The debate over the greatest ever Hindi playback singer has generally revolved around Rafi and Kishore Kumar. Sadly, Mukesh gets shut out
The demise of the legendary Manna Dey has revived the furious debate on the greatest male playback singer Hindi films has produced. Manna Dey had ruled himself out of reckoning, saying that Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar were superior to him. He had a particularly soft spot for Kishore Kumar, whom he rated as the best. His premise was that while Rafi had a god-gifted and a trained voice, Kishore Kumar's was entirely god-gifted and without training — and that made him special. This is cause for heated denunciation among the legions of committed Rafi admirers (I am one of them). However, what gets lost in all this is that we have had an equally great singer who has outdone both Rafi and Kishore Kumar at his best. Mukesh.
While radio stations pay glorious tributes to both Kishore Kumar and Rafi on their birth and death anniversaries and in the run-up to those dates, few care to remember Mukesh's anniversaries; he was born in July 1923 and died in August 1976 at an early age of 53 years. Sure, there are the odd remembrances, but they do no justice to the deep-throated singer, whose voice goes right into your soul and triggers the tear glands. If anyone came closest to the legendary Kundan lal Saigal, it was Mukesh. His Dil jalta hai to jalne de (Pehli Nazar, 1948), was so strikingly similar to Saigal's voice that the latter is said to have remarked after hearing it that he did not remember singing the song!
Many have tried to copy Mukesh, believing that if they can use his technique, they will sound like him. They soon realised that, while they could imitate the nasal tone, they simply could not create the depth and pathos Mukesh mustered. Perhaps it had to do with the goodness within the man.
It's possible that Mukesh would have reached even greater heights had he a range of actors to sing for and a longer life. Rafi had that advantage: He had lend his voice to actors ranging from Pradeep Kumar to Dilip Kumar to Bharat Bhushan to Shammi Kapoor to Joy Mukherjee to Sunil Dutt to Rajendra Kumar to Rishi Kapoor, and many more. He managed that because he was patronised by an equally large number of music directors, from Naushad to Roshan to SD Burman to Madan Mohan to OP Nayyar to laxmikant-Pyarelal, and others. By contrast, Mukesh worked consistently with only a few music directors, the most prominent among them being Shankar-Jaikishan and Kalyanji-Anandji. There were also a few others such as Salil Chaudhary, SD Burman, Roshan and Khayyam, who used Mukesh intermittently.
Mukesh had lost out in some ways also because many music directors simply did not have confidence in their ability to handle his voice. It is said that SD Burman, who did not think very highly of Mukesh, had been taken aback by the sheer brilliance of the singer in O janewale ho sakey to laut ke aana, a song put to tune by Burman for the film, Bandini. In fact, Mukesh's song raced ahead of Ore Maajhi…Mere saajan hain us paar — a song sung by the music director himself, in the popularity charts.
The gems he has left for the listeners are unbeatable. O janewale ho sakey to laut ke aana; Jaane kahan gaye woh din; Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hain; Woh subha kabhi to aayegi; Ram kare aisa ho jaye; Main toh ek khwab hoon; Yeh mera deewanapan hai; Humsafar ab yeh safar kat jayega; Kai baar yun hi socha hai… the list is indeed endless.
Some greats do not get their due. The legendary Mukesh was one of them. He was on par with Rafi, and certainly with Kishore Kumar.