Opinion Sing Me a Song

Songs live on forever. Just like Kapoor’s irrepressible joie de vivre which will never fade away from our collective memory. It is impossible to chart Kapoor’s career defining songs without mentioning Mohd Rafi,who saved his best songs for his favourite actor.

The story goes that Kapoor was travelling when a man came to him and told him,“Shammiji,aapki aawaz chali gayi.” Kapoor could not understand what he meant,but soon got the news that Rafi had died. In an earlier interview,Kapoor had confessed to me that he cried like a baby that day.

The Shammi-Rafi combination is legendary as is the Raj Kapoor- Mukesh,Rajesh Khanna- Kishore Kumar,Manoj Kumar- Mahendra Kapoor. To think of these actors without their ‘voice’ is impossible. When Rajesh Khanna croons ‘Mere sapno ki rani’ in ‘Aradhana’,one can almost see Kishore Kumar singing in a recording studio,trying to make his voice as similar to Khanna’s. It’s tough to figure out where one begins and the other ends. The voice and the actor go hand in hand.

Thus when TV channels or radio stations play Shammi Kapoor’s immortal songs,it is in a way also a celebration of Mohd. Rafi. One without the other is unthinkable. They are the real deal,a real team,a body- soul combination.

Today’s actors don’t have a fixed voice singing for them. Today it’s all about having a unique voice,someone who sounds great in a discothèque. So a Salman Khan will have five blockbuster songs in a row and all will be voiced by a different singer. There’s Rahat Fateh Ali Khan for ‘Tere mast mast’,Sukhwinder Singh for ‘Hud hud Dabangg’,Aishwarya Nigam for ‘Munni badnaam hui’,Neeraj Shridhar for ‘Character dheela’ and Mika for ‘Dhinka chika’. There was a time when SP Balasubrahmanyam was Salman’s voice. Like Udit Narayan was Aamir Khan’s in the days of ‘Papa kehte hain’. Shah Rukh Khan had his Kumar Sanu moments with ‘Tujhe dekha toh yeh jaana sanam’ but the voice that best suited him was Abhijeet’s – think back ‘Yes Boss’ songs like ‘Main koi aisa geet’ and ‘Chand taare todh laun’.

When Hrithik Roshan came on the scene,there was an attempt to give him his own personal singing voice in the form of Lucky Ali. Cue ‘Ek pal ka jeena’ and ‘Naa tum jaano na hum’.

Then came the phase when everyone was singing for everyone. If Shaan sang ‘Yeh hawayein’ for Abhishek Bachchan then he also sang ‘Chand sifarish’ for Aamir. Sonu Nigam sang ‘Yeh dil deewana’ for SRK and ‘Tenu le ke main jaawanga’ for Salman. Daler Mehndi has a ‘Rang De Basanti’ on his CV as well as Akshay Kumar’s ‘Zor ka jhatka’.

 Today,everyone’s making music. Everyone’s singing. But the one actor- one voice sangam is missing. I miss it. Do you?