Ace composer SD Burman for the lyrics Na tum humein jaano, na hum tumhe jaano from Majulu Sultan Puri and for the murder mystery and courtroom drama Baat Ek Raat Ki (1962) starring Wahida Rehman-Dev Anand at his most delicate. When he created one of his songs, he wanted Representation of poetry in both male and female voices. While Hemant Kumar sang for her Anand, Lata Mangeshkar weaves her magic again with her thin voice, flow and slightly shrill high notes, an aesthetic barometer of Indian female identity or ‘righteous’. Many people thought that she became a heroine. new india. However, the song, which was popular on the radio for many years afterwards, was not sung by Mangeshkar. Berman had not spoken to Mangeshkar at the time due to controversy over the 1958 re-recording. So he asked a new voice, a taciturn singer named Suman Kalyanpur. “When they heard the song, even many lata devotees had trouble understanding that they weren’t listening to the lata while the song was playing at home,” senior music critic Raju Bharatan once said. I spoke to this writer.
Years later, it was not much of a surprise when the famous Doordarshan show Chhaya Geet attributed the popular Kalyanji-Anandji song Na na karte pyar kisi se kar baithe, an Aantakshari staple, to Mangeshkar. No one batted an eyelid except for a 20-year-old girl named Charul Hemmady, who called her Prasar Bharati office and asked them to approve her mistake. The female singer was her mother Suman Kalyanpur. “No one believed me. It sounded exactly like Rataj,” she says Hemmady. One of her famous duets with Rafi, Aaj kal tere mere pyaar ke charche (Bramhachari, 1969), suffered the same fate. The song still reverberates, but somehow her face was often consigned to oblivion.
Kalyanpur looked uncomfortable when asked about the similarity between her voice and Lata’s, but she responded cautiously. “I was greatly influenced by her. In college, I used to sing her songs: Meri aawaaz nazuk aur patli thi (my voice was fragile and thin). Also, Radio Ceylon When we relayed the song the name was never announced.Even the record sometimes gave the wrong name.Maybe that caused more confusion.Shreya Ghoshal’s voice is also thin but now it doesn’t work We were living in a different era then,” says the soft-spoken Kalyampur, now 85, in this 2015 interview from his home in Mumbai.
Kalyanpur has rarely agreed to be interviewed during his career. Veteran radio her artist Ameen Her Sayani had to follow her for nearly 45 years until she was able to record her hour-long show with her in 2005. As much as I could, she answered as many questions in monosyllables,” says Sayani.
After repeated requests, she agreed to meet us, but with one condition. “Photography is prohibited. We may not be able to answer questions that are inconvenient.”
Kalyanpur greets us with a strained smile on the third floor of Lokhandwala’s Mumbai apartment next to her daughter, who now lives alone. Landscapes painted by Kalyanpur hang on the walls. “This is what I’m doing these days. I paint. I also love to cook. Bas issi sab mein din beet jaata hai (in all this the day goes by),” she said. say. And what about Liars, the playback singer swears by? “Kabhi kabhi gunguna leti hoon kuch (sometimes I hum something). I haven’t sung for a long time,” he said. says Kalyanpur, who is known for
Mumbai’s music industry in the 1960s shifted to a different beat. The songs produced here spawned a sound revolution later called the Golden Age of Hindi Film Sangeet. This was also the time when women’s playback her singing world was dominated by the Mangeshkar sisters’ monopoly, with more Rathas than Ahsha (Bosle). “The first five positions were occupied by Lata, but Suman somehow sounded like Lata naturally. was abroad or unavailable, producers could not afford to pay the rate of Rs 100 per song, or problems with the songs resulted from her refusal to sing with Mohammad Rafi due to royalties issues. In that case, Suman, the poor man’s rata, was called in. Not only was she a great understudy, but she was also very hard-working.If Lata was Marathi Noorjehan, Suman was Marathi Ratha.” said Barattan.
She also sang two duets with Mangeshkar before her songs became popular. Her Kabhi aaj kabhi kal from Balraj Sahni’s starrer Chand (1959), a composition by Hemant Kumar, “many people cannot spot the difference”. “We were very friendly with each other and felt like friends. We always felt that we had a lot to talk about,” says Kalyanpur, remaining silent for about a minute. Her daughter quickly added: how is she? Kalyanpur said, “I was invited to the premiere of Lekin, and that was the last time I saw her.”
Raised in pre-independence Mumbai, Kalyanpur was the eldest of five sisters. Girls who grew up in conservative homes couldn’t play outside, so she sang. “It was not considered safe for girls to venture out. Maa and Pitaji loved bhajans. Things should be done at home,” says Kalyanpur. He was eventually asked by some neighbors to sing for Ganpati Mahotsav. But it was her neighbor DB her Jog’s Marathi film Shauchi Chandni (1953) that brought Kalyanpur into her studio for recording. Jog was a friend of her father and permission was granted. However, the film never took off.
When she was 16 years old and a student at Sir JJ School of Art, iconic singer Talat Mehmood “played around” when she heard her sing at a college event. He then put her in touch with the record company HMV. Despite her A&R today her manager calling her voice “amateurish”, Kalyanpur bagged her tunes in her Darwaaza (1954), her delicate and melodious In Ek dil, do hain talabgaar she made her debut with Mehmood. This movie was produced by her Ismat Chughtai and people took notice. This was followed by Chhodo chhodo mori baiyaan (Miya Bibi Raazi, 1960), Na tum humein jaano (Baat Ek Raat Ki, 1962), Mere sang ga, ganguna (Janwar, 1965), Aajhuna aaye baalma (Saanjh aur Sa km vera, 1963), Tumne pukaara aur hum chale aaye (Rajkumar, 1964).
“After independence, everyone was really excited to do something. Kalyanpur, who accompanied her husband to every recording session after her marriage, says, “I was married to a joint family of 15. I was happy that they allowed me to continue. Unlike other singers, I was not good at negotiating contracts and talking to people, so I left it all up to my husband,” says Kalyanpur.
Marriage brought pressures big and small, and Kalyanpur turned to the same industry for help. For her start, she learned how to make a delicious omelet from composer Roshan’s wife, Ira. “I went from a vegetarian family to a non-vegetarian family. Who can I ask for help? , they also helped me turn non-vegetarian,” Kalyanpur said with a laugh at the beginning of the conversation. A bigger sacrifice was the careful selection of the lyrics. “I couldn’t sing cabaret or music. Kalyanpur, who had never attended or interacted with colleagues, said.
Once in the studio, Kalyanpur barely interacted with his co-singers, even though they sang popular duets that included the Holy Trinity of Talat Mehmood, Mohammad Rafi and Mukesh. “Rafi Sahab and Talat Sahab were very quiet people and mostly corresponded with my husband. Her most popular song was Behna ne bhai ki kalai pe (Resham Ki Dori) in 1974. She sang about 100 songs for composer Usha Khanna. He sang for Anu Malik and Bapi Lahiri, but after singing in nearly 100 films with some of the greatest composers such as Naushad, Shankar Jaikishan, Lakshmikant Piyarelal and Nashad, in 1986 Her last song was for actor Govinda’s debut movie Love 86, but it was never released. We didn’t use the version. She made an HMV album in 1997, re-recording her old songs, but the album did not receive much attention.
“The system was too much for me to handle. I was enjoying taking care of my family, so I wanted to get away from all kinds of politics and put singing on the back burner,” says Kalyanpur. During her career, she was only nominated for Filmfare. In 2010, she also had the Latha She Mangeshkar Award by the Government of Maharashtra. Padma Her Bhushan Award, announced Wednesday, was a belated but well deserved recognition for her untold talent.
