1. Jhoom Jhoom dhalti raat (Lata Mangeshkar)

Kohraa (1964) featured the ethereal Waheeda Rehman as the mysterious rake Biswajeet’s second wife who’s haunted by his dead wife. Based on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), the chilling ambience of this film was sublimated by the producer Hemant Kumar’s vintage music. Lata Mangeshkar’s Jhoom jhoom dhalti raat heightened the feeling of ominous dread in the plot. Montages of the dead woman’s spirit wandering the night in this song were exquisitely expressive. Waheeda Rehman as the Indian version of Rebecca was vulnerable, adamant and very beautiful. Kohraa was one of the superior supernatural thrillers of the 1960s where the actors respond to a particular plot rather than peripheral attractions such as songs and romance.

2. Mujhe apni duniya mein wapas bula lai (Noor Jehan)

Deewana (1964) was perhaps Lollywood’s first ever horror film. It was made way back in 1964 and took its inspiration from the Invisible Man and The Spiral Staircase. Sabiha was cast in the role of an insomniac and the film despite starting off with a certain amount of promise soon deteriorated into an insufferable bore. The intriguing aspect of the film plot that involved the marauding psychotic invisible man was completely ignored while the audience was tortured by an uninteresting romantic plot involving Sabiha, Ejaz and Ilyas Kashmiri.

However, the film had some awesome songs composed by Bengali music director Muslehuddin. It has been noticed that whenever Noor Jehan collaborated with music directors from East Pakistan (whether Muslehuddin or Bashir Ahmed), the result was magic and this song is no exception. This particular ghost song sung by Noor Jehan and chorus and picturized on Nasreen (with Zurain in the frame) was the highlight of the film. Muslehuddin’s was very good with using chorus voices, and in this song he created “that” ghostly effect by blending the chorus effectively with the main voice

3. Rahoun mei thari mein nazrein jamaey (Noor Jehan)

One of the finest ghost films coming out of Pakistan, Ghoonghat (1962) was composed, produced and directed by Pakistan’s ace composer Khurshid Anwar. In this song he used Noor Jehan’s voice effectively to create the mysterious ambience. The ringing of temple bells at the beginning of the song and the use of chorus (one of the best use of chorus in my opinion) further enhanced the haunted atmosphere of this song.

The biggest technical achievement of this film at its time was to create the atmosphere of mystery that has been captured in the outdoor location sequences. It was comparatively much easier to create such an effect on the artificial sets, where the studio lights were under the control of the cameraman and a limited space facilitated the manipulation of artificial mist. But to successfully launch such a venture in the wide expanses of a mountain was an achievement which Lollywood could well be proud of.

4. Kahin deep jaley kahin dil (Lata Mangeshkar)

Bees saal baad (1962) was based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. This ghost song was the highlight of this film and credit should be given to both the music director Hemant Kumar and singer Lata Mangeshkar for creating the spooky/haunted atmosphere required for such mystery/thrillers.

This song also remains a milestone in Lata’s career because she fell ill in 1962 and thought she would never be able to sing again. In Lata’s own words

“In 1962, I fell very ill for about three months. I thought I would never be able to sing again. One day, I woke up feeling very uneasy in my stomach. And then I started throwing up — it was terrible, the vomit was a greenish color. The doctor came and even brought an x-ray machine home because I could not move. He x-rayed my stomach and said I was being slowly poisoned. We had a servant in the house who made the food. Usha (Mangeshkar) went straight into the kitchen and told everyone that from that moment  on, she would do the cooking instead. The servant sneaked off without telling anyone and without collecting any pay. So we thought someone had planted him there. We didn’t know who it was. I was bed-ridden for three months and was so weak.

I will never forget Majrooh Sahib’s kindness to me during those difficult times. He came at six in the evening and sat by me every day for three long months. He ate whatever I ate and recited poetry and read me stories. We talked and laughed together. I thoroughly enjoyed this company.

When I was feeling well enough to sing, the first song I recorded was Hemant Kumar’s ‘Kahin deep jale kahin dil.’”

5. Kahan ho tum saheliyoun (Noor Jehan)

Although technically not a ghost song.. but the singing, the delusions/hallucinations the lonely and sick heroine is going through by being imprisoned in the haunted mansion is enough the create the disturbed and chilling atmosphere required for ghost songs.

Again Khurshid Anwar collaborates with Noor Jehan and chrous to create this spooky song for mystery/suspense/thriller Hamraaz (1967). The cobwebs, the burning candles, the delusions that her friends are dancing and singing with her, the deep sickly breaths and most of all the haunted humming done by the chorus immerses us into chilling audio-visual experience.

Note:- For a change I didn’t include Lata’s omnipresent “Aayega aanewala”. Although it is one of my favorite songs, I don’t think that song needs any introduction – Ummer Siddique

A scene from Kohraa (1964)

Hemant Kumar

An unflinching idealist, fiercely committed to bettering his score rather than quantifying his body of work. Hemant Kumar never thrust his vocals on any song. He could have insisted on singing each and every male number that he composed. After all Hemant Kumar was always a name to ‘record’ with! But he chose Kishore Kumar to vocalize the resplendent nostalgia of Woh sham kuch ajeeb thi in Khamoshi while Hemantda stayed in the background for Dharmendra) with Tum pukar lo.

This was typical of Hemantda, Never an attention-seeker either in real life or his musical output, he always wanted his songs to speak for him. Competition never daunted him. In the 50s when Bengal’s matinee idol Uttam Kumar insisted only on Hemant Kumar’s playback, the singer convinced the superstar that Bhupen Hazarika was just right for a particular song in a big budget melodrama. Likewise in Mumbai Hemantda was accepted as Biswajeet’s ghost-voice after the chartbusters in Bees Saal Baad and Kohraa. Still the composer got Mohd. Rafi to duet with the unusual voice of Aarti Mukherjee in the coltish Saara mora kajra, in the film Do Dil, starring Biswajeet.

There were no shortcuts for Hemant Kumar. He couldn’t make creative compromises even if he wanted to because he didn’t know how. His forte was simplicity and honesty of expression. He never cluttered his compositions with orchestral flourishes to camouflage their inherent weaknesses because there weren’t any to begin with.

As a singer Hemant Kumar embodied the search and discovery of perfection through songs like Yaad kiya dilne kahan ho tum, Rulakar chal diye, Log pite hain and Jab se mili tose ankhiyan. Every composition was sung in a style so different and unique that they became cornerstones of subtle romanticism.

Hemant Kumar Mukherjee sang and composed in perfect harmony. To him music was a platform for sincere self expression rather than an occasion to show off or exhibit his knowledge of the nuances of musical styles. A deeply knowledgeable musician erudition sat lightly on Hemantda’s shoulders. For him skill was superseded by accessibility. He forever wanted to reach out to listeners with tunes that they could share. Hemantda sang and composed for listeners from a plane of expression where he was one of the masses. To do this he never had to lower his standards or dilute his talents. Success came naturally to him in whatever he sang or tuned.

The last song that Hemantda sang in Hindi was Aaja mere pyar aaja for R.D.Burman in a comedy called Heeralal Pannalal in 1978. It was a befitting finale to an illustrious but never cheaply flamboyant career. Exactly twenty-five years prior to Aaja mere pyar for R.D. Burman Hemantda had sung his way into singing superstardom for RD’s father S.D. Burman in Jaal.

A success in whatever he tried–singing and composing in Hindi or Bengali–Hemant Kumar was a far more talented versatile and skilled musician than we can ever imagine. When we listen to Hemantda singing Chandan ka palna with Lataji or composing an enigmatically enriched  tune like Hawaaon pe likhdo for Kishore Kumar we are forced to conclude that in order to be a brilliant creative artiste one must first be a good human being – Subhash K Jha

Hemant Kumar

But it was as a singer that Hemant Kumar obtained an unique berth in the hall of fame. Like Anup Jaiota says, Hemantda’s voice conveyed both the depth of the ocean and the heights of the skies. It is a voice that communicates a profound romance. It is the voice of experienced articulation rather than eager romance. In songs like Main garibon ka dil hoon watan ki zubaan and Hai apna dil to awaara, Hemantda’s seriously reflective vocals soar to the heavens in search of the most exquisite answers to the riddle of life. He was both the riddle and the solution, the singer and the song simultaneously typifying the given experience in a song as well the universal truths underlining the specific song.

Today as we look back on the profound career graph of this expressive singer composer we encounter a never-ending terrain of beauty and harmony helmed by a man who could sing like an angel because he came close to being one in real life.

Hemantda’s career as a singer began in his teens when he sang on radio. In 1937 he recorded his first Bengali songs Janine janite jadi and Balogo more. He began training as a Rabindra Songeet singer under the well‑known practitioner of the style Aanadi Dastidar. Early vocal influences of Pankaj Mullick soon gave way to his own distinctive style.

So pervasive was the `Ilemant Kumar style’ in Bengali films and such was his indomitable powers as a vocalist that all the vocalists in Bengal who followed him modelled their vocals on the singing style of Hemantda.

His compositions in Bengali films like Bhulai Naai and ’42 in the 40′s pioneered a neoclassical movement in Bengali popular music. Hemantda kept opening new frontiers in Bengali cinema with his singing in the 50s. As a composer he shifted base to the mecca of national popularity (Mumbai) where he made an instant impact with the everlasting patriotic strains of Vande mataram in Anand Math. As a singer in Mumbai, Hemantda became a voice to `record’ with in 1952 when he sang Yeh raat yeh chandni phir Kahan in the thriller Jaal for the debonair Dev Anand. Though Dev Anand preferred the voice of Kishore Kumar he still regards the acutely romantic Yeh raat (filmed by Guru Dutt among the fishing nets of a Goan beach) as a favorite.

The association with Guru Dutt continued. In 1957 Hemantda sang one of his career’s best solos Jaane woh kaise log for Guru Dutt in Pyaasa. Songs like these branded Hemantda as the melancholic romantic. However there was a lighter equally persuasive side to Hemantda’s vocals tapped in flirtatious evergreens like Zaraa nazro se keh do jee nishana chuk na jaya and Dil ki umangein the duet with Geeta Hutt, which joyfully exemplifies the vocal genius of Hemant Kumar.

The singer’s special status as a composer-singer hasn’t gone unnoticed by musicologists who have recorded Hemantda’s ability to impart minute details into his renditions. Hemantda’s colleagues like Sachin Dev Burman from Bengal and C.Ramchandra from Maharashtra liked to sing their compositions. But only Hemant Kumar could make an equally successful career as a singer and composer.

It’s hard to say which of the two capacities provided Hemantda with maximum satisfaction. If he excelled as a composer in the Kohraa charmer Yeh nayan dare dare did he fare any lower on the scale of excellence as a singer in the same song? On two songs – Oh zindagi ke denewale and Tere dwar khadaa ek jogi from Nagin. Hemantda could assume two disparate personas of the heartbroken lover and the singing mendicant.

The booming baritone that Uttam Kumar refused to part with no matter what the occasion, communicated the distinct flavour of middle-class romanticism. Hemantda’s vocals were seasoned in the ovigerous vinegar of life’s most precious experiences. The vocalist could express these experiences with an honest and tuneful transparency. He didn’t believe in vocal jugglery, nor did he attempt to sound greater than the sum-total of the composition.

The abiding appeal of Hemant Kumar’s songs is attributable to his expression of the common man’s desires with uncommon genuineness. While Kishore Kumar and Mohd Raft’s vocals represent velvety romance, Hemant Kumar’s chosen thread of expression is cotton– homespun,natural, comfortable subtle and very middle-class in its appeal.

Hemantda was a traditionalist as well as an innovator. If he brought the strains of the Rabindra Sangeet to Hindi music he also introduced electronic music into Hindi cinema through Man dole in Nagin. So popular was the music in Nagin and such was the singer-composer’s sway in the charts that Vyjanthimala was catapulted to instant stardom singing Man dole. To this day the orchestra plays Man dole each time thedancing actress enters a restaurant or a public function.

An unassuming beauty characterized Hemantda’s melody -motivated compositions. Heroines loved the chance to lip-sync Hemantda’s tunes. Did Vyjanthimala ever look more captivating than she did in Nagin’s Man dole? Waheeda Rehman and Sharmila Tagore were infinitely beautified through Hemantda’s O beqaraar dil and Kuch dil ne Kaha in Kohraa and Anupama, respectively.

If as a composer Hemantda elevated feminine beauty to poetic heights as a singer he qualified the subtly rugged side of screen heroism. His songs for Dev Anand ( Yeh raat yeh chandni, Dil hi umangein, Aaya toofan, Teri duniya mein jeene se ), Biswajeet (Beqaraar karke humein, Zaraa nazron se keh do jee, Raah bani khud manzil ) and Dharmendra (Ya dil ki suno, Tum pukar lo) lent a supple poetic romanticism to the image of the actors without interfering with their rugged he-man images.

Hemant Kumar

“Which rival musician would provide that kind of encouragement to a then unknown musician like me?” Bhupen Hazarika shakes his head in wonderment. Hailing a taxi Hemantda took the stupefied young Bhupen Hazarika to the HMV office in Calcutta and a deal was finalized on the spot. Later in Mumbai Hemant Kumar, already a reputed singer-composer, introduced Bhupen Hazarika to Lata Mangeshkar and a host of eminent musical luminaries telling them about this talented young musician named Bhupen Hazarika.

Bhupen Hazarika isn’t isolated in his appreciation of Hemant Kumar’s generosity. Other musicians, fellow composers and singers recall how he went out of his way to encourage them and accommodate them into his compositions as well as into those of his colleagues.

Sandhya Mukherjee who became famous in Calcutta as the voice of Suchitra Sen was brought to Mumbai to sing the frolicsome duet Aa gupchup gupchup pyar karen under the baton of Sachin Dev Burman, reportedly on the recommendation of Hemantda.

In a world where self-interest not only takes precedence, but also limits the human vision, Hemant Kumar always went out of his way to help his colleagues from the music world. To him the rites and processes of music creation weren’t isolated. He saw himself as just one unit in the creative universe– a brick in the creative wall.

This accounts for the illimitable reserves of abiding sweetness in the creative faculties of God’s chosen one – Hemant Kumar.

Hemant Kumar was also a very talented composer. Lata Mangeshkar (who sang Hemantda’s most cherished tunes into the hall of fame) reminds us of Hemant Kumar’s proficiency. “Hemantda believed in simple tunes. He didn’t subscribe to elaborate orchestras. Since he was a singer himself he could explain his requirements in their exactitude”.

The results are to be heard to be believed. From the sinuous Man dole Lataji moves magnificently into another province of Hemantda’s melodiousness with Chhup gaya koi re. Kahin deep jale kahin dil composed by Hemantda for his own production Bees Saal Baad, was a very very special song for Lataji. Prior to this song the Nightingale had fallen ill. Doctors expressed serious doubts whether she would be able to sing again. Lataji pointedly chose to return to the recording room with Kahin deep jale kahin dil. If a Hemant Kumar composition couldn’t prove her vocal supremacy all over again, nothing else could.

Lataji made a stupendous comeback with Kahin deep jale kahin dil even winning the Filmfare award for best playback singer for this intricately woven jewel of a haunting melody. Two years later Hemantda gave his favorite singer two other melodious treats in his next home production Kohraa. Between O beqaraar dil and Jhoom jhoom dhalti raat. How does one choose the better melody?

Hemant Kumar never composed anything but the best melodies. Compromise was alien to him. Whether he composed a flirtatious Saara mora kajra churaya tune or a sublime Kuch dil ne kaha it was always his dil which spoke up on Hemantda’s behalf in the language of the lilt.

The piece de resistance of Hemantda’s career as a composer in Mumbai was Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. For the one opportunity that Hemantda got to compose for Guru Dutt’s cinema (which was dominated by the music of S.D.Burman and O.P. Nayyar) Hemantda pulled out all stops for a score that ranks as one of the ten best ever composed for Hindi cinema.

Between them Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhosle created a universe of pain and romance in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. From Geeta Dutt’s Na jaao saiyyan to Asha Bhosle’s Bhanwara badaa nadaan, each number numbs, each songs stuns each note cuts deeply in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. In a repertoire cluttered with monumental melodies Hemant Kumar’s Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam ranks as the best score in Guru Dutt’s cinema.

Quality work was the hallmark of Hemantda’s oeuvre. At least three of his scores in the 60s qualify among the greatest of the decade. These are Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam,

Anupama and Kohraa. If we sample Na jaao saiyyan, Bhanwara badaa nadaan, Kuch dil ne kaha, O beqaraar dil and Jhoom jhoom dhalti raat from the three monumental scores of Hemant Kumar in the 60s we are left wondering about this tunesmith’s tireless tenacity and his power to harness melodies into widely acceptable shapes and sizes.

Hemant Kumar

“Listening to Hemantda I feel as though a sadhu sitting in a temple is singing a Bhajan,” comments the nightingale Lata Mangeshkar about the unique unvanquished Hemant Kumar” who was not only a fabulous singer but also an equally indomitable composer. As Lataji astutely tells us, in Hemant Kumar’s voice one could experience an amalgamation of Rabindra Sangeet, Bengali folk music, modern and classical elements.

Every distinguished creative artiste is born with one gift. But Hemantda was born with several gifts. As a singer he reigned supreme in Calcutta and Mumbai. As a composer his versatility and staying – power in the charts were astonishing. From Nagin and Jaal to Bees Saal Baad and Kohraa the 50s and 60s were decades that `belonged’ prominently to the unique talents of Hemant Kumar.

Hemant Kumar Mukherjee was born on 16th June, 1920 in Varanasi. Music seemed to be an inherent part of his life from the outset. Why else did he leave school to become a professional singer at the age of 17 ?? !! At an age when young Hemant’ friends were taken up with teen sensations, the earnest boy studied music under stalwarts like Phani Baneerjee and Shailendra Prasad Gupta. The early training stood Hemant in good stead. He could impart a luminous but light – weight classicism to his film music without making his tunes cumbersome or over-erudite.

While fellow Bengali musician Said Chowdhary couldn’t quite master the popular idiom Hemantda could set aside his learned antecedents to infuse a freshness and modernity into his songs.And that too without sacrificing tonal propriety.

Let’s take an immortal solo like Yeh raat yeh chandni. The tune contains jolting jazz-tinged interludes which fit into the overall design of the song like a hand in glove.

When we listen to Hemant Kumar’s songs, we relive the most cherished and choicest moments from our film music. We marvel at the melodist’s mastery over the language of the heart and the secrets of the soul with such rapid fire explosions of hugely successful chartbusters that we often forget decades, eras and generations have passed by since Hemantda’s period of popularity.

The sound of Hemant Mukherjee is the sound of today. The past translates effortlessly into expressions of tuneful emotions. If Man doley in Nagin had audiences throwing coins at the screen in Mumbai, in Calcutta Hemantda regaled audiences as the legendary Uttam Kumar’s voice singing such all-time hits in Bengali as Nir chotto khati nei and Ei path jadi na shesh hoi.

Hemantda virtually had the best of both worlds. And yet his head remained firmly on his shoulders. Friends were floored by his utter simplicity and genuineness as a human being and his generosity of spirit. The distinguished filmmaker – composer – singer Bhupen Hazarika who was closely associated with Hemantda remembers him as one of the most generous human beings he had ever met.

Bhupenda still recalls his first encounter with Hemant Kumar. “I had the opportunity of knowing what a great man Hemantda was.”

Bhupenda recalls going to Calcutta as a student to collect royalty for songs he sang as a child artiste from a private music company. Suddenly a tall handsome man appeared in front of Bhupenda. By then Hemant Mukherjee was nationally famous as Hemant Kumar, singing both film and non-film songs. Bhupenda saw the famous singer composer approaching him. After introducing himself Hemantda offered to take Bhupenda to his own recording company HMV.