RIP Esmayeel Shroff: Ragas In Passion

It is easy to overlook Esmayeel Shroff’s contribution to  mainstream Hindi cinema. He was a quiet achiever. Shroff never blew his own trumpet. Maybe because he preferred violins. In his hit Rajesh Khanna-Shabana  Azmi film Thodisi Bewafaai released in 1980, the violin has been used in the song Hazaar raahen mud ke dekhi with an unparalleled passion.

Hazaar raahen is a very special song. It shows to great advantage the poetic sensibilities of Shroff. Of course, he didn’t write it. Gulzar did. And Gulzar Saab won a richly deserved  Filmfare award for best lyricist. The song about a broken marriage was written as an ode to his own fractured marriage with Raakhee : Jahan se tum mod mud gaye the yeh mod  abh bhi wahin padey  hain…Hum apne pairon mein jaane kitne bhanwar lapete  huey khade hain…

No  better musical evocation of the regret behind a broken marriage has been heard in Hindi cinema.

Besides being a very successful director of the 1980s with hits like Love 86 (which introduced Govinda), Police Public, Thodisi Bewafaii and Surya, each of Shroff’s film had memorable music. The  filmmaker started his directorial career in 1977 with the Amol Palekar-Zarina Wahab suspense thriller Agar, which featured an interesting music score by Sonik-Omi. This was a time when Laxmikant-Pyarelal ruled the charts. Sonik Omiwere a forgotten duo.

So was the great O P Nayyar. In 1992 Shroff, signed  him for the Salman Khan-starrer Nishchaiy. Nayyar’s Amit Kumar-Kavita Krishnamurthy songs in Nishchaiy did not crack the charts. But Shroff worked again with Nayyar in Zid, which proved to be the composer’s last  assignment. We have to hand it to Shroff for bringing this composer out of hibernation for one last hurrah.

Undoubtedly, Esmayeel Shroff’s musical centerpieces were the three Khayyam composed soundtracks Thodisi Bewafaai, Dil Aakhir Dil Hai (Shroff’s most underrated work featuring  the very unusual combination of Raakhee Gulzar and Naseeruddin Shah) and Ahista Ahista. Put together, these three films contain some of the best film songs composed in the 1980s. In Ahista Ahista, Asha Bhosle excelled beyond her normal range , giving voice to Nida Fazli’s  timeless poetry: Kabhi kisiko muqammal jahan nahin milta kahin zameen toh kahin aasman nahin milta. The songstress regards this as one of her career’s best songs.

In Police Public, Shroff assigned the music to Ram Laxman. Although it was a crime thriller, Police Public featured one of Ram Laxman’s best compositions, Main jiss din bhula doon tera pyar, sung by Lataji and Amit Kumar.

Lataji sang some of her finest songs in the1980s for Shroff’s films: Aankhon mein humne aapke sapne sajaaye hain (Thodisi Bewafaai), Dil aakhir dil hai (title songs) and Kaisi lag rahi hoon main(Jhutha Sach) and Mujhe aisa mila moti (Pighalta Aasman).

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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