The Street Singer
Immortalised by actors such as K.L. Saigal, Master Bhagwan and Raj Kapoor, the street singer has been a ubiquitous figure in the cinema of the Indian subcontinent. The itinerant life of these street poets was inextricably tied to music; they roamed hostile cities and crowded bazaars armed with cherished, portable musical instruments.
Like Raju (Raj Kapoor), seen here with his only possession of the dafli, the street singer through his poetry of solidarity, protest, rage or weary hope was seen as a representation of the voice of people left behind.
While Dilip Kumar's blind singer adds "mohabbat" to his songs with his harmonium, Nargis is the industrialist's daughter who drowns her sorrows by playing a grand piano.
Like the harmonium, the harmonica was an instrument beloved of the streets.Stopping to give impromptu performances at places like Azad Maidan to busy city-dwellers, Mohan and Ramu are blind and crippled orphans who roam the streets of Bombay.
Photographic lobby still for the film 'Ab Dilli Dur Nahin' by UnknownMuseum of Art & Photography
A group of precocious orphan children sell toys, bangles and other items in the streets of Delhi. Here, they entertain bazaar crowds by listing in energetic qawwali style the wares they have to sell. The harmonica, the sounds of the toys they sell and the applause of the audience provide resounding accompaniment.
The "Classical"
Following the decline of traditional patronage systems of music and other performance forms from the late eighteenth century onwards, the “classical” found modified and new homes to rest and mutate in. The cinema was one among these. From evoking complex aural and visual systems of signification to being wielded as a sign of cultivation, the “classical” in music was expressed in cinema in fascinating ways.
Baiju the Mad challenges the legendary Mughal court musician Tansen to a musical jugalbandi to avenge the death of his father. Isolated and consumed by music and hallucinatory visions of the ragamala, he spends his days playing the rudra veena.
Photographic lobby still for the film 'Sitara' by Studio Shangri-laMuseum of Art & Photography
In this striking coloured lobby card, a minimalist jugalbandi plays out as Vyjyanthimala dances in a courtyard accompanied by the rarely presented figure of a female pakhawaj player.
A musician can melt even stone, says Paras’s foster father. In this fantasy, Paras, who is famed far and wide for his skills at both the sitar and the sword sets out to find the legendary Philosopher’s Stone.
Seema (Saira Banu) is asked to perform the sitar as a part of the pre-wedding ritual of meeting the groom’s family. In Indian cinema, the female lead’s proficiency in Hindustani or Carnatic performance traditions was often presented as an index of her desirability.
In this stunning coloured lobby card, the sitar is an object that brings tender reconciliation between two lovers. In a quiet hospital room, Sita (Meena Kumari) plays the instrument for her ailing husband (Raaj Kumar).
In one of the most remembered musical jugalbandis to be visualised in Indian cinema, the prodigious but classically untrained theatre singer (Kishore Kumar) challenges the Carnatic music teacher (Mehmood) to a musical duel. The song is a grand display of remarkable musical agility as they play with words, pitch, sound, speed and mood.
The World
One of the most foundational aspects of music in cinema produced in the Indian subcontinent is the breathtakingly wide range of influences that music directors and musicians drew from for composition. The soundscape of film music was imagined and created by musicians from backgrounds as diverse as erstwhile durbars, city kothas and cosmopolitan bazaars and wartime jazz clubs.
At a fancy dress ball in a hotel nightclub, the star dancer Cuckoo is accompanied by her musical troupe on upright bass, drums, violins, trumpet and piano. Dressed in a flamenco-inspired costume she entertains guests dressed as Arabs, pirates and cowboys.
A reformed Casanova (Rajendra Kumar) jubilantly throws a violin into the air to kickstart a raucous picnic gathering. In the mad chaos that ensues, young men and women dance, clown, skip and play guitars, flutes and tambourines.
In an energetic ode to the swinging sixties, Vijay (Dharmendra) tries to woo Kavitha (Vyjyanthimala). The rock n' roll band with their electric guitars and trumpet send the dance floor into a twist and shake frenzy.
Photographic lobby card for the film 'Ankhen' by UnknownMuseum of Art & Photography
In a Beirut nightclub, an international espionage chase unfolds against the backdrop of a dance infused with Middle-Eastern rhythms and sounds.
At the nightclub La Cabana, a musical band plays the jazz blues gem Rut Jawan Jawan while a young woman is questioned by a police inspector. Interrupted by the bluesy trumpet solo of the musician Chic Chocolate, guitarist-singer Bhupinder Singh gently croons, surrounded by couples dancing languorously.
The embedding of the musical in visual codes has been a subcontinent as evidenced by the ragamala repertoire. Cinema further reimagined this relationship between sound and image through cathartic cues, harmonious and discordant juxtapositions and atonal outbursts.
From using the primordial sounds of the rudra veena to create the portrait of an artist in isolation, the lightness of afternoon ragas to depict the melancholy of romance, the kinetic energy of jugalbandis to visualise physical comedy and the groove of swing and rock and roll to convey thrill, the imagining of music in Indian cinema remains one that honours and celebrates adventure, rigour and whimsy.
Text and Curation: Iyesha Geeth Abbas
References:
Fernandes, Naresh. Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age. Roli books, 2017.
