The 1950s and 1960s

[s ramaswamy]

Hi,

Never even knew that the great Kishore-Asha duet from "Paying Guest" had a Tamil version and that too set to tunes b y KVM. Chod Do Anchal is a super-duper hit, but the TMS-Jikki version is clearly way below par. In fact it was the great SDBurman who consistently supported Kishore when Rafi wave was on.

And Dev Anand too was happy to croon on screen with Kishoreda giving the voice. My own preference is Kishore Kumar's songs in the 1950s and early 1960s rather than the songs he sung for Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachan and others in his second innings that started with "Aradhana". Probably he suffered earlier because he insisted on acting too, though he was a fine comedian.

And "Chod Do" led me to that great "Hum Dono" duet by Rafi and Asha, a timeless song. And there is the other great Rafi solo "Mai Zindagi Ka" and the wonderful Lata Mangeshkar bhajan "Allah Tere Naam".

When a film journo asked Dev much later why he did not give any more chances to the MD of that film, Jaydev who was SDB's assistant, after the super-duper hits in "Hum Dono" he was shocked by Dev's answer, who said he (Jaidev) was not as good as was made out to be.

Ramaswamy