widowed at the age of 21 was sent to Banares (now Varanasi) by her parents to pursue further studies while they brought me up. There was no one else in the house as my grandparents’ other children were all away with my Mansi married and both my Mamas studying at Allahabad University. We were living on the outskirts of the city so I had no kids of my age nearby to play with. For reasons unknown, I imagined I was studying in Wellington, New Zealand, and had invented classfellows some of whose names I still remember- Beau, Pip, Peep and John!

Music was therefore the ideal escape from loneliness to flights of fancy. My Mamas were very fond of music and when at home on vacation, I could hear them singing  Pankaj Mullick songs such as “Ayee bahar aaj ayee bahar” or “Piya milan ko jaana”. We had some Pankaj, KL Saigal and Kanan Devi 78 rpm records which I started playing on an HMV gramophone. It was great fun manually winding the machine for the next record before the present one finished so that there was no break in the music! I used to look forward excitedly to Vinnie Mama’s visits when he would bring more records for me.

So began the musical journey of my life as I started associating events and places with songs. I can recall coming back after a successful Arithmetic exam in Class V and singing Pankaj’s “Aaj apni mehnaton ka mujhko samra mil gaya.” I learnt to march in step to the beats of his “Pran chahe nain na chahe” and appreciate orchestral instrumental music through “Madbhari rut jawani hai”. Saigal was not far behind with “Soja Rajkumari soja”, “Do naina matware” and “Chah barbad karegi mujhe maloom na tha” from his movie “Shahjehan.”

Indian film music started making an impression on me in the late 40s. The songs of Mukesh with lilting piano accompaniment in “Andaaz” are fresh in my mind as also Lata Mangeshkar’s “Aayega aanewala” from the classic film “Mahal”. When CH Atma crooned “Ro-oon main sagar ke kinare”, everyone thought Saigal had come alive again! I also remember singing Hemant Kumar’s “Aanchal se kyun baandh diya mujh pardesi ka pyar” at a school function in Bharatpur.

1951 widened my musical horizon when we moved to Jaipur and I joined an English medium school, St. Xavier. My class teacher, an Irishman named Fr. Mackessack got me to join a singing class he used to run after school and taught us old Irish, Scottish and American folk songs. Soon I was singing “When Irish eyes are smiling”, “Loch Lomond”, “Ol’ man river”, “Way down upon the Swanee river”, and the like.

My class fellows advised me to tune in to Radio Ceylon and this became a daily habit. I switched on the radio whenever I could and used to wait eagerly for the weekly Binaca Hit Parade.  To name just a few songs I loved, and still do, there were the Bing Crosby Christmas carols “White Christmas” and “Silent night”, Frankie Laine’s “Jezebel” and “Jalousie”, Perry Como’s “Don’t let the stars get in your eyes”, Frank Sinatra’s “Young at heart”, Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa”, Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore” and “Sway”, Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong’s “As time goes by”, and “A kiss to build a dream on”, Andy William’s “Butterfly”, Jo Stafford’s “Jumbalaya”, Doris Day’s “Secret love”, Patti Page ‘the singing rage’s “Tennessee Waltz” and “How much is that doggie in the window”, Caterina Valente’s “Kiss of fire” and “Malaguena”, …. the list is endless and I am glad songs are not people else the ones I haven’t named could be offended!

Meanwhile, Vinnie Mama had joined the Navy and made his first visit to the UK and enriched our musical collection with “The rich Maharaja of Magador” who ‘had rubies and pearls and the loveliest girls but he didn’t know how to do the Rhumba’, and “Goodnight Irene” in which the singer sometimes had ‘a great notion to jump in the river and drown!’

I joined the National Defence Academy in July 1955 and took charge of buying records for our squadron anteroom so that I could get my choice.  During this time, Rock and Roll became the rage and we had Elvis Presley gyrating with “Don’t be cruel”, “Hound dog” and “Teddy bear”, Bill Haley reckoning the hours with “Rock around the clock”, Fats Domino exploring “Blueberry Hill”, Little Richard screaming “Good golly Miss Molly”, Gene Vincent’s staccato “Be-bop-a-lula” and Jerry Lee Lewis pounding the piano with his hands and feet in “Great balls of fire” and “Whole lotta shakin’ going on”. A smoother rocker was Pat Boone who sang “I Almost lost my mind” and wrote “Love letters in the sand”.

A very popular singer those days was the Calypso king Harry Belafonte who had us enthralled with “Jamaican Farewell”, “Banana boat song” and his humorous renditions of  “Man smart woman smarter” and “Matilda” who ‘took me money and run Venezuela’. Some other cadets’ top favourites were Paul Anka’s “Diana” and Cliff Richards’ “Living Doll” and “Summer Holiday”. Peggy Lee raised the temperatures with “Fever” and Doris Day advised us to stay calm with her all-time hit “Que Sera Sera” from ‘The Man who Knew Too Much’.

Commissioned into the Indian Navy, I rewind to my days on “Gomati” in 1961-62. The ship was mainly in Bombay harbour and for us two bachelors, me and Jack Suri who we sadly lost on “Khukri” in 1971, there was enough time to see plenty of movies. We were happy admirers of Mohd. Rafi’s transition from a singer of gloomy songs, which I never liked, to cheerful ones like “Yahoo, chahe koi mujhe junglee kahe” and melodious love songs such as “Chaudhvin ka chand”, “Abhi na jao chhodkar” and “Tumsa nahin dekha”.

Vinnie Mama meanwhile had developed an ear for Western classical music. On a leave jointly spent together in our hometown Jaipur, he made me sit and listen to some classical LPs like Rimsky Korsakov’s “Scheherezade” and Ravel’s “Bolero”. Soon I was hooked on to this genre as well.

A year later, I moved to NDA Kharakvasla as a Divisional Officer. With no other entertainment in the evenings in this one-horse town (or shall I say village!), one had a lot of time for music on the radio or one’s own collection on a record player or tape recorder. In the evening, all the bachelors in the Mess would get together for a drink and belt out popular songs of those days. There was plenty to sing with the arrival of The Beatles and our favourites were “Love me do”, “I wanna hold your hand” and “I saw her standing there” where Bogey Borgonah and I would try to outdo each other in the ‘my-ee-een’ part. Also on the menu were the sweet, smooth and moving numbers of the unforgettable Jim Reeves with “He’ll have to go” and “I am beginning to forget you”. When Jim Reeves died in an air crash in 1964, all of us music lovers felt we had suffered a personal loss.

The singsong sessions included Hindi songs too and I vividly remember the eye-rolling facial expressions with which Subodh Gupta sang “Chhupo na chhupo na woh pyari sajaniyan”. My own contributions were usually Pankaj Mullick’s “Maine aaj piya honton ka pyala” and “Yeh Raatein”.

Serious music was provided by Jai Mundkur in his cabin with tapes of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius and the jazz and Bossa Nova of Stan Getz. Loveji Mehta used to call us to his house for lunch on Sundays and while his charming wife Nisha got the Dhanshak and rice ready, we had our fill of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Bach. In my own cabin, it was either the Beatles and Jim Reeves or Beethoven’s Fifth piano concerto and Seventh Symphony, Rachmaninov’s Second piano concerto and Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony.”

Lalit “Tiger” Talwar had a good collection of Indian classical music and got me interested in it. This was timely as soon I was to move to the National Defence College, New Delhi, as Aide to the Commandant and was able to attend live concerts of greats like Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and Bismillah Khan.  Two of the greatest musical films were screened in Delhi at that time, “My Fair Lady” and “The Sound of Music” with all their songs still fresh in my mind as if I had seen the movies just yesterday.

In 1967, I was on board Betwa when the Rolling Stones went a step further than the Beatles wanting to hold hands to “Lets spend the night together”. I loved another of their hits “I can’t get no satisfaction” which would prompt my shipmate and coursemate Bobby Bhandoola to inquire snidely why I was not getting it!

Betwa was followed by a year in Signal School, Cochin, to do my specialist course in Communications. A Malaysian ship made a visit and my friend Md. Sharif of the Malaysian Navy doing the course with us helped me buy a nice music system from the ship. The system remained with me for a good 17 years.  An LP acquired with the system introduced me to the great British composer John Barry who composed the James Bond theme and most of James Bond movies’ music like “Goldfinger”, “Thunderball” and “You only live twice”. Later Barry composed the last number sung by Satchmo, “We have all the time in the world”.

From Cochin to the ship Trishul where with shipmates like Roly Lewin, we would play music in the Wardroom at full volume. 60s was a great decade for pop music and we had acquired a large collection of the best. My top favourite Tom Jones was coming out with hits after hits such as “Green green grass of home”, “Delilah”, “Help yourself” and “I’ll never fall in love again”. He was closely followed by Englebert Humperdinck, the Bangalore born singer, with “Please release me” and “Il Mondo”.  The Beatles were still there with “Oob-la-di Oob-la-da” and the endless ‘na na na nananana of “Hey Jude”. Elvis Presley had come out with his final few numbers in “It’s now or never” and “Cant help falling in love” which have had many revivals. Herb Alpert was high on popularity with one of the sweetest songs ever sung and trumpeted “This guy’s in love with you”. Creedence Clearwater Revival were very entertaining with “Born on the Bayou”, “Proud Mary” and the extended “I heard it through the grapevine”. Santana had made his appearance with “Evil ways” and “Black magic woman”. Paul Mauriat had come out with one of the greatest instrumentals “Love is blue”. Among other songs we played frequently were the Archies’ “Sugar sugar”, Sam the Sham and the Pharaoh’s “Woolly Bully” and Herman’s Hermits’ “Something good”.

At the end of 60s, Simon and Garfunkel burst into popularity with “Sounds of Silence” and “Bridge over troubled waters” in the movie “The Graduate”. The “Love story” theme had everyone teary-eyed. The musical play “Hair” gave us  “Aquarius”. The Woodstock festival became a trendsetter and brought together a whole lot of songs from artistes like Joe Cocker, Joan Baez and Santana. Another song to become an all-time great was “Raindrops keep falling on my head” from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. As Mary Hopkin sang, “Those were the days”!

At the end of 1971, I had moved to Vishakhapatnam and got married in March ’72. Vividh Bharati had completely overtaken Radio Ceylon as the main source of Hindi film songs. This was backed by watching movies at the naval base cinema hall.  Rajesh Khanna was at his popular best and Kishore Kumar his perfect singing voice. “Roop Tera Mastana” was on everyone’s lips and I recall a friend of mine, Doc Mukherjee, who said he sat down in the movie hall every day as long as “Aradhana” was running just to listen to this song! Other unforgettable songs from the duo were “Mere Sapnon Ki Rani” from the same film, “Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana” from “Andaaz”,  “Yeh Shaam Mastani” from “Kati Patang” and the sad but melodious “Kahin Door Jab Din Dhal Jaye” from “Anand”.

Later in the 70s and early 80s while I was shuttling twice between Vizag, Wellington and New Delhi, Kishore Kumar was lending his singing voice to Amitabh Bachchan and regaling us with “My name is Anthony Gonsalvez”, “Khaike paan  Banareswala”, “Aapka kya hoga Janab-e-ali”, “Thodi si jo peeli hai” and “”Jahan teri yeh nazar hai”.

In the western pop music world, Boney M had come in with a bang and no Staff College party was complete without our singing or dancing to “Daddy Cool”, “Ma Baker” and “Rivers of Babylon”.  “Saturday Night Fever” premiered and all of us rushed to Ooty to see the movie and tap to John Trovolta’s dancing to BeeGees “Stayin’ alive” and “You should be dancing”. I became a BeeGees fan and still get emotional listening to “Words” and “Massachusetts”.

Meanwhile, Abba burst on the scene with their sweet enchanting music to go on to become a living legend. “Mamma Mia”, “Dancing Queen”, “Chiquitita”, “I have a dream” and scores of others are unforgettable and I fondly recall the family celebrating my 42^nd birthday by seeing “Abba the Movie” at Chanakya in Delhi in 1980.

In the winter of that year, Akhila and I were visiting an exhibition in Pragati Maidan when we heard a very gentle and soothing voice singing over the loudspeakers. We walked over to the open air auditorium and found ourselves at a fascinating concert by Jagjit Singh accompanied by Chitra Singh. We heard “Ahista ahista”, “Baat niklegi”  and “Honton ko chhoolo tum” for the first time and were hooked on to ghazals from then on. My other favourites were Ghulam Ali’s “Chupke chupke raat din” and “Aawargi” and Reshma’s “Lambi judai”.

By the time I was transferred to Bombay in 1983, Ruchir and Shumita had grown up and had acquired a taste for Western pop music. What I heard from then on was largely dependent on what they were playing at home! Stevie Wonder was a big hit with “I just called to say I love you”, Lionel Richie with “All Night Long” which he so enchantingly sang at the closing ceremony of the LA Olympics, Madonna’s “Like a virgin”, Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls just wanna have fun” and “Time after time” and Dire Sraits “Money for nothing”. Michael Jackson was a great hit with them but not with me!

End ‘85 saw us move to Singapore where the TV and FM kept us uptodate with the latest hits. Whether you were in the car or visiting shopping malls (and the city is one big shopping mall!), you were listening to music all the time. Trending those days were A-Ha’s “Take on me”, The Police’s “Every breath you take”, Wham’s “Careless whisper”, George Michael’s “Faith” and Laura Branigan’s “Gloria”. Christmas time and you could hear Michael’s “Last Christmas I gave you my heart” at every single mall. The movie ”Top Gun” was released then and Berlin’s “Take my breath away” was playing all over. Other movie songs very popular were “What a feeling” from “Flashdance” and “Time of my life” from “Dirty Dancing”.

In Delhi in 1990-96 we were in Som Vihar which immediately brings to mind Bryan Adams’ “Everything I do, I do it from you”. MTV was the major source of music and while Ruchir went for Guns ‘n Roses and Meatloaf, Shumita was more on softer music. Songs of those days that I remember are U2’s “With or without you” and “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”, “La Bamba” of Los Lobos taking me back to Trini Lopez of the 60s, UB40’s “Red red wine” and “Can’t help falling in love” bringing back Elvis Presley nostalgia, Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing compares to you”, Elton John’s moving “Candle in the wind” played at Princess Diana’s funeral service and Bobby McFerris’ carefree “Don’t worry, be happy”.

The Swedish group Roxette was very popular with us and we were often crooning “It must have been love” or driving up and down Rajpath with “Joyride” blasting away in our Toyota Corona. On the movie scene, “Titanic” was in its record breaking run with Celine Dion’s “My heart will go on” with Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you” from “Bodyguard” not far behind. And everybody was trying to learn the dance steps of Los Del Rio’s “Macarena”!

In Indian music, Akhila and I had moved on from ghazals to Sufi and we were always on the lookout for an Abida Parveen concert so that we could be hypnotized by her “Mast Kalander” and “Chhaap Tilak” or Sabri Brothers’ “Khwaja ki Deewani”.

We had now entered the 21^st century and I found the current music with its emphasis on Rap and Hip-hop and suchlike making little impression on me. I had reached a saturation point and my brain and ears refused to admit anything new any more!

Akhila and I have taken to travelling a lot in the last 20 years and songs accompany us to most places we go. In fact, some of the travel is dictated by songs true to what Bing Crosby used to croon “faraway places with strange sounding names are calling, calling me”. So when we went to Scotland, it was to “Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” and not the more famous Loch Ness. Istanbul was mystic because of “Istanbul not Constantinople…why did Constantinople get the works-that’s nobody’s business but the Turks”. Eartha Kitt’s husky voice was haunting me in “Uskudara”, “Three Coins in the Fountain” made us drop our coins in the Trevi  before wishing“Arrivederci Roma”, Dean Martin was exhorting us to try pizza pie “in Napoli where love is king….That’s Amore”, the “Blue Danube” had to be waltzed through in Vienna, the “Sound of Music” echoed around Salzburg and “Zorba” was danced while on a cruise round some Greek islands. In Paris we were savouring every moment with “I Love Paris”, Vera Lynn’s sweet voice was playing in our minds cruising around “The White Cliffs of Dover”, Jo Stafford walked us on “London Bridge”, Frank Sinatra kept echoing “New York, New York”, Elvis Presley’s rocked “Viva Las Vegas” and we followed Scott McEnzie’s advice of wearing flowers in our hair in “San Francisco”. The list is long and I know that while I have been lucky to see the “Girl from Ipanema”, I have many misses such as “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and “From Russia with love”.

My musical journey continues revisiting old songs and like Billy Bigelow in “Carousel”, round in circles I go! But there is a new element. Modern technology has brought the internet to the TV and I now sit in the evenings and punch whatever musical number I fancy. Immediately I get dozens of versions of the piece and I then choose the video of live performances by whoever I want. Unbelievable, but “Hey Jude” can be seen performed by Paul McCartney, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Sting, Phil Collins and Mark Knopfler and “I Saw Her Standing There” delightfully sung by Bruce Springsteen and, of course, MaCartney. Watch Demis Roussos get the whole audience to sing and dance to “Lovely Ladies of Arcadia” and “Goodbye My Love, Goodbye”, get sentimental with Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin”, Onny Parun with “Whiter Shade of Pale”, George Michael’s “Careless Whisper”, Sinead O’Connor’s emotive rendition of “Nothing Compares to You” and Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody”. Santana can mesmerise you with an extended version of “Black Magic Woman” at the Montreux Festival, Englebert Humperdinck enthrall you with his London Palladium performance of “Spanish Eyes” and Tom Jones’ delight you with “Delilah” at Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee Concert. Travel to a tropical island resort listening to Paul Mauriat’s “Love is Blue” and get sentimental by going back in time with Doris Day’s “This is beautiful music to love by” with Rock Hudson.

When in a classical mood, I can choose any of the top orchestras playing Dvorak’s New World Symphony or Beethoven’s Fifth, or a renowned pianist performing Rachmaninov’s 2^nd or Tchaikovsky’s 1^st piano concerto. For vocals there are always the Three Tenors with their Neapolitan songs performed all over the world.

How did I embark on such a wonderful journey? As Julie Andrews sang in “Sound of Music” perhaps ‘somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good’.

 Live the “Memory” and let the music play!