Shravan of dard bhare melodies!

A still from the 1991 blockbuster Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin.

Because singer Anuradha Paudwal had highly recommended composers Nadeem-Shravan, Noida-based Gulshan Kumar, then rising music-label boss of T-Series, heard the soundtrack of their film Baap Numbri Beta Dus Numbri (1990).

He was impressed enough to buy off music rights, from the film's producers Samir Hingora and Hanif Kadawala, of (the then huge) Magnum Videos/Films. But Samir and Hanif flatly refused. Gulshan perhaps took it to heart, and swore to give Nadeem-Shravan a separate break, through his record label.

Only Nadeem-Shravan insisted it shouldn't be a film. Over 16 years before that, with hundreds of songs in their "bank", they'd scored music for 21 soundtracks! None of which had done anything for their careers.

Nadeem and Shravan composed its music

It'd have to be a "private album", Nadeem-Shravan proposed, passing on to Gulshan the tracks: ‘Nazar ke saamne jigar ke paas'; ‘Dil hai ki manta nahin'; ‘Main duniya bhula doonga'; and ‘Dheere dheere se meri zindagi mein aana'.

Just relook at that playlist. Evidently Gulshan's gain was loss for short-sighted producers Samir and Hanif-both of whom featured later in the Sanjay Dutt illegal arms hoarding case, related (but later delinked) to the 1993 Bombay blasts!

This transition phase of commercial Hindi cinema from late '80s is generally perceived as a murky period, with funding/financing obtained from dark/dubious sources. Actor Saurabh Shukla (also co-writer of the ultimate Mumbai mafia movie, Satya) once theorised to me that the bizarre/regressive aesthetics/sensibilities of a bulk of Bollywood then probably originated from their top patrons-the underworld itself!

Hard to draw a definite link. That the mainstream '80s, spilling over substantially, were a crappy decade is undeniable. I guess Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (QSQT, 1988) changed people's sampling tastes a bit. Including its soundtrack, of course. As did Maine Pyar Kiya (MPK, 1989).

Director Mahesh Bhatt, it seems, lapped up Nadeem-Shravan's bank that Gulshan had been sitting on. He decided to use the songs in Aashiqui (1990)-barring the track ‘Dil hai ki manta nahin', that he used in his film by the same name the following year!

Except, Gulshan and Nadeem-Shravan had a pact when they first shook hands-that their photographs would appear on the album cover. Regardless. This is how movie buffs have always known Nadeem Saifi and Shravan Rathod, by their faces (from soundtrack sleeves). Which isn't true for any composer from roughly the same time (or any other), say Uttam Singh (Gadar, Dil To Pagal Hai), or for that matter Anand-Milind (QSQT)/Raamlaxman (MPK).

Don't know if this practice of placing the manufacturer's mug on a product predates the MDH Masala man, Dharampal Gulati. But we've also always known the late T-series founder Gulshan from album covers, and now opening slates of films produced by his entertainment company. This is obviously unlike any other music label I know.

Aashiqui, at the time of release, held the record for the highest selling desi soundtrack ever-around 20 million cassettes sold (never mind how many mixed tapes made)! Nadeem-Shravan got associated with the word, as if it was a genre, called melody! How's that different from tune/composition?

Honestly, I don't know-melody khao, khud jaan jao! In a Bollywood sense, we know one, when we hear one. In my head it's usually a slow moving song, with a husky male and a high-pitched female voice, melodiously singing, over flute/dholak/shehnai/violins/santoor. The melancholic lyrics are in praise of love, or the lover-or the lover lost, and the love never found!

It reflects the default Indian male condition. A reason '90s melodies universally enthrall small-town North India still. As it did the lonely hearts in Bombay's dance bars once. As opposed to nightclubs, that are all about getting it on!

A synthesised sound more suited to the latter especially became a mainstream counter-point in the '90s-with satellite TV, music videos, a short-lived non-film music scene-with Alisha Chinai at one end, although Altaf Raja at the other-and the introduction of AR Rahman in 1992.

Nadeem-Shravan continued to score with their chocolatey melody still (delivering super-hits like Saajan, Dhadkan, Pardes, Raja Hindustani). Of the two-and they'd been together since college years in Bombay-it appears the relatively subdued Shravan was more rooted to music, by viraasat (inheritance).

His father (Pt Chaturbhuj) was an exponent of dhrupad-dhamar; his brothers (Vinod, Roopkumar) are popular musicians/singers; his sons Sanjeev-Darshan are composers. As for their steep decline, post a Himalayan rise, Shravan said you get a 10-year success period-they can come (and go) at youth, or old age. Nazar (evil-eye) is also how both Nadeem and Shravan separately diagnosed their fade/fall.

Nadeem was named prime accused/suspect (later acquitted in multiple UK courts) in the 1997 murder of his mentor Gulshan-a terrifying, daylight act of such underworld ‘tashan', outside a Shiva temple in Andheri-that it knocked the movie-industry off of its pants. Nadeem said he'd prayed at the Mecca for global success, before Aashiqui, which had come true.

Advised against it by his son, Shravan visited Haridwar's Kumbh Mela (actively welcomed/advertised by the state), jostling among mask-less millions at the peak of Corona pandemic. He contracted COVID-19, and passed away.

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14

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