Naushad’s Tribute – A Mockery
Television channels like Star News, NDTV, Headlines Today, Sahara Manoranjan’s news coverage after the death of legendary composer Naushad was full of blatant falsehood. It was extremely annoying to watch visuals of songs like ’Chalte chalte...’ and ’ Inhi logon ne...’ from the film Pakeezah as tribute to Naushadsaab. All the songs of Pakeezah was composed by music director Ghulam Mohammed. Naushad contribution was only in the background score of Pakeezah after Ghulam Mohammed’s sudden demise. Another major blunder which these channels committed was that they aired songs like ‘Aayega aanewala’ from Mahal and ‘Yeh zindagi usi ki hai’ from Anarkali as compositions of Naushad. Worse they even mentioned films like Baradari and Naghma which were composed by Nashad and not Naushad. What a crying shame ! They also erroneously reported that Naushad was instrumental in shaping Lata Mangeshkar’s singing career and he was the first composer to introduce classical music in hindi films. The most exasperating thing is that these channels allocate phenomenal budget for frivilous game shows and senseless soap operas but they feel no need to appoint a genuine music expert who can bring his expertise to good use during such important events. By commiting these errors they have not only insulted Naushad but have also hurt the sentiments of thousands of vintage hindi film music lovers who still cherish Ghulam Mohammed’s eternal compositions from films like Mirza Ghalib, Kundan, Shayar, Laila Majnu, Paras and Pakeezah. It is so unfortunate to learn that inspite of being such a wonderful music director Ghulam Mohammed never really got his due when he was alive. And even today more than thirty years after his death the situation is still the same.