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From Nain Lad Jayee Hain To Suhana Safar Aur Yeh Mausam Haseen News24 –


Dilip Kumar’s preferred ghost voices were Talat Mehmood and Mohammed Rafi, in that order. Though an occasional Mukesh didn’t hurt.

  1. Ae mere dil kahin aur chal (Daag): Dilip Kumar at his melancholic crest in the S. D. Burman composition. Talat Mehmood gave it his best shot. Dilip Kumar always felt Talat suited him the most. Their combination was considered the crest of emotionalism.
  2. Nain lad jayee hain (Ganga Jumna): Rafi sang Shakeel Badayuni’s Awadhi lyrics with a fathomless gusto, Dilip Kumar owned the song as he only could. Vyjayanthimala once told me she watched DK open-mouthed as he improvised his dance steps in this nifty Naushad number.
  3. Lagi nahin chute Rama (Musafir): Dilip Kumar joined his choti bahen Lataji in this pensive Salil Chowdhary number. He requested her to “take it easy” for his sake. But Lataji didn’t know how to scale down her singing. “And he sang so beautifully!” she told me.
  4. Suhana safar aur yeh mausam haseen (Madhumati): Mukesh once asked Dilip Saab why he didn’t sing in Mukesh’s voice more frequently. This commune-with-Nature masterpiece proves Dilip Saab could vibe perfectly with any singer, even Mahendra Kapoor.
  5. Ram Chandra keh gaye Siya se (Gopi): This one was by Mahendra Kapoor and Dilip Kumar simply dived into this narrative song like a true Rama Bhakt. DK once told me, “When you are on screen you are neither Hindu nor Muslim. You are simply the character.”
  6. Madhuban mein Radhika nache re (Kohinoor): I remember Dilip Saab talking at length about this monumental musical odyssey. “I’ve done some really difficult songs on screen. I even dared to sing with Lata in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Musafir (Lagi nahin choote Rama, composed by Salil Chowdhary). But nothing compares with Madhuban mein Radhika. It was the most difficult song I ever performed to on screen.” The difficulty eventuated mainly in the illuminating passage on the sitar, performed by Ustad Halim Jaffar Khan in the song. It was that sublime sitar passage in Madhuban mein Radhika that gave Dilip Saab sleepless nights. He took sitar lessons for six months before facing the camera to perform convincingly on screen. The end result was magical.
  7. Mere pairon mein ghungroo (Sungharsh): After Nain lad jaiye hain in Ganga Jumna, Dilip Saab again freaked out in a folksy avatar, imbuing the Rafi vocals with the kind of heady ruggedness that comes only to the enlightened.
  8. Apni azaadi ko hum hargiz mita sakte nahin (Leader): Dilip Kumar’s patriotic pitch was a flag-waving triumph. When Dilip Saab came on screen to lip-sync Naushad’s tune, audiences stood on their collective feet in the movie theatres.
  9. Kisko khabar thi (Devdas): There are two versions of this gentle, evocative song of separation, one by Talat Mahmood and the other by Dilip Kumar himself, both equally robust in rendition.
  10. Aye watan tere liye (Karma): Dilip Kumar went down the patriotic road with this heartfelt ode to the nation. Every year on 15 August, Dilip Saab reminds us of his allegiance to the nation.