Lesser known facts about music composer Khayyam

There are songs and then there are immortal songs. For years, songs like ‘Kabhie Kabhie mere dil mein’ and ‘Dil cheez kya hai,’ have inspired young and old romantics alike. The music composer who gave life and music to these expressive lyrics is the genius named Khayyam. With a career spanning through the ‘golden era’ of Hindi film industry, Khayyam has given music which will be remembered through the annals of time as the most soothing and haunting music ever! The great composer has always made music which never overshadowed the soulful lyrics of great lyricists and poets like Sahir Ludhianvi, Shahryar, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaifi Azmi and Gulzar. Recently, this legendary composer donated his entire wealth amounting to 10 crore to support aspiring artists! Let’s take a look at some lesser known facts about him…

Khayyam was born as Sa’aadat Hussain in Jalandhar district of Punjab. He was fascinated by the world of cinema when he was young. It was his dream to become like a singer-actor like the great KL Saigal whose movies he used to watch very often. However, his family opposed this and he had to leave his house. Khayyam then went to his uncle in Delhi. There he learnt music from Pandit Amarnath and Pandit Hunslal Bhagatram. Khayyam was told by his guru to go to places where films were made if he wanted to be in cinema. Khayyam went to Lahore. There he visited the top music composer of that time, Baba Chisti. Baba Chisti selected Khayyam to work with him when Khayyam remembered one of the music pieces that Chisti was making exactly as the maestro had hummed it. Impressed, Chishti gave him an offer of joining him as an assistant. Khayyam assisted Chishti for six months and came to Ludhiana in 1943. He was only 17 then.

At the age of 18, Khayyam joined the army during the Second World War. After 3 years in army, Khayyam came to Mumbai to fulfill his dream of working in the Hindi film industry. However, he made his debut as Sharmaji of the Sharmaji-Varmaji composer duo who worked for the famous Punjab Film Corporation. ‘Heer Ranjha’, 1948, was the first movie he gave music in. After his partner, Rahman Varma moved away post partition, he began working solo. The song ‘Akele mein wo ghabrate to Honge’ sung by Mohammed Rafi in the film ‘Biwi’ was considered to be a rage of its time. Khayyam went to the movie theatre to see the reaction of the audience and was surprised when the women watching the movie began crying during the song!

Khayyam is known in the Hindi film industry to have been very ‘choosy’ and a ‘perfectionist.’ While making music for the film, ‘Shola Aur Shabnam,’ he brought to life the poetry of Kaifi Azmi by providing music that complimented the lyrics and did not overpower it. The song ‘Jaane kya dhoondti rehti hein ye aanken mujhmen’ sung by the great singer Mohammad Rafi became very famous but little did people know that Rafi had given 21 takes to perfect the song! The same thing applied to another great singer, Asha Bhosale. Asha had never sung in the ghazal genre and Khayyam made her sing for Muzzafar Ali’s iconic film, ‘Umrao Jaan.’ When Asha heard the music and the way she was supposed to sing the songs, she postponed the recordings for 8 days as she wanted to practice first. ‘In Aankhon ki masti ke,’ ‘Ye Kya Jagah hai doston’ and ‘Dil Cheez kya hai’ are considered Asha Bhosale’s most iconic songs till date. For Kamal Amrohi’s ‘Razia Sultan,’ Khayyam went through all the research made by the great filmmaker for 8 months before beginning to give music for the song, of which ‘Ae-dil-e-nadan’ sung by Lata Mangeshkar has captured the mood and feel of the character beautifully.

Apart from providing hit music for films, Khayyam has also provided music for ghazals, devotional songs, sufi songs and bhajans. The most notable amongst this is actress Meena Kumari’s poems ‘I write, I recite,’ for which Khayyam gave music which made the poems come to life of their own. The ‘nazms’ in the album have been recited by the poetess herself!