Blast from the Past: Gulzar’s Interview on Music Director Kanu Roy

11 Comments
  1. aryan 12 years ago

    Good interview regarding musician like Kanu Roy struggled to get good instruments to produce different type of music.

    Here one of his song with Gulzar in the video.
    Logon ke ghar mein – Griha Pravesh

    • Ritz 12 years ago

      Here is Yesudas version of this song. Antara / tempo/ lyrics are totally different.This is in lighter mood.

      Dont know if this was included in the movie.

      I feel Kanu Roy has captured the lyrics of Gulzar / mood of both versions perfectly.

      • aryan 12 years ago

        @Ritz
        Bhupinder Singh sung very well compare to Yesudas.

  2. Ritz 12 years ago

    Minimal use of instruments was his style. Probably the lack of resources was a blessing in disguise.

    Another fav of his is :
    (again very minimal use of instruments)
    Aaj Ki kaali ghata from “Uski Kahani”

    The below song from an old bengali movie is like “Meri jaan mujhe jaa na kaho” in faster pace.

    The above is not by Kanu Roy, but probably that was inspiration for Kanu. But he played it differently by removing all orchestra/instruments in “Meri jaan” and just utlized singer’s prowess to maximum.

    I am assuming he gave background score for his films too. I liked this perticular scenes background music from film Avishkar.
    From 0:42:00 till 0:49:00
    Right from actor’s internal feelings when heroine objects to his smoking to the next scene (flashback) where there is clash between hero and his father-in-law…..the background score of that tense scene goes “ti tu ti tu” – probably same as what he used to think as per above interview by Gulzar 😉
    It may or may not be be original but in Hindi Cinema context the style is very different from typical “dhan te nan” type of loud score used in those days for such scenes.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=LGgTJJx-1j4

    • Author
      sputnik 12 years ago

      Ritz,

      Try pasting the embed code. I fixed the issue.

      • Ritz 12 years ago

        Pls can u embed it as of now? I tried just now but didnt work. Next time I will login and comment 🙂 Thx.

        • Author
          sputnik 12 years ago

          I embedded the videos for now. But if you login and then post the embed code it should work.

          Thanks for the songs – will check out later.

          I saw the movie Griha Pravesh many years ago and liked that movie. Liked Sanjeev Kumar, Sharmila Tagore and Sarika in it.

          Thanks for the Aavishkar movie. I have not seen this and I always wanted to watch that.

    • Author
      sputnik 12 years ago

      Wow Ritz. How did you find that scene? Did you watch it recently?

      I liked that music too. Yes its very different from the standard background music used in Bollywood movies.

      • Ritz 12 years ago

        yes, recently.

        • Tulmul 12 years ago

          Are You Alive 🙂 ??

          Good to see the label ‘Ritz’ and crack nut Miss your Sarcastic humor 🙂

          Hope all is fine with you ….

  3. aryan 11 years ago

    This would probably be my last chance to visit Pakistan: Gulzar

    Gulzar sahab’s recent visit to Pakistan turned into a national controversy even though, in reality, it was a visit that was extremely personal and emotional. Born in Dina 78 years ago, he visited his native place for the first time 70 years later.

    Being an Urdu poet himself, he had kept in touch with many writers and poets from Pakistan and would often meet them outside India. Pakistani director and friend Hasan Zia invited him for the Aman Ki Asha Literary Festival at Karachi and he was only too happy to accept the invitation. Vishal Bhardwaj, who he also considers his son, went along as he wanted to record a qawaali with Pakistani qawaals for his upcoming film. The artists were not being allowed to come to India, so Gulzar sahab felt that their work should be represented in our films. It was decided that they would record the song in Lahore, then visit Dina and finally go to Karachi for the literary festival. There were many stories circulated on him cutting short his visit and returning to India, but Gulzar sahab never spoke. He opens up to TOI for the first time and we bring you excerpts from our conversation:

    Sir, could you share details of what actually happened during your visit to Pakistan in February this year?
    I left Pakistan with my father at the age of eight. During these 70 years, I had flown to Lahore only once earlier in 2004 on an emergency visa for four days to meet my mentor Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi sahab to see him in hospital as he had suffered a heart attack. But going to Dina, my birth place, was a desire I held for a long time. I had felt like going there many a times, but did not want to wash away the images in which I had lived and always feared that just like other cities of the world, there would be changes even there. I am 78 and I knew that this would probably be my last chance and I may not be able to go there again. Doing that would complete the circle for me.

    I wanted to cross the Wagah border on foot. Walking on that soil I felt like I was walking to my homeland, my birthplace. The feeling was extremely intimate. Instinctively, as soon as I reached the Pakistan border, I took off my mojaris (shoes) and wanted to put my feet on the soil.

    It might sound childish, but I wanted to feel the ground. My friend Hasan Zia had come to receive us from Pakistan and we could see him waving at us, while our passports were being checked. With them we first went to Lahore, where Vishal and I recorded over two nights.

    During daytime, we visited the streets of Lahore, but I realised that being who I am, it had become impossible for me to just walk across the street and have a butta with a common man. While people there love me, I was always crowded around by friends and their relatives, who had come from all over to just meet me. I was always ghera hua and that started disturbing me. I was lonely inside, but I could not explain that to anybody. I wanted to just have some channas and ask the cobbler ki mere jute ka naap zara theek kar dein. I wanted to get my shoes polished, but was not being allowed and felt the suffocation till I decided that we would go to Dina the next day.

    It was a five-hour journey to Jhelum and we set out in two cars. Vishal and Rekha were in the other car and Hasan Zia and a poet friend were in my car. I enjoyed the landscape of Pakistan and stopped en route to finally have kelas. People in Pakistan show their love to you through food and our car dickey was filled with all kinds of non-vegetarian eatables. Honestly, itni jagah hoti nahi jitna woh khilate hain.

    My friends had a lot to talk about, but I just wanted them to not talk and let me be on my own. I had not seen so many Urdu signboards in my entire life and wanted to read each of them on the way. I was silently sitting in the car and reading and reading and had never read so much Urdu in one day. We reached Jhelum and from there, Dina station.

    It was exactly the way I had left it 70 years ago, except for one small brick room now built for women. Next to the station, there were open fields looking at which it brought back many memories. I remembered one parting from my father when he used to go to Pahar Ganj in Delhi to bring sauda for his hatti (shop). I wanted to go with him, but four people were holding me back and I could see just his figure standing in the train and going away. Whenever I would hear the whistle of the train or see the train, I would go to the station and wait for him. Thinking about it, I started getting more and more choked. As it is, people around me were all talking and I was not getting a chance to be alone. I only wanted silence. It was difficult for me to explain to my kind hosts, who had prepared food for me, that I had no appetite and would not be able to swallow anything. I took water a few times. It was close to sunset and I wanted to visit the main bazaar, where we had lived. It used to be on a straight road from the station. To my surprise, I found that the main bazaar had been left untouched and a new bazaar had come up on an adjacent road. Both the bazaars meet at Daata Chowk, where we parked our cars and started walking into the old bazaar. Everything came alive. I was walking ahead of everyone and could straightaway, without help, reach the galli where we lived. Except a few windows here and there, everything was the same. People knew that I was coming and they all surrounded me. A few shopkeepers recognised me and started talking about my family — my sister, older brother, even my mamu.

    Then suddenly one of them asked me about Allahditta. My father had a lot of muslim friends and he had brought up one of the sons of his friends as a son. That was Allahditta. I told them how I had lost touch with him after he went to Karachi many years back and now owned a textile mill there. They remembered small details of how my brother’s then father-in-law Makhan Singh Kale Wale shared his name with my father’s name, Makhan Singh Kurlan Wale. Then he said to me, ‘Your father used to collect `5 rent from me. You my landlord has come now, so take the money from me’. I cried and just held his hand and sat down with him. Then we went to my school, where they were waiting for me. It used to be a primary school when I was there with just two blocks. It has now become a high school with the third block named ‘Gulzar Kalra block’. I became too emotional.

    On the way back, I wanted to go to Kurlan, a mile away from Dina, where my father was born, but it was getting dark and Hasan Zia could see my condition and advised me to not go ahead and go back to Lahore with Vishal and Rekha in my car. He could understand what I was going through as I was wiping my nose again and again. It is only when we were midway on the highway that we stopped by at Lalamoosa where I had memories of eating Mia ki dal from a famous shop there. I knew I had kept everybody hungry with me. It was dark by the time we returned to Lahore.

    Now, it was time to go back to our recording, but I realised that even with the qawaals singing in the background, I was totally alone. People say you feel happy visiting your childhood. I don’t think so. There is something nice, but sad about it. I was feeling unwell and Vishal realised it first. He said let’s pack up. I did not want to be admitted in the hospital there and at such times you want to be back to the place where you know the medical set-up. Vishal held my hand and said, ‘Let’s not go to Karachi Gulzar sahab’. There was a lot of responsibility on Hasan Zia’s head who had come to Lahore only to accompany me to the Karachi literary festival but I am grateful to him for his understanding. Vishal and I decided to come back to Mumbai and not talk about it much to avoid it becoming a controversy. But by the time we reached Amritsar, everyone knew and it had become just that — a controversy.

    Tell us about your father?
    My father called me Punni and was a textile trader with an establishment, both in Dina and in Delhi. And that’s why I named my daughter Bosky as that is the name of a famous Chinese silk. We left Pakistan just before Partition. Unlike my brother who was well educated at that time and was amongst the first graduates in my biradari, my father was not too hopeful about what I would do and that still disturbs me. When my father died in 1960, I was assisting Bimalda (Bimal Roy) in Mumbai. I had not been informed but received a postcard five days later after he died, informing me about his death.

    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/music/news-and-interviews/This-would-probably-be-my-last-chance-to-visit-Pakistan-Gulzar/articleshow/19800571.cms

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