How 1966 was Asha Parekh’s year

The actor Asha Parekh needs no introduction. Parekh started her career as a child artiste, but then featured as the lead heroine for the first time in Nasir Husain’s Dil Deke Dekho (1959). She followed that up with some really big hits such as Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai (1961), Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon (1963), Ziddi (1964) and Mere Sanam (1965). She worked with every big-ticket filmmaker-producer right through the 1970s, with names like J Om Prakash, Nasir Husain, Shakti Samanta, Raj Khosla and Pramod Chakravarty all casting her in their films.

1966, though, was Parekh’s annus mirabilis. She had a spate of hits including the Nasir Husain-written and Vijay Anand-directed Teesri Manzil, Pramod Chakravarty’s Love in Tokyo, Raj Khosla’s Do Badan and Raghunath Jalani’s Aaye Din Bahaar Ke. She made herself the undisputed queen of the box-office by featuring in all these films. Who can forget her dressed as a traditional Japanese girl, singing ‘Sayonara, sayonara, vaada nibhaaoongi sayonara!’ in Love in Tokyo. In the upcoming episode of The Golden Years: 1950-1975, which features all the memorable Hindi songs from 1966, Javed Akhtar compliments Lata Mangeshkar’s vocals in this song. “The way Lataji sang the song, the manner in which she sang, it feels like a Japanese singer only is singing it. Yes, the tune was made like that, that it was made to sound like Japanese music, but her pronunciation and the way she sang the words, it made us feel that it was a Japanese voice only and not the regular Lata Mangeshkar we are used to.”

Parekh’s versatility could be seen in Khosla’s Do Badan. The film,which was a doomed love story,had her play a mostly sombre character, very different from the upbeat roles she essayed in Teesri Manzil and Love in Tokyo. Do Badan had the rather melancholic Mohammed Rafi solo, ‘Bhari duniya mein aakhir dil ko’ and also the lilting Lata song, ‘Jab chali thandi hawa’. In Aaye Din Bahaar Ke, where Parekh was cast opposite Dharmendra, she featured in the popular numbers, ‘Suno sajna papihey ne kaha sabse’ and ‘Aye kaash kisi deewane ko’.

Competing with Parekh for box-office glory in 1966, was Sharmila Tagore, a relative newcomer to Hindi cinema. Although she had worked earlier in Bengali cinema with the likes of Satyajit Ray and had also starred in Ray’s award-winning Nayak in 1966, Tagore had made her Hindi film debut only a few years before in Shakti Samanta’s, Kashmir Ki Kali (1964). While Tagore’s films didn’t match up to the commercial success of Parekh’s films, she made her presence felt in Saawan Ki Ghata, the critically acclaimed, Anupama, directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Yeh Raat Phir Na Aayegi and Devar.

Anupama’s songs composed by Hemant Kumar and written by Kaifi Azmi brought out the introspective, reticent characters played by Dharmendra and Tagore in the film. Whether it was ‘Dheere dheere machal aye dil-e-beqaraar’ or ‘Kuchh dil ne kaha’ or ‘Ya dil ki suno duniyawaalon’, the songs married profound thought with extremely hummable tunes. The album was another feather in the cap for Hemant Kumar while it ranks amongst Azmi’s best work in Hindi cinema. For Yeh Raat Phir Na Aayegi, where Tagore was paired with Biswajeet, she had the extremely romantic song, penned by SH Behari, ‘Yahi who jagah hai, yahi who fizaayein, yahi par kabhi aap humse miley thay’ picturised on her. 

Yeh Raat Phir Na Aayegi’s composer was OP Nayyar. Nayyar was also the composer for Tagore’s Saawan Ki Ghata from the same year. The song, ‘Zara hauley hauley chalo more saajna’, with its tonga beats, and in Asha Bhonsle’s voice, was the quintessential OP Nayyar song. But the song that connects Tagore with Asha Parekh was ‘Honthon pe hansi, aankhon mein nasha’ in the film. In Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon, Parekh had the wonderful number, ‘Aankho se jo utri hai dil mein’, picturised on her, which also was composed by Nayyar. Referring to this song, Javed Akhtar makes an incisive observation of the Tagore song, “It is a very good song, which has been sung very well. But this tune had been used by Nayyar earlier. This is the same melody as ‘Aankhon se jo utri hai dil mein…’.Why did he feel the need to repeat the tune, I am yet to understand.”

Watch the next episode of The Golden Years: 1950-1975 with Javed Akhtar this Sunday at 8 pm to know more about the many fine Hindi film songs from 1966.