Like Marilyn Monroe, Bing Crosby, Jay Leno and Robin Williams, singer Talat Mahmood loved visiting Indian Army base camps to entertain troops and boost their morale. In ‘Talat Mahmood: The Definitive Biography’, grandniece Sahar Zaman showcases the soft and sombre playback singer as a staunch nationalist who backed land reforms, sang for Bangladesh’s liberation army and practised secularism as a habit.
Talat, a friend of actor Sunil Dutt and Nargis joined the Ajanta Arts Cultural Troupe to visit the remote frontiers. In 1971, he travelled to perform in Bangladesh soon after their Liberation War. The war lasted for barely 13 days. India won the war decisively on December 16, 1971 — splitting Pakistan into two, with the new country, Bangladesh, consisting of over 60 per cent of Pakistan’s population.
Sahar Zaman quotes Talat Mahmood as saying, “I promptly joined them and did shows all over India for their troupe. When China had attacked India in 1962, we prepared a number of patriotic songs and even went up to Ladakh in the extreme cold conditions to boost the army with our presence.” The singer along with Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Mala Sinha and Lata Mangeshkar went to Chittagong, stopping at various relief camps where women were victims of genocidal rape and assault by the Pakistani Army. As per one estimate, over 300,000 Bengali-speaking women were raped. Talat Mahmood was shocked to see that many young women had their heads shaved. An army officer, Col Thapar told the singer that it had been done to prevent the girls and women from committing suicide. They would often hang themselves by their own long braids.
It was a disturbing insight for all the stars. But they knew they had seen only a fraction of what the Indian Army had seen on the systematic ethnic cleansing conducted by the Razakars (supporting militia of the East Pakistani Army). Leaning on rich archival material including singer’s diary notes etc, Sahar Zaman, herself a reputed journalist, columnist and founder of Hunar TV, records Talat Mahmood witnessing rooms full of bodies and skulls. Post-war therapy in the form of music and art, Sahar Zaman observes, becomes a very important aspect in conflict zones and that’s exactly what the film troupe of Mahmood, Dutts and Lata Mangeshkar provided.
The Mukti Bahini, which was later known as the Bangladesh Liberation Force, were part of the audience along with the Indian troops. Talat’s voice had a knack of pulling on the heartstrings and caressing your immediate sorrow. But this experience was very different for him. He had been to Chittagong before, for concerts and to meet his elder brother. He was a popular name there already, especially with his Bengali songs. But in the context of the misery he had seen at the relief camps, Talat closed his eyes, took a deep breath and sang his heart out, “Tomar akash bhore alor madhuri” (Your sky is filled with the sweetness of light).
Presenting a moving account, Sahar Zaman writes, “The crowd with moist eyes broke into a thunderous applause. To lift the mood, he sang, “Ei rim jhim jhim baroshay” (Listen to the pitter-patter of the rains). In her assessment, experiences such as these tend to get hit not just with grief but also with an acute awareness of one’s own age and mortality.
Talat Mahmood was always a sensitive man, Sahar Zaman writes, adding, “Back home in Bombay, he would take his beloved terrier, Teddy, out for evening walks at Carter Road. But he observed something amiss in his steps. He shared this with his brother-in-law and friend, Iftekhar”. He said, “I seem to stumble on my own steps sometimes. It sounds strange but I get caught in my own legs while walking.” “Why don’t you join the Bandra Gymkhana? It’s right next to home and you can catch some good sports there too,” responded Iftekhar. “The idea of signing up for the Bandra Gymkhana worked well for Talat’s mind and body. He got to hang out and catch up with his old friends Dilip Kumar and Johnny Walker there. They rekindled their old friendships and often started meeting at the gym, with each of them now having relatively more time at hand,” writes Zaman.
For Talat, India was the country of his choice and this is where he would dedicate his art and talent to. The unprecedented achievement of Independence after years of struggle and perseverance should have been marked with absolute joy but as Sahar Zaman rightly observes in Talat’s memoirs, the air was thick with the pain of partition across the country. It was impossible to escape the chaos and horror of it. The euphoria of India’s independence with Mahatma Gandhi’s phenomenal success of a non-violent movement came with the colossal flipside of partition.
As a prominent Muslim family of Lucknow who were passionate about India’s freedom struggle, Talat’s choice was simple. A secular India is what he strived for, so therefore, a secular country was to be their final choice. But even such simplistic-sounding decisions demanded a rollercoaster ride of emotions, loyalty and a legacy of belonging. While Talat, his unmarried sisters and his parents, were certain about staying back in India, his brothers eventually moved to Dhaka and Karachi in a few years. Their decisions, we are told by Sahar Zaman, were more governed by career choices than any ideological belief.
When the first general elections were held in 1951-52, Jawaharlal Nehru’s government encouraged a voluntary land reform movement in India called the Bhoodan movement (Land Gift movement). It was led by non-violent social activist Vinoba Bhave, who persuaded wealthy landowners to voluntarily give a percentage of their land to landless labourers who could cultivate the land for their own subsistence.
The government of Bombay wanted Talat to sing two theme songs for India’s first Five Year Plan. In those days, Bombay was a huge state which included parts of present-day Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Both songs were in Gujarati language, produced by the Gramophone Company Limited for the Directorate of Publicity in the government of Bombay. One of the songs on land donation was-
‘Avdhoot aayo, alakh jagayo Aayo che upvasi
Deen dalit na dukhda harto, sant Vinoba tyagi
Bhoomi daan do, bhoomi daan do’
(An ascetic has come, awakening the world
A fasting person has come
Removing sufferings of the poor and deprived, the sacrificing Saint Vinoba,
Donate Land, Donate Land)
According to Sahar Zaman, her grandfather’s favourite song was ‘Sham-e-gham ki kasam’ (I swear by the sadness of this night) from the film Footpath (1953). Dilip Kumar sang ‘Sham-e-gham ki kasam’ at the candlelight dinner waiting for the love of his life Meena Kumari to turn up. The picturisation of this particular song was flawless. “It’s perhaps the most dignified song on being stood up on a date by someone,” insists Sahar Zaman. Musician Khayyam has been quoted as saying, “Iss gaane ne dhoom macha di thi (The song was a sensational hit), even though it was an experiment for us. I decided not to keep any percussion instruments. There was no tabla, no dholak, no duff. It was a completely new kind of orchestration.” Talat Mahmood was at his best with his sweet and soulful voice.
The writer is a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. A well-known political analyst, he has written several books, including ‘24 Akbar Road’ and ‘Sonia: A Biography’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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