Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Madan Mohan

He was a music composer. To say that he was a "great music composer" would be like saying, "Brian Lara bats well". Its an inherent understatement about him. Probably, to say that he was a genius would also not suffice. But ironically, he did not get his due credit. He is the one who gave us evergreen melodies like, "Dil Dhoondta Hai", wonderful romantic songs like "Mera Saya Sath Hoga", songs from the film "Sharabi(the older one)", kind of haunting songs like "Bheegi Chandni"and many more. He is, obviously, the one and only Madan Mohan.

I came to know that there was a music composer called Madan Mohan only recently when I was downloading songs from www.indianscreen.com/songs.htm (which is currently pending renewal and which regularly uploaded old hindi film songs). I got so impressed about this man's compositions that I downloaded every Madan Mohan song that was available at that site(around 80 songs).

Madanji's oeuvre is completely based on classical music, this despite the fact that he had no formal training in clasical music. Madan mohan's compositions show us the power of simple melody. Simple instruments used to create rich compositions. The tune selections are an example themself. Another interesting aspect of Madanji was that, he apparently wanted to compose music only if the poetry was good. How many music directors today can have that courage? Probably its wrong and unfair to compare God with lesser mortals. One can keep going on describing this man's works. It can never be enough.

Unfortunately, I could not post links to the songs that I have downloaded because as I said the site "indianscreen.com" is pending renewal. But I found some songs on another site, that I will post here.
http://as01.coolgoose.com/music/search.php
Songs from the film Pooja Ke Phool, in the above page, are really good. Classic.

Here are some links where you can get a lot of information about this "Baadshah of Music".
http://www.hindilyrix.com/musicians/musician-madan-mohan.html
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0463317/

This one is nice.
http://www.soundofindia.com/showarticle.asp?in_article_id=-927461715


http://www.apnaorg.com/test/new/article_details.php?art_id=261

Madan Mohanji, wherever you are, my salutations to you. Let this country be blessed with many more people like you.

7 comments:

Arjun Sharma said...

He was truly a genius. Like you said, "Dil dhoondta hai" is one of the greatest ever songs. He also gave us the amazing songs of 'Haqeeqat.'

What made his songs stand out even in the midst of such great men as S D Burman and Shankar-Jaikishan was, as you have aptly put it, the strong classical base of his songs. This, coupled with a powerful voice(invariably Lata Mangeshkar), could produce songs of aching beauty.

Hats off.

Su said...

I remember growing up, learing to recall my hindustani classical, based on the "popular" take a.k.a. MM's music... endless sundays spent listening to him and Rafi and Naushad and the likes...

*sounds of genius*

Oh and yes... lovely idea.. topical blog and all...

Could I make one request? Can we talk of any and all kinda music we may like/listen to/chance upon/want to share? Or is there a specific genre?

Harish said...

[ms. sexy legs]Oh, you were really lucky to grow up listening to such wonderful music from the greatest of musicians. I was, in that respect, a late starter.

My idea, is also to talk about all genres of music, share music in whatever way possible. So there's no problem with that.

Harish said...

indianscreen.com site is up again. Many Madan Mohan songs are in this page. If you want to download, do so fast, since it(songs) will be removed after some time.

Su said...

@Harish: I need help. How do I download? The link in your last comment opens the page which gives links but they play instead of download when I click on them... Sorry but am quite technologically challenged so please do help... Wanna make a CD for me Mum. Oh and you know where I'll get more old hindi stuff? Rafi and Asha and Naushad and the likes?

Harish said...

[suhasini rao]If you are using internet explorer, right click on th link and select 'Save Target As'. What you did would have worked if you had used Firefox Web Browser

Regarding "Naushadji songs", there are quite a few songs in that page (which I referred in the last comment) itself.Just scroll down that page.
In that site itself previously there was a page dedicated to Rafi saab. As bad luck would have it, its removed now.
Now they have a page containing previously posted Lataji songs. Here
it is.
As I mentioned in my post, here also you get a lot of old songs. But the songs are not categorised according to films or singers or directors. So you have to search by song name.

Parisarapremi said...

ಮದನ್ ಮೋಹನ್‍ ಎಂದಾಕ್ಷಣ ನನ್ನ ಕಿವಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ರಫಿ, ಲತಾ ಇಬ್ಬರೂ ಬಂದು "ತೇರಿ ಆಂಖೋ ಕೇ ಸಿವಾ ದುನಿಯಾ ಮೇ ರಖ್ಖಾ ಕ್ಯಾ ಹೈ..." ಅಂತ ಹಾಡ್ತಾ ಇದ್ದಾರೆ..