The Detroit auditorium was packed on the fateful day: 27th August 1976. The audience that gathered in thousands to hear the soulful Mukesh live was shattered to hear the news of his sudden death. The show was completed by Lata Mangeshkar, who along with Mukesh’s son brought his body back to India in the same plane in which he was initially booked as a passenger. In a short lifespan of 53 years, Mukesh sang around 1000 songs in his career of 35 years. The average of 30 songs per year might not be an impressive count but considering the popularity of the songs, it does highlight the fact that what he sang was far more important than the numbers.
Mukesh’s hauntingly sentimental yet stridently masculine voice was capable of projecting emotions in their raw, unburnished state. Be it in ‘Dost dost na raha’ or ‘Koi jab tumhara hridhay tor de’, Mukesh’s voice could inject multiple shades of melancholy and distill a lifetime’s suffering into four minutes of airtime.
His name has always been associated with that of Raj Kapoor, from ‘Awara hoon’ to ‘Mera joota hai Japani’ to Sangam’s ‘Bol Radha Bol’. However, before Kapoor there was another thespian who was instrumental in Mukesh’s ascent to fame: Motilal. A distant relative, Motilal had attended Mukesh’s sister’s wedding in Delhi and had been impressed by the quality of young Mukesh’s voice. Practically adopting the teenager, Motilal brought him to Bombay in the early ’40s, kept him in his own house and arranged for a Pandit to groom the ‘extraordinary talent’.
Mukesh did one film as a hero, Nirdosh (’41), which flopped miserably. He made his debut as a singer with Paheli Nazar (’45) and though his song ‘Dil jalta hai toh jale’ was a success, it was criticized for being heavily influenced by Saigal’s style of singing. Mukesh finally found his own voice with Andaz (’49) when Naushad gave him the chance to sing four tuneful solos.
The Awara (‘51) songs came soon afterwards, inseparably linking Mukesh’s voice to Raj Kapoor’s. Mukesh almost gambled away his success when he sidelined his singing career to pursue his acting dream again. But when Mashuqa (’53) and Anuraag (’56) both failed at the box office he returned to playback singing, only to find that Raj Kapoor had engaged Manna Dey for Shri 420 (’55) songs like ‘Pyar hua iqrar hua’. Though Mukesh’s ‘Mera joota hai Japani was a major success he faced a virtual dead end in his career. Work was hard to come by and the situation got so bad that his children, Ritu and Nitin were turned out of their school because they could not pay their fees.
Fortunately for Mukesh, late ’50s hits like Madhumati and Anadi revived his career. His songs like ‘Sab kuch seekha hum ne, na seekhi hoshiyari’ perhaps gained their depth of pathos from Mukesh’s many humiliating experiences.
He flourished in the ’60s with the new wave of music directors like Kalyanji Anandji and Laxmikant Pyarelal successfully trying his voice on a wider range of heroes. One more star came to be increasingly identified with Mukesh and that was Manoj Kumar (Himalay Ki God Mein, Upkar and Purab Aur Paschim). Right up till the mid ’70s Mukesh rendered mellow songs in Mera Naam Joker (‘70) Roti Kapra aur Makaan (‘74) and Sanyaasi ‘(75).
The last few years saw him fighting ill health and effects of ageing on his vocals but he still came up with sublime beauties like ‘Jaane kahan gaye woh din’, ‘Kahin dor jab din dhal jaaye’ and ‘Kabhie kabhie mere dil mein’ with regularity. Fate ditched him once again when he boarded a flight to the USA for a concert tour with Lata Mangeshkar and succumbed to a heart attack a night before his performance in Detroit.
Singing till the end, Mukesh’s philosophy in life seemed to be reflected in his Dharam Karam (’75) number, ‘Ek din bik jayega maati ke mol, Jag mein reh jayengay pyare tere bol’. Indeed, Mukesh will always be remembered for the unforgettable words that he left behind.
– With additional information from 100 luminaries of Bollywood.
