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Talat Mahmood – Part 2

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Talat Mahmood

Dilip Kumar’s screen-image best typifies the indefinable charm of Talat Saab’s voice. If Dilip Kumar made a reputation for himself as a naturalistic performer Talat Mahmood’s unostentatious lucidity went a long way in contributing to the actor’s image. The unstrained reservoir of rich feelings that flowed out of Dilip Kumar’s lips in ‘Sham-e-Gham ki kasam’ (Footpath) ‘Sapnon ki suhani duniya ko’ (Shikast) and ‘Yeh hawa yeh raat’ (Sangdil) emerged from Talat’s throat.

Indeed, if Dilip Kumar’s other favorite voice Mohd.Rafi enhanced the dramatic side to Dilip Kumar’s image, Talat Mahmood underplayed the actor’s brooding intensity. While Rafi was the king of emotional renditions, Talat was the emperor of naturalistic singing.

Dilip Kumar acknowledges his debt to Talat Saab’s vocals by saying “Talat was a beautiful individual. There was as much virtue in his temperament as in his singing. In my opinion the Ghazals and tunes he has sung were revolutionary for their times… When I sang his songs on screen I did so with enjoyment.”

That sense of enjoyment which Talat transposed to the actor was attributable to his brief but successful stint as an actor. By the time Talat Saab sang his first song for Dilip Kumar in Arzoo, he had already played the lead in three films in Bengal-’Rajlaxmi’, ‘Tum Aur Main’ and ‘Samapti’. He knew exactly the way a performer puts across a song on screen. To be sure, a stint before the camera gave Talat Mahmood an edge before the microphone.

In Mumbai, Talat Saab played the lead in ten films some of which were big hits. In Nitin Bose’s Waris the debonair and romantic Talat co-starred with the other singing-star of the era, Suraiya. He played the son of a zamindar who’s disinherited by his father after he marries a commoner. The role brought Talat saab a wealth of appreciation both as singer and actor. Talat Saab’s last acting excursion was in Shaheed Latif’s ‘Sone ki Chidiya’ where he played the slightly negative part of a journalist who jilts Nutan when he cannot have her ancestral wealth. Some movie critics of the time felt the movie failed because audiences couldn’t accept Talat Mahmood as anything but a perfect gentleman.

In his songs as well as in person Talat Saab was a thoroughly refined human being. His early years in Lucknow had instilled a sense of aesthetic propriety in his personality. In his short career as a playback singer in Mumbai, Talat Saab never sang a word that was improper or rude. Decent lyrics were his prerequisite for singing a song. He never compromised on that score even if it meant losing out on assignments. Although he sang relatively fewer numbers than his illustrious contemporaries, Mohd.Rafi, Manna Dey and Hemant Kumar almost every number that Talat Saab sang possessed a distinguished timbre and an abiding grace. Even when he was cajoled into crooning the tipsy
number ‘Sun bhai humnein pi’ for Dev Anand in ‘Roop ki Rani Choron ka Raja’ Talat Saab brought an exquisite elan into the rendition. By the late 60s, the regal-throated recluse, found himself unable to empathize with changing trends. Barring the lilting duet with Lataji in ‘Woh din yaad karo’ Talat Saab preferred to concentrate from the 70s onwards on live concerts and on non- film recordings.

The 1954 Ghazal ‘Kaun kehta hai tujhe’ written by today’s popular lyricist Javed Akhtar’s father Jan Nisar Akhtar, and composed by the Ghazal – savvy composer Khaiyyaam, displays the depths of Talat Saab’s singing prowess. Divorced from the success-driven dimensions of film music, this cultured singing minstrel could impart enchanting nuances into the most intricate poetic lines.

Didn’t Talat Saab prove it even as late as 1985 when HMV released a whole album of his non-film Ghazals? ‘Ghazal ke saaz uthao’ as the album was called was Talat Saab’s final recording. As we listen to this self composed rendering, the richly nostalgic words of ‘Kahin Sher-o-naghma’ we become conscious all over again of what Dilip Kumar meant when he said that Talat Mahmood’s songs shall be remembered for all times because of their strong melody base and the tear-embroidered timbre of his voice. The Thespian once said that Talat Mahmood’s songs sung for him were popular because of the melancholy that the singer poured into them.

Bollywood . Singing Stars