Lata Mangeshkar’s unforgivable absence from Guru Dutt’s music

R. Balki’s sassy smart suspenseful and sonorous Chup just doesn’t let you stay mum. The gorgeous background score by Aman Pant recreates the songs from Guru Dutt’s classics Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool in mesmeric addictive loops. I instantly wanted to hear the great Sachin Dev Burman’s songs and the immortal Sahir Ludhianvi’s whiplash words all over again.

And here is what struck me about the music of Pyaasa and Kagaz Ke Phool this time: while every song in Pyaasa is great, the entire reputation of immortality in Kagaz Ke Phool rests on only two songs: the rightfully venerated Waqt ne kiya kya haseen situm sung by Geeta Dutt and Mohd Rafi’s Dekhi zamanein kis yaari bichde sabhi baari baari.

Take away these two songs in Kaagaz Ke Phool, and we are left with very little to hold on to. The other songs in the film hardly do any justice to the Burman-Kaifi Azmi combination’s creative capabilities. San san woh chali hawa, Udd ja udd ja pyasa bhanwre, Hum tum jisse kehte hain , Ek do teen chaar aur panch and Ulte seedhe dao lagaye are, I am afraid, nowhere close to the best of Burman or Azmi.

Without a doubt, the centrepiece of the Kaagaz Ke Phool soundtrack is Geeta Dutt’s Waqt ne kiya kya haseen situm.It is one of the best Hindi film songs of all time. Listening to it again, I am deeply saddened as I am every time I hear it. And it doesn’t only have to do with the profound melancholy of the words and compositions.

My grief over the melody runs deeper: Waqt ne kiya kya haseen situm deserved the vocal validity of Lata Mangeshkar. This is not to say Geeta Dutt hasn’t sung it well. She has. But the composition and the words would have acquired an entirely unexplored dimension in Lataji’s voice. Geeta Dutt imbues the lyrics with pain. Lataji would have taken the song beyond the pain.

Wishes, alas, can’t be horses. It was always Geeta Dutt in Guru Dutt’s cinema. In none of his magnum opuses from Pyaasa to Kaagaz Ke Phool to Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam and Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi will you find the life-giving vocals of Lata Mangeshkar?

This was a bone of contention for Sachin Dev Burman who had once said, ‘As long as I have Lata I’ve nothing to worry about.’In Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool, Burman had to work without Lataji. In Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam composer Hemant Kumar too faced the same situation, though he used Asha Bhosle’s voice for Waheeda Rehman while Geeta Dutt sang all those haunting memorabilia for Meena Kumari since Geeta wouldn’t sing for Waheeda (who was rumoured to be in a relationship with the filmmaker).

Only in Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960) did Lataji get to sing her one and only song in Guru Dutt’s cinema. The song Badle badle mere sarkaar nazar aate hain was composed by Ravi Sharma who insisted on Lataji singing the number, as he felt only she could justice to it. Geeta Dutt let go of that song as it was filmed on Waheeda Rehman for whom Geeta refused to sing. In Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Geeta has only one solo a wedding song Baalam se milan hoga which was lip-synced on screen by an unknown actress.

The Dutts’ insistence on Geeta Dutt’s voice caused no stress in Lataji’s relationship with Geeta Dutt. Lataji told me they were very close friends and that Geeta Dutt confided in Lataji about all her problems.

To all those who wonder to this day what Waqt ne kiya would have sounded in Lataji’s voice, here is heartening information: Lataji has sung Waqt ne kiya in 1994 as a homage to Geeta Dutt 35 years after it was originally composed.

To call Lataji’s version of Waqt ne kiya kya haseen situm exquisite, done when she was 65 would be an understatement. Waqt (time) had certainly done no situm (offence) on her voice. The heart sings thinking of what Lataji’s Waqt ne kiya would have sounded like in 1959 when she was 30.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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