Cineplot Music

C. Ramchandra – Shamshad Begum Collaboration

____________________
Back to Legends – Shamshad Begum
____________________

C. Ramchandra and Shamshad Begum

Shamshad Begum sang approximately 62 songs for C. Ramchandra in 25 films. Their most famous songs together were Mere piya gayey rangoon from Patanga (1949) and Meri Jaan meri jaan Sunday kai Sunday from Shehnai (1947). C. Ramchandra and Shamshad shared great chemistry together and she was C. Ramchandra’s favorite singer till Lata took over.

C. Ramchandra on Shamshad

Raju Bharatan asked C. Ramchandra why he ignored Shamshad Begum and got transfixed on Lata. Here is the excerpt :-

“But what made you get so transfixed on Lata?” I asked. “After all, unlike in the case of Shanker- Jaikishan, your career hadn’t begun with Lata. Indeed, Lata had been one of your choral singers, you had attained repeated silver jubilee success, before her advent in your repertoire, with vocals of Amirbai, Zohrabai, Lalita Dewoolkar, Binapani Mukherjee, Geeta Roy, Shamshad Begum, to mention just a few. Shamshad Begum, in fact, was your swinging favorite until Lata happened in your life.”

“And Shamshad told me how exactly Lata happened to you,” I continued. “It came about when Lata had already replaced Shamshad Begum, and all other singers, in your mindset. One day you called Shamshad for recording. She failed to get a phrase absolutely right, whereupon you upbraided her right there in front of the musicians, saying: ‘Can’t you understand once you are taught how?’ Shamshad’s answer to that, she told me, was to snap her songbook shut and leave the studio without a word. ‘At other times,’ she said, ‘there would have been a call from Chitalkar to me, profusely apologizing. But no such call came this time, so I knew it was the end.’ Were you fair to Shamshad Begum?” I asked C Ramchandra.

“I was most unfair to her,” conceded Anna (C. Ramchandra). “In fact, I apologized to her, when the gesture had lost all grace, as she came to my home, forgetting all that had happened, to invite me for the Shamshad Nite years later. I was ill, very ill, running a temperature when Shamshad came. I told her I would make a special effort for her by getting well and not only coming, but coming on the stage to sing with her Meri jaan meri jaan Sunday Ke Sunday. Shamshad, remember, sang that vital, more modern second portion of the Sunday Ke Sunday ‘Shehnai’ duet with me and it was the number with which I grew an overnight sensation as a totally new-style music director in the industry. How ungrateful of me to have eased out Shamshad Begum like that! But there was no help for it, once Lata came into my life, she came into my life.”

Pairs