Like Raj Kapoor, Manoj Kumar had an ear for popular music

NEW DELHI: Some actors, who later became filmmakers, displayed a keen ear for good music and it reflected in the movies they acted in and made. Irrespective of the film’s box-office fate, the music was invariably chartbusting. Raj Kapoor was one such filmmaker. Manoj Kumar belonged to the same select bunch.

Most of the films Kumar made in the 1960s and 1970s were not only box-office biggies but embellished with platinum music albums. Songs weren’t an appendage in his films, rather integral to the narrative. Kumar, like Kapoor, made special efforts to film his songs in an off-beat manner as evident in Ek pyaar ka nagma hai (film: Shor) and Main na bhoolonga (film: Roti Kapada Aur Makaan). Both have a dream-like quality.

Kumar’s Roti Kapada Aur Makaan was a rare film which ended up capturing the top two spots in the annual show of Binaca Geetmala, the hit radio countdown parade. The songs being: Mehangai maar gayee (No 1) and Hai hai yeh majboori (No 2). Even the Nitin Mukesh-Lata duet, Zindagi ki na toote ladi (film: Kranti) was a chart-topper and finished second in the annual rankings. Laxmikant-Pyarelal were the music directors of these films.

Composer duo Kalyanji-Anandji provided the score for some of his early hits such as Himalay Ki God Mein, and the initial films produced and directed by him such as Upkar and Poorab aur Pacchim. Upkar’s Mere desh ki dharti remains mandatory in schools for special days. Suspense flicks such as Woh Kaun Thi (music: Madan Mohan) and Gumnam (music: Shankar-Jaikishan) and the romantic tragedy Do Badan (music: Ravi) also had unforgettable music.

Santosh Anand, a popular lyricist of the 1970s and 1980s, debuted in ‘Purab Aur Pacchim’ (1970). The film’s opening credit said, ‘Introducing Santosh Anand’, an honour generally reserved for heroes and heroines.

Anand, a librarian then, had become a popular poet in Delhi. The actor-director met him at the city’s Oberoi Hotel and listened to his poems. The long soiree, said Anand, was the actor’s way of establishing a poetic bond. A few days later, Kumar sent him an air ticket for Bombay. “I wrote about 50 stanzas for my first song, 'Purva suhani aayee re'. He chose the parts he needed,” Anand told TOI in 2018.

Later Anand also penned the chartbusting number, ‘Ek pyaar ka nagma hai' (film: Shor), for Kumar. The number scorched the web after an impoverished platform singer was videographed singing it.