Advertisement
Megastar Amitabh Bachchan is known to be a very organized person, with unbelievable discipline and punctuality. An interesting pointer to how organized the Shahenshah is can be seen from his tweets, which are numbered.
T 3246 was on 4th August, all-time great singer Kishore Kumar’s 90th birth anniversary. Amitabh tweeted that Kishore da “sang in more than 51 films, 130 songs, in more than 60 films that I acted in” and also that “3 out of 8 Best male Playback Singer awards were songs he sang for me”.
On Big B’s birthday let us go on our trivia journey to explore the fascinating Amitabh-Kishore partnership.
Advertisement
The three songs which Kishore da sang for Amitabh and for which he was also awarded the best male playback singer were “Manzilein apni jagah he” from Sharaabi, “Pag ghungroo bandh” from Namak Halaal and “Khaike paan banaraswala” from Don. Kishore da remains the most nominated singer at the Filmfare awards with 41 nominations. He is also the most awarded male singer with 8 awards, followed by Mohd Rafi with 6 awards.
Amitabh and Kishore were “made for each other”. Earlier Kishore Kumar was the voice of Rajesh Khanna as well and romance was the genre to which the country swung to. Amitabh in Anand held his own against the reigning superstar and according to many analysts outshone him in Namak Haraam. Then came blockbuster hits like Zanjeer and Deewaar and “the angry young man” had displaced the romantic hero to become the new superstar of the box office.
In Amitabh’s journey as a superstar, Kishore Kumar and his songs had an integral role to play. In this article, I try to identify just ten songs from ten movies which I consider the best of Amitabh-Kishore Kumar. The task is extremely difficult and that makes it more challenging as well as memorable.
“Aaye tum yaad mujhe” from Mili is an iconic song. Amitabh is just super as he paces up and down, dresssed in a simple kurta pajama. This song was the creative best of SD burman.
“Rote hue aate hai sab” from Muqaddar ka sikandar showcases Amitabh Bachchan as the ultimate alpha male, when he triumphantly rides his bike and signifies his attitude of gay abandon towards life. The words “Zindagi to bewafa hai, ek din thukraegi” shows Vinod Khanna standing at a bus stop listening to it. Later on, in Amitabh’s death scene, he sings these words, in Rafi’s voice. Rafa, the great friend he was of Kishore, wanted Kishore to sing it but the music directors wanted Rafi’s voice as probably they wanted the memory of Kishore-Amitabh and the bike song to remain forever.
“Khaike paan banaraswala” from Don is a super song and it is evident how both Amitabh and Kishore enjoy themselves.Originally “Khaike paan banaraswala” was not there in the movie and was added accepting the suggestion of Manoj Kumar. It turned out to be a masterstroke as initially the movie flopped but the song was a hit and it drew audiences to the theatres and ultimately made the movie a commercial success as well.