Talat Mahmood
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Talat Mahmood
Remembering Talat Mahmood
By avijit ghosh
In his quivering voice you could hear the rustle of silk and the muffled sound of a broken heart. Few singers could put the listener in a blue mood like Talat Mahmood, who passed away on May 9 exactly 10 years ago. And thanks to a website created by his son Khalid that gets about 150,000 hits every week from Indians and Pakistanis all over the world — “and a few Israelis”, Khalid adds — his memory is fresh as ever.
“Talat saab came from Lucknow and his Urdu pronunciation was perfect. He could exactly reproduce a song the way a composer had conjured up in his mind. He was an original singer whose distinctive voice was near impossible to duplicate,” recalls master class music director Khayyam.
One of the veteran music composer’s memorable compositions — Shaam-i-gham ki kasam (film: Footpath) — was sung by Talat, also known as king of ghazals. Khayyam recalls that in that memorable song he had experimented with the orchestration by not using any rhythm instrument like tabla.
“We used a piano, guitar and solo vox, a basic version of the synthesizer used in those days. Recording the number took plenty of time. But Talat saab ke mathe pe shikan nahin aaye,” he says.
Senior lyricist Naqsh Lyallpuri remembers a recording with the singer. The song was Zindagi kis mod pe laye mujhe, from the film Diwali ki Raat. Snehal Bhatkar was the music director. Says Lyallpuri, “We had only two musicians at the rehearsal. They were playing the tabla and the sitar. But the producer liked his singing so much that he said, there is no need for any other instrument. We recorded the song with just those two instruments.”
Lyallpuri remembers Talat as an extremely soft spoken man. Which Khayyam affirms. “He was a perfect gentleman. With him there was no loose talk. He was always well-dressed: His shoes shining and his trousers perfectly creased.”
To honour his father’s memory, Khalid Mahmood set up a website, talatmahmood.net, just a few months after the singer’s death in 1998 at the age of 74. Apart from the huge number hits every day, he also gets about 200-300 emails every week.
“The choice for me was between doing a book and setting up a website. I settled for the latter because it is more accessible,” says Khalid.
Talat recorded his first track way back in 1941 and sang around 750 songs in 12 languages. He also acted in over a dozen films such as Dil-i-Nadan, Lala Rukh and Ek Gaon Ki Kahani.
Few know that the singer-actor aroused mass hysteria when he arrived in Trinidad in West Indies on a concert tour in 1968. Fans thronged the roads from the airport to the city. The local group, West Indies Steel Band, composed a Calypso track in his honour. They sang, “Talat Mahmood we are proud and glad, to have a personality like you here in Trinidad.”
Talat is long gone. But as long as the human heart knows how to fall in love and emerge with ache, his velvet voice will live on. — Dawn/Times of India news service
Talat in Pakistan
Although Talat Mahmood was a popular vocalist in the United India, after Partition, some of his family members migrated to Pakistan. Talat stayed back as there was no reason for the successful singer-actor to sacrifice his established career in India for a budding one in the then newly formed Pakistan. He, however, visited his relatives in Pakistan twice during the ’60s and sung a handful of ghazals and geets besides two film songs, Kuch hua hasil na ab tak and Mushkil nikla dil ka sambhalna for Fazal Karim Fazli’s film Chiragh Jalta Raha which was the launching pad of legendary film actor Mohammad Ali.
Talat sang over 750 songs in all — both geets and ghazals — during his 40-year career but acted in only a dozen films. He first faced the camera in Rajlaxmi (1945) where his dashing looks and impressive acting ability was noted by cinegoers and directors alike. Although he was the sole hero of Ek Gaon Ki Kahani (1957) opposite the beautiful Mala Sinha, was paired with Nautan in Sonay Ki Chiriya (1958), was also cast opposite Nadira in Raftaar (1955) and shared the screen with the great singing actress Surraiya in Waris (1954) and Maalik (1958), he gave up his successful acting career to concentrate on singing.
In the ’50s, Talat’s popularity rivaled that of Mohammad Rafi and Mukesh and he was more liked because of his perfect Urdu diction. His fame around the world can be gauged by the fact that during one of his US tours, he was invited to the vastly popular The Joe Franklin Show and introduced as the Frank Sinatra of India!
Talat was also only the second Indian singer after Lata Mangeshkar to be invited to perform at the world renowned Royal Albert Hall in 1979. In Pakistan, he had a huge fan following with many budding singers still rendering his numbers. The King of Ghazal was presented a shield by the Gramophone Company of Pakistan with his own geet Khuda woh waqt na laye inscribed on it.
His list of fans included the late Malika-i-Tarannum Madam Noor Jehan as well as Shahenshah-i-Ghazal Mehdi Hasan who complimented the legendary singer by saying that it was through the vocals of Talat saab that he discovered the goldmine in his throat.
Seema Faruqi
