Friday, July 4, 2008

Lata and Mukesh.

Lata and Mukesh.

Due to strong association of Lata and Mukesh with Raj Kapoor, both of them sung aq number of songs in the same films and also numerous duets which were all successful. Shankar Jaikishan was a genius composer and his compositions for Lata and Mukesh became immortal hits over the period of time.

Their songs in the film Aah were hits, including the duet song of Lata and Mukesh titled “aaja re” which was picturised on Raj Kapoor and Nargis. Their song in the film Shree 420 titled “ramaiya vasta maiya” which was sung by Mukesh, Lata and Rafi became landmark hit in 1955. Their songs in the film Jis Desh Me Ganga Behti Hai were also successful including “aa ab laut chale” picturised on Raj Kapoor and Padmini.

Their songs in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anari were also hit including “yeh chaand khila”, “dil ki nazar se”, etc., which were picturised on Raj Kapoor and Nutan. In the 60s, also the combination of Lata and Mukesh provided legendary hits like “o mere sanam”, and “har dil jo pyar karega”, which were picturised on Raj Kapoor and Vaijayantimala. All these golden songs were the landmark compositions of Shankar Jaikishan.

Even outside RK Banner Lata and Mukesh had sung many hit songs. In Bimal Roy’s Madhumati, Salil Choudhury composed the song “dil tarap tarap ke keh raha hai aa bhi ja” sung by Lata and Mukesh and picturised on Dilip Kumar and Vaijayantimala. Even the song “sawan ka mahina”, sung by Lata and Mukesh, composed by LP and picturised on Sunil Dutt and Nutan became big hit in the mid-60s.

Lata and Mukesh were also sublime in the film Mere Humsafar, where the songs were picturised on Jeetender and Sharmila Tagore. Mukesh died in the mid-70s, which led to the end of the golden combination of Mukesh and Lata who had provided melodious hits over a period of 30 years.

The films and the songs sung by Lata and Mukesh should be restored and preserved for the new generation.

2 comments:

shashank said...

Great article. Indeed Mukesh and Lata Mangeshkar sang many duet songs from 40s to 70s, the songs was remarkable and from Aah the film made them a great duet singers on that era.

Souvik Chatterji said...

I totally agree with Mr. Shashank that the duets of the film Aah had set the trends of duet singing the early 50s. Shankar Jaikishan's compositions were ahead of his time and so the duet songs were also landmark creations in that era.
Souvik Chatterji.