Meeting with Music Director Ravi ji [2005]

October 2, Morning 10 AM..

When I entered the room, I found Ravi saab sitting at the study table
and writing something in a copy in just the dim light of a table lamp..
At that time, I had a very little idea that the legendary music
director is trying to recover from a huge loss incurred during the
recent bombay rains washout..

Next four hours we spent discussing on his kissa’s, his films and
songs, current trends, his stint in malayalam films, future plans and
lots more.. Only at the end of the meeting, Ravi saab told us about the
losses he incurred during the recent floods. He told us that his home
had about 5ft of floods and he was away.. He has lost a a big chunk of
his anmol khazana including lot of tapes and notebooks of his dhun’s
notations.. and now he is trying to write almost anything that he could
recall whenever he gets a few minutes..

One good news is that he has a fantastic memory, we realized this
during his kissa’s. Even at the age of 80, he could remember and tell
us each and every important incident of his life with great details.. I
am sure with such a great memory, he would be able to recover a lot…

The meeting went for quite long and it would be a difficult task for me
to prepare and post the transcript so soon.. Here are some of the
anecdotes… Will try to complete a complete transcript soon..

1. Master Madan was a classmate of Ravi Ji. After finishing schools,
Ravi ji went to attend a lohdi function where Master Madan was
performing and found him to be an old classmate.

2. Two most challanging works for him were Gurudutt’s “Chaudahanvi Ka
Chaand” and Malayalayam film “Vaishali”.

3. “Raha gardishon me hardam” was recorded for the film “Ghoonghat” in
the voice of Mukesh Ji. During the final editing just before the
release of the film, Producer Waasan found that the song is not placed
in context with the story, so he asked Ravi Ji’s permission to remove
the song.. Later Ravi Ji recorded it for Do Badan in the voice of Rafi
saab.

4. Sahib Biwi aur Ghulam was first offered to him.. but since the
subject had a bangali setup, Hemant da was chosen later.

5. In his first film Vachan, he shared the credits for music with a
nephew of Devendra Goel, Kailash Chandra (as music director duo
Ravi-Chandra). Later when Devendra Goel came to know about Chandra is
good for nothing and his name is there only because of his relations,
he asked to remove chandra’s name from the records.

6. He was singing for AnandMath in the chorus and when he helped Hemant
da with some urdu words on the recordings, Hemant da asked him to join
as an assistant.

7. He has a tendency to create many tunes for each song on the basis of
the meter of the lines. He always prefers the lyrics to be written
first and then he compose tunes on the basis of the words. He follows
the same rule in Malayalam too, where he first analyse the meter of the
lines and then tune them accordingly.

8. In Nikaah, originally he had a different composition for ‘Dil ke
armaan’ but when Salma Agha failed to sing that, Ravi ji suggested
Asha’s voice for the song. But BR Chopra asked him to compose a simple
tune for Salma to sing (as Salma had already shot for the film as
leading lady). The original composition was later used by Ravi ji in
Tawaif for “Ai khuda e paq”

9. Later he refused to do an offer of Ramanand Sagar, as Saagar saab
wanted Salma’s voice for a few songs.

10. He was an electrician by profession. Arrived in Mumbai to become a
singer and sung in chorus for a few Filmistan films before Anandmath.

11. He himself is a big fan of C Ramchandra’s music.

12. He was once interrogated for his involvement in Gandhi ji’s murder
in 48 when he was working for P&T Department in Delhi, as someone
reported the police that He had a strong RSS Connection and his office
room was searched and Police found the RSS signifies Ravi Shankar
Sharma.

13. When Hemant da was composing Zindagi ke dene wale for Nagin, Ravi
ji suggested the Adivasi words and created a few pieces “hakuwala
jugumala ho ya ” (nonsensical words).. And these nonsensical words were
objected as on of the randomly created words sounds as “Karbalaa”.
Mehmood was a struggler those days and he too was one on the chorus
persons singing this..

14. It was during the sittings of “Ek Hi Rasta”, He came close to BR
Chopra, as BR Chopra felt communicating with him more comfortable than
hemant da..

15. His first compilation of bhajans was published in 1943 as a small
bhajan book..

16. On Kishore Kumar, Ravi ji ranked him a great singer with a
fantastic range, still he found him unsuitable for some “naazuk” songs
like “door rah kar na karo baat”.. For Ek mahal ho sapno ka, he
re-recorded the title in the voice of Rafi saab, even though it was
recorded in Kishore da’s voice..

17. Suman Kalyanpur sung for him in Ek saal and Modern Girl, but later
one day when Producer Devendra Goel wanted a duet song to be recorded
by the evening on any cost, Ravi ji called her to record the duet song
with rafi saab(first lata was contacted and later Asha, and both of
them were unavailable), she said she will come but could make it a bit
late as she has a few guests… so Ravi Ji and his team with Rafi saab
waited the whole night and she didn’t turned up.. (it seems she came to
know that the song was first offered to lata, and she didn’t come)..
Raviji told us, that day and I haven’t seen her face.. The song was
later recorded in the voice of Asha and the song was “Mujhe pyar ki
zindagi dene wale” from Pyar Ka Sagar

18. He also narrated the BR Chopra-Rafi rift in details.. During the
recording of a qawwali for Dhool Ka Phool, BR Chopra wanted both Rafi
saab and Mahendra Kapoor to compete in the qawwali.. Rafi saab told him
either take Mahendra or me as both of us have similar kind of voices
and take another singer as second vpice.. BR Chopra persisted with
Mahendra Kapoor..