Usha Khanna: The only living female music composer of Bollywood

Okay, take a guess. Who composed these chartbusters? Dil deke dekho (Dil Deke Dekho), Chhoro kal ki baatein kal ki baat purani (Hum Hindustani), Hai tabassum tera (Nishan), Madhuban khushboo deta hai (Sajan Bina Suahagan), Tu iss terah se meri zindagi mein shaamil hai (Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi), Teri galiyon mein na rakhenge qadam (Hawas), Barkha rani zara jamm ke barso (Sabak), Raat abhi baqi hai baat abhi baqi hai (Do Khiladi), Dil ke tukde tukde (Dada), Chai pe bulaya hai (Souten)….

Chances are, you grew up humming these evergreens without knowing who composed them. Usha Khanna is the only living female composer in Bollywood, besides Sneha Khanwalkar who is not really a part of mainstream Hindi cinema.

Usha Khanna took on the male bastion that was the film industry. During the time when male composers Naushad, Shankar-Jaikishan, O P Nayyar and C Ramachandra ruled the Hindi film industry ruled the charts, Usha confidently walked into producer Sashadhar Mukherjee’s office and asked for a job. Mukherjee asked Khanna why he would give her the job of composing music when he had O P Nayyar to do the needful.

“Because I am good at it, Sir,” Usha replied confidently. That’s how she got her first break in Dil Deke Dekho. Shammi Kapoor who wouldn’t do a film without Shankar-Jaikishan had to approve of Usha’s tunes.

The much-missed Nightingale of Asia Lata Mangeshkar always had kind words for Usha Khanna. “Usha is also my sister’s name. So maybe I was fond of Usha Khanna. I sang some lovely songs for her. It is rare for a female composer to make a place in this industry. At the very beginning of my singing career I recorded a song with Saraswati Devi who was the first music director of Hindi cinema. Then for a very long time, I worked only with male music directors because there were hardly any women doing music direction. Then after a very long time came Usha Khanna. I sang several songs for her including the very successful Chai pe bulaya hai in Souten, Ek sunehri sham thi (Aao Pyar Karen) and a beautiful melody that not many have heard Zindagi kaise kategi in a film called Meri Biwi Ki Shaadi.”

And then with a mischievous smile Lataji says, “Oh yes, there is one more female music composer I’ve sung for. I was very very closely associated with her. Her name was Anand Ghan.” Anand Ghan was the pseudonym Lataji had adopted to compose music in five Marathi films: 1960 – Ram Ram Pavhana, 1963 – Maratha Tituka Melvav, 1963 – Mohityanchi Manjula 1965 – Sadhi Manase and 1969 – Tambadi Mati.

Female music composers always had it tough in Hindi cinema. Usha had to make do with smaller projects while the big ones went to the male composers. She sparkled with songs that far outlived the parent film. Who remembers the 1983 film Sweekar Kiya Maine? But the Lata-Kishore Chand ke paas jo sitara hai is hummed to this day.

Usha Khanna’s collaboration with filmmaker Sawan Kumar Tak who was her ex-husband lasted through eleven projects. Although her tunes breathed life into Sawan’s films, I have often heard filmmakers referring to Usha Khanna as ‘Sawan Kumar’s wife’, a damaging tag for any woman’s career, most of all in the entertainment business. But Usha has lived with the tag, and proudly.

Her last soundtrack was for Sawan Kumar’s Dil Pardesi Ho Gayaa in 2003. Why is she jobless since then?

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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