Lucknow, UTTAR PRADESH / Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA : 

New Delhi :

In his quivering voice you could hear the rustle of silk and the muffled sound of a broken heart. Few singers could put the listener in a blue mood like Talat Mahmood, who passed away on May 9 exactly 10 years ago.
And thanks to a website created by his son Khalid that gets about 1,50,000 hits every week from Indians and Pakistanis all over the world – “and a few Israelis”, Khalid adds – his memory is fresh as ever.

“Talat saab came from Lucknow and his Urdu pronunciation was perfect. He could exactly reproduce a song the way a composer had conjured up in his mind. He was an original singer whose distinctive voice was near impossible to duplicate,” recalls masterclass music director Khayyam.

One of the veteran music composer’s memorable compositions – Shaam-e-gham ki kasam (film: Footpath) – was sung by Talat, also known as king of ghazals. Khayyam recalls that in that memorable song he had experimented with the orchestration by not using any rhythm instrument like tabla.

“We used a piano, guitar and solo vox, a basic version of the synthesizer used in those days. Recording the number took plenty of time. But Talat saab ke mathe pe shikan nahi aayee,” he says.

Senior lyricist Naqsh Lyallpuri remembers a recording with the singer. The song was Zindagi kis mod pe laayi mujhe, from the film “Diwali ki Raat”. Snehal Bhatkar was the music director. Says Lyallpuri, “We had only two musicians at the rehearsal. They were playing the tabla and the sitar. But the producer liked his singing so much that he said, there is no need for any other instrument. We recorded the song with just those two instruments.”

Lyallpuri remembers Talat as an extremely soft spoken man. Which Khayyam affirms. “He was a perfect gentleman. With him there was no loose talk. He was always well-dressed: his shoes shining and his trousers perfectly creased.”

To honour his father’s memory, Khalid Mahmood set up a website, talatmahmood.net, just a few months after the singer’s death in 1998 at the age of 74. Apart from the huge number hits every day, he also gets about 200-300 emails every week.

“The choice for me was between doing a book and setting up a website. I settled for the latter because it is more accessible,” says Khalid.

Talat recorded his first track way back in 1941 and sang around 750 songs in 12 languages. He also acted in over a dozen movies such as “Dil-e-Nadaan”, “Lala Rukh” and “Ek Gaon Ki Kahani”.

Few know that the singer-actor aroused mass hysteria when he arrived in Trinidad in West Indies on a concert tour in 1968. Fans thronged the roads from the airport to the city. The local group, West Indies Steel Band, composed a Calypso track in his honour. They sang, “Talat Mahmood we are proud and glad, to have a personality like you here in Trinidad.”
Talat is long gone. But as long as the human heart knows how to fall in love and emerge with ache, his velvet voice will live on.

(avijit.ghosh@timesgroup.com)

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> India News / May 09th, 2008