Pradeep Kumar always found an evergreen melody to make his own

Pradeep Kumar whose birth anniversary falls on January 4, lip-synced some of the most successful songs of Hindi cinema. Although in his Hindi debut film Anand Math he did not give lip to it, Vande Matram became a national song.

In the blockbusters Nagin and Anarkali almost all the songs were for the leading ladies. But Pradeep did have Hemant Kumar’s Tere dwar khada ek jogi in Nagin and Zindagi pyar ki do char ghadi hoti hai in Anarkali, both chartbusters.

In Badshah (1954), Pradeep Kumar sang the ever-popular Rulakar chal diye ek din hansi ban kar jo aaye, popular to this day.

The interesting observation on Pradeep Kumar’s early successful songs is that all of them were sung by Hemant Kumar. Pradeep’s first non-Hemant Kumar hit was Mukesh rendered Bhooli hui yaadon in Sanjog (1961) composed by Madan Mohan. This was followed by Mohammed Rafi in the Roshan-composed Abb kya misaal doon main tumhare shabaab ka in the film Aarti. Thereafter Hemant Kumar’s presence in Pradeep Kumar’s stardom dimmed and disappeared.

It was Rafi all the way for Pradeep Kumar in the all-time blockbuster Taj Mahal. Composed by Roshan and considered one of the most successful motionpicture soundtracks of all times Taj Mahal found Pradeep Kumar crooning Rafi’s all-time hits like Jo vaada kiya woh nibhana padega, Paaon chu lene do, both duets with Lata Mangeshkar and then the solo chartbuster Jo baat tujh mein hai teri tasveer mein nahin.

During the same year as Taj Mahal, Rafi sang another timeless chartbuster for Pradeep Kumar: Sau baar janam lenge.

Dil jo na keh saka wohi raz-e-dil was the next chartbuster that Rafi sang for Pradeep Kumar. It was composed by Roshan in two separate versions sung by Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar for Pradeep Kumar and Meena Kumar, respectively. Rafi’s version for Pradeep Kumar acquired more prominence in the charts.

In 1967 Pradeep sang Rafi’s Hum intezaar karenge tera qayamat takk to eternal fame in Bahu Begum. Interestingly most of Pradeep Kumar’s films were heroine-oriented with a majority of the songs going on the leading ladies. But Pradeep would always get that one hit which audiences carried home with them, like Raat aur din diya jale in Raat Aur Din and Dil laga kar hum yeh samjhe zindagi kya cheez hai (Zindagi Aur Maut).

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.

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