Remembering Kalyanji of the Kalyanji-Anandji duo

Kalyanji Virji Shah died 23 years ago on August 24, leaving behind a hefty harvest of chartbusters that he composed along with his brother Anandji, who is still with us at a ripe old age. The elder of the two, Kalyanji, started his musical journey by playing an unusual musical instrument called the clavioline, which sounded exactly like the been (the instrument used to animate snakes) for Hemant Kumar’s film Nagin.

Explaining why a perfectionist like Hemant Kumar Mukherjee chose to fudge the sound of the been in the blockbuster film Nagin, Kalyanji explained, “The actual been is not a very rangy instrument. It couldn’t create the  versatile sound that Hemant  Kumar wanted. I suggested the clavioline. When Hemant da heard the sound, he immediately said yes. Luckily for us, my brother Anandji and I… Otherwise been bajaata bajaate hum has-been ho jaate.(otherwise our career would have gone nowhere).”

That was Kalyanji for you: full of jokes and quips. Lata Mangeshkar, who sang many of Kalyanji-Anandji’s biggest hits like Yeh samaa samaa hai yeh pyar ka (Jab Jab Phool Khile), Ganga maiyya mein jab tak ke paani rahe (Suhaag Raat), Ja re ja ho harjaee (Kalicharan), and Kankariya maar ke jagaya (Himalay Ki God Mein), used to say, “When I recorded with Kalyanjibhai and Anandjibhai, the mood used to be very light. Kalyanjibhai was a  storehouse of jokes.”

I have to admit that Kalyanji-Anandji did their best work not only with Lataji but also Mukesh: Koi jab tumhara  hriday tod de (Purab Aur Paschim), Waqt karta jo wafaa (Dil Ne Pukara), Chanda sa badan (Saraswatichandra),  Dum dum diga diga (Bluff Master), Chandi ki deewar na todi (Vishwas) and Chand si mehbooba (Himalay Ki God Mein) are the crème de la crème of the Kalyanji-Anandji oeuvre.

When I met Kalyanji way back in the 1980s, he was very unhappy about the state of film music. “There is no melody left in the songs. We are given English songs and told to translate them into Hindi. We’ve worked with the greatest  of filmmakers like Feroz Khan, Manoj Kumar and Prakash Mehra. There was a time when these three movie moghuls would not make a film without our music. Abhi bhi hamara rishta kamyaab hai (our relationship is still the same). Lekin aaj ka sangeet sangeet nahin raha (today’s music is no longer music).”

Kalyanji cribbed about the philistinism in the music world. “The young journalists who come to interview us have no jankaari (knowledge) of film music. They ask us, ‘Apne baare mein kuch batayen(tell us something about yourselves.’ Arrey bhai, kya batayen ? (what to say?).”

Kalyanji-Anandji churned out chartbusters for a good thirty years. They composed nearly 350 songs for Lataji until the late 1970s when Kalyanji began using new voices that imitated Lataji’s style, like Alka Yagnik and Sadhana Sargam. This affected not only the quality of their music but also their relationship with Lataji. In the 1980s, Kalyanji-Anandji came up with only the occasion hit like Mere angnein mein tumhara kya kaam hai (in Lawaaris) a folk tune from Uttar Pradesh that Kalyanji was given by Amitabh Bachchan.

Alka Yagnik admits she owes her career to Kalyanji-Anandji. She recalls Mere angnein mein as the breakthrough song  of her career. “Amitabh Bachchan Saab sang the male version for composers Kalyanji-Anandji. I was their pupil at the time and spent several hours hanging around in their studio. During Amitji’s rehearsals, I was sitting in a corner of the recording room, listening to him practice the number. The folk tune was so catchy, I soon found myself humming it. The very next day, I visited HMV’s studio in Colaba (which no longer exists) to watch Amitji record the song. After he finished recording, Kalyanji-Anandji told me it was my turn to take the mic and sing. The two of them had a great sense of humour and used to joke constantly. So at first, I thought this was another one of their jokes. However, I knew the song by heart as I had watched Amitji sing it. I went ahead and sang. Mind you, I was in my teens then and my voice was very girlish, very kachcha (raw).”

Kalyanji-Anandji heard Alka out and asked her to modulate my voice to make it sound mature. “They told me the song was to be filmed on a senior actress. I tried my best. Finally, they approved my take and revealed, ‘You will see Raakhee-ji sing your song on the screen. I didn’t react. I thought they were joking again so I simply returned home and forgot all about it. When the film released, I actually saw Raakheeji singing and dancing to what I had sung. I was overjoyed. Suddenly, the importance of that number sunk in. Here was a song whose male version had been sung by the biggest star of the country while I had sung for one of the top leading ladies. It hit me hard. Soon, I was flooded with offers to sing feisty folk songs about husbands and wives. While I did accept some of the offers, I couldn’t fully avail of the opportunities that came my way because at the time, I was based in Kolkata and busy completing my education.”

Alka feels Mere Angnein Mein made a strong impact on her career. “Kalyanjibhai even started calling me ‘Angana Yagnik’. I would accompany Amitji and Kalyanji-Anandji to concerts across the globe. Everywhere, Amitji and I had to sing the number. When Amitji came to the lines Jisski biwi chhoti, he would invariably bring Jayaji on the stage. The song brought the house down. To this day, it haunts me. At live shows, I sing all my soft melodious numbers. Finally though, I give in to the audiences’  demand for Mere Angnein Mein.”

Amitabh Bachchan very clearly credits his very popular live concerts abroad in the 1970s and 80s to Kalyanji and his brother Anandji. “If it wasn’t for them, I would have never ventured into live performances. With Kalyanjibhai and Anandjibhai, I travelled all over the world doing live concerts. They even encouraged me to sing on stage when I was never a singer.”

With Kalyanji’s death in the year 2000, Anandji lost the zest for creating  music. The light had gone out of  the duo’s life. The jokes had stopped. The  songs were stilled.

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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