Latest news with #BasantBahar
Time of India
09-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
‘There's only one Lata Mangeshkar in the universe, just like there was one Krishna in Mahabharat,' says Hridaynath Mangeshkar as he remembers his sister on Raksha Bandhan
On the auspicious occasion of ' Raksha Bandhan ', Hridaynath Mangeshkar opens up about his sister, 'Bharat Ratna' Lata Mangeshar and his memories with her. He reveals how she was a father figure to the siblings, his opinion on her as a singer, how she could take up challenges amidst more. Excerpts: What are your earliest memories of Lata Didi? Of a father figure. When our father (Pandit Dinanath Mangeshkar) passed away, she looked after all us siblings like a father. She made sure all of us were fed before she ate. Every morsel that I eat, I am reminded of Didi's sacrifices for us. There were times she would go hungry but she made sure we ate. Did you attend her recordings? Not frequently. I remember attending her recording of Main piya teri tu jaane ya jaane (Basant Bahar) and Kahin deep jalehahin dil (Bees Saal Baad). Before the recording of Kahin deep jale, she had some problems with her throat. The doctors said she may not be able to sing again. But she bounced back, and how! If you wanted Didi to do something , all you had to do was tell her she won't be able to do it. What's your opinion of Lataji as a singer? I grew up with her. I guess an artiste's personality is bound to reflect in his or her art. LataMangeshkar is nota personality that comes along in every century, not even in two or three centuries. Her talent transcends time. It's our good fortune that I as a composer and you as a journalist co-existed with her. Yeh bade bhagya ki baat hai. I agree completely. She used to tell me she was scared of singing your tunes... She was just being a humble artiste to honour her brother. Her command over the twelve notes without overdoing them was amazing. When she did a happy song she made us laugh. When she did a sad song she made us cry. She could convey all emotions through her voice. I've no words to describe her talent. A talent like her comes along once in a thousand years. Nobody has heard the mythic Tansen. But to our good fortune we have heard Lata Mangeshkar . She became a legend in her own lifetime. There are other good singers like Kishore Kumar, Mohd Rafi, Asha Bhosle and Anuradha Paudwal. But no one can equal Didi. I've been a practicing musician for seventy years. I've never encountered a singer like her. And I'm not saying this because she's my sister. Go on… I could say the same about my other sisters Ashaji and Ushaji or about my guru Ustad Amir Khan. But I won't. They are not as timeless as Lata Mangeshkar. There was only one Krishna in the Mahabharata. Likewise there's only one Lata Mangeshkar.
The Hindu
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Hamsageethe: Standing the test of time
The year 1975 was a culturally significant one for parallel cinema in Karnataka, with the release of MS Sathyu's Garam Hava, BV Karanth's Chomana Dudi, Pallavi by P Lankesh, Kankana by MBS Prasad and GV Iyer's Hamsageethe. While the first two films received a great deal of critical attention, Hamsageethe faded from public memory despite the two national awards it won. A cut above This year marks five decades of the film, (Hamsageethe was released on August 17, 1975) which won praise for its imaginative cinematography by Nemai Ghosh, absorbing music by M Balamuralikrishna and BV Karanth, artwork by P Krishnamurthy, stellar acting by Ananth Nag, BV Karanth and Rekha Rao, and direction by Iyer. Hamsageethe (which means swan song) tells of the circumstances that lead 19th-century Carnatic singer Bhairavi Venkatasubbaiah to defy royal patronage and declare, through self-mutilation of the tongue, that 'music is nobody's slave'. Hamsageethe is based on Talukina Ramaswamayya Subba Rao's (TaRaSu) eponymous 1952 novel. The Hindi film, Basant Bahar based on the novel, was made in 1956. Directed by MV Raman, the songs composed for Basant Bahar are still counted among the most melodious, and the movie won Certificate of Merit for the Best Feature Film in Hindi at the fourth National Film Awards in 1956. Insider's view Hamsageethe marked a significant milestone in his career, says actor Ananth Nag, adding, 'My portrayal of Bhairavi Venkatasubbaiah was noted for its depth and sensitivity in portraying personal dilemma. It influenced my approach to subsequent roles and in understanding a character's inner conflicts.' 'The film underscored the importance of storytelling that resonated with audiences on an emotional and intellectual level,' says the actor. According to Ananth, around the time Hamsageethe was released, the parallel cinema movement was slowly gaining acceptance in Karnataka, and encouraged Iyer to craft it along the lines of new wave cinema. Rekha Rao, who plays Chandra, the female protagonist, recalls her experience in working with Iyer in Hamsageethe, saying, 'I was just 16 then. Iyer had watched my performance in a play and decided to cast me for the role.' Following Hamsageethe, Rekha says she acted in films including Kuduremotte, Naalegalannu Maaduvavaru, VRK Prasad's Prema-Kama and S Diwakar's Ithihasa. 'It was a wonderful experience to work with Iyer, he was a master of filmmaking.' Barefoot filmmaker Director Ganapathi Venkatarama Iyer, popularly known as the 'barefoot filmmaker' because he renounced footwear, began his creative career in Kannada theatre. On entering commercial cinema, he acted, produced and directed, eventually gaining recognition for Vamshavruksha, which he jointly directed with Girish Karnad and BV Karanth. Hamsageethe came three years later, and was hailed for the fact that its dialogues lasted no more than 18 minutes. Critics and film historians regard Hamsageethe as one of Iyer's best films, mainly for the appropriate use of classical Carnatic music. Iyer was convinced that the limitation of the spoken word could be overcome through the creative powers of music. Musical hinge Venkatasubbaiah, the protagonist in Hamsageethe, struggles to attain mastery over the Raga Bhairavi. Eventually, his prowess and fame increase and he is recognised as a court vidwan. Blinded by royal favour and growing fame, Venkatasubbaiah belittles his teacher at a performance, and humiliated by this public demonstration of his musical shortcomings, his guru, Tirumalayya dies by suicide. Disturbed and remorseful, Venkatasubbaiah goes in search of a new guru, whom he finds in a recluse living in the hills. He learns from his new teacher and attains perfection. Around the same time, he falls in love and is constantly in need of resources to maintain his life, causing him to pledge two of his compositions as surety to his creditors. The film features a number of songs composed by musical greats including Purandara Dasa, Oothukkadu Venkatasubbayyar, Jayadeva, Shama Shastry, and Muthuswamy Dikshitar, and were sung by leading voices of the day such as M Balamuralikrishna, ML Vasantha Kumari, Ramamurthy P Leela, B Vasantha and BK Sumithra. Hamsageethe is still loved for its use of tanam, Himadrisuthe, Chintam Nastikilam, Manamaye, Kalinganarthana Thillana, and Sri Saraswathi, as well as excerpts from Geetha Govinda, Nathahare, Thava Virahe Vanamali, and Amba Tavapadambhoja. Celebration of dance Apart from music, Hamsageethe was a celebration of classical dance forms — Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, and was choreographed by Radhakrishna and Adyar K Lakshman. The film was shot to emphasise the barren, rocky backdrop of Chitradurga as an analogy for a musician's quest for aesthetic rigour. Art director P Krishnamurthy effectively made use of the Chitradurga fort with the support of cinematographer Nemai Ghosh. In talks with Iyer When GV Iyer passed away in 2003, at the age of 86, he was still actively pursuing his craft and one of his films remains unreleased. This author met him in 1993, when Iyer was making Bhagavad Gita, the first Sanskrit language film with few dialogues in Hindi and Telugu. When asked why he chose to keep the dialogues in Hamsageethe to a minimum, Iyer had said, 'People have failed to understand that cinema is primarily a visual medium. I believe that silence has a greater impact on the audience than spoken words.' After multiple readings of the novel Hamsageethe, Iyer decided to translate the text through visuals supported by music and silences. 'I placed the camera on the upper part of the Hidimbeshwara temple to capture the basic ethos of the time. In the second shot, I presented a lantern with black-tinted glass. With these two shots, I narrated 30 pages of the text,' Iyer said. The director was influenced by some of the great pieces of world cinema such as Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries and John Ford's How Green Was My Valley — a few scenes from Hamsageethe are a nod to these masterpieces.
