75 top songs from Hindi cinema that shaped our lives and history | Eye News,The Indian Express
A celebration of India its consciousness and its identity through music – here are some great melodies, some for entertainment and some with meanings that will take lifetime to understand
The story of India will be incomplete without its songs – the background score to our lives. Be it the anguish of KL Saigal, when he crooned Jab dil hi toot gaya (Shahjehan, 1946) in his nasal voice, perhaps the most significant break-up song of the last century or our sudden belief in gold dust and green fields when we heard Mere desh ki dharti (Upkar, 1959) ringing out of our transistors. We were companions in misery with Guru Dutt when he lamented Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai (Pyaasa, 1957). And we will always look up to poet-lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi for asking a tough question “Jinhe naaz hai Hind par woh kahan hain (Where are those who are proud of India)?” amid the failure of socialism.
For decades, we lent our ears to Binaca Geetmala, as Ameen Sayani played the top 10 every Wednesday from Radio Ceylon, our loyalties bought forever by Mohammed Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Hemant Kumar, Mukesh, Talat Mahmood and Kishore Kumar. If we were sold out on the grandeur of Pyar kiya toh darna kya (Mughal-E-Azam, 1960) where a brave courtesan professed her love for a prince before an invincible king, there was Kaifi Azmi’s Waqt ne kiya (Kaagaz Ke Phool, 1959), about the inevitability of life.
In the ’80s and thereafter, songs of longing and unrequited love were replaced by street songs and realism. There were new stories to tell, new songs, new metaphors. The nation has always sung along.
- 1947 Afsana likh rahi hoon (Dard)
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