Wednesday, 14 October 2015

1923 - 13th OCTOBER 1967 VASANT PRABHU

Last month, I tried to find the list of all songs
included in the LP release titled : Vasant Bahar. I guess
this LP was released around 1978; its release may even
have been prompted by 10th death anniversary of Vasant
Prabhu who died in Sept/Oct 1968 at the age of 45. The
LP 'Vasant Bahar' (not Bahaar but Bahar, IIRC) is a
collection of 12 songs composed by Prabhu and sung by
Lata. P Savlaram, who died around Dec 1997, was the
lyricist for 10 of 12 songs on the LP. He had written
a note for the LP.
Vasant Prabhu is a forgotten legend today, not known even
to many of those who have liked his songs over many
decades but very dear to those who know what a genius he
was. His Hindi output is not much. He composed music for
the film 'Gharbaar'; his two non-film Hindi bhajans by
Lata are fairly well-known : 'dil dharawe so ik nyaaraa
hai' and 'mai.nyaa morii mai.n nahii.n maakhan khaayo'.
He was very prolific in Marathi space. Savlaram has
mentioned how Prabhu's very first song for Lata became
a rage : 'gangaa yamunaa DoLyaat ubhyaa kaa', sung by
a mother bidding farewell to her daughter as the latter
leaves her village with her in-laws after marriage.
This was the first song for which Prabhu, Savlaram and
Lata worked together. Lata was 19 that time, Prabhu 25.
I don't know which songs, if any, Prabhu had recorded
before this. Savlaram went on to write many songs for
Prabhu. A vast majority of Prabhu's songs were sung by
Mangeshkar sisters. Contribution by Sudhir Phadke and
Hridaynath to Asha's sterling Marathi career is often
recalled. As he was in life, Prabhu is forgotten in
death. Asha herself rarely/never mentions him and should
be ashamed of herself. As great as Prabhu-Asha combo was,
Prabhu-Lata pair was in a class by itself. Prabhu's
songs, like Talat's, are repetitive but no less dearer
to his fans for it. As poet-composer Sudhir Moghe has
remarked, the songs are like siblings who are very close
in looks and traits but each of whom has just enough
distinctiveness which makes him special. Alas, Lata is
in a class by herself as ungrateful person and does not
mention Vasant Prabhu any more than her younger sister
does.
Vasant Prabhu was a dance teacher. This is reflected in
his songs. They use theka which has 'bounce' to it. Even
in his somber songs, its unseen presence can often be
felt. I cannot recall any song of his set to Deepchandi
or Roopak taal, let alone the rare Jhaptaal. It is dadra
and keherwa and more dadra and more keherwa all the time.
He was composing songs in significant quantity soon after
1950, mostly of non-film variety. But he did some films
like 'Wadal' (waadaL), too, in that time-frame. In the
second half of the fifties, he got quite a few film
assignments and his non-film output became more numerous.
Much of it is utterly forgotten but nearly all of it is
of very high calibre.
Nerurkar's book on Lata carries an announcement about a
book on Prabhu. The book was supposed to come out in 1990
but later the project was abandoned. Due to lack of good
source material, I am having to depend on memory and some
guesswork to compose this post. But after 1960, the
assignments to Prabhu became less frequent and he started
drinking heavily. His depression was darkened by the
death of his daughter. He was very fond of her but one
day when she requested to skip school due to ill-health,
Prabhu in his drunken state beat her and ordered her to
attend the school. She left home reluctantly only for her
dead body to be returned home when her health
deteriorated rapidly after leaving home. The tragedy cast
a dark pall over the remaining years of Prabhu's life.
His wife lives in Mumbai and I had toyed with the idea of
meeting her but time was short and I abandoned the idea.
Even Prabhu's mother was alive until very recently. She
died around 1998.
It is a measure of the neglect suffered by Prabhu and a
mark of how slow we Indians are in many areas that even
the information about a great LP put together to
commemorate his genius could not be found on the web or
in Usenet archives. With the help of some friends, I could
finally put together a list of the songs on the Vasant
Bahar LP. I had first planned to post a request on rmim
for the LP's stats, then thought of posting the stats
and have now ended up composing this post (over 3-4
weeks) which I hope will awaken memories of Prabhu's fans
and alert those who did not know about him to explore his
output. The MIO site (musicindiaonline dot com) features
quite a few of Prabhu's songs and deserves our gratitude
for it.
I will post the Vasant Bahar LP's stats soon.
Just as Ga Di Madgulkar and Sudhir Phadke formed a
lyricist-MD pair, so did P Savlaram and Vasant Prabhu.
When the pair joined forces with Lata and their very
first song together took Maharashtra by storm, Bai
Sundarabai Jadhav, herself a singer and composer of
genius, said to them : "The three of you are blessed by
the God. That is the reason everything has come together
so beautifully in your song." Sundrabai died in 1953 and
did not get to enjoy the fruits of Prabhu's genius beyond
the first few years of his career but it was a fitting
tribute by an artiste about to take her bow to a budding
combination which ranks very high among the delights
available to connoisseurs of vintage music.

Vasant Prabhu

/ On : 8:12 AM / Thank you for visiting this website.
Vasant Prabhu:
Vasant Prabhu rendered sweet and simple compositions which had a classical base. Lata Mangeshkar sung the BhavgeetGanga Jamuna dolyat ka composed by Vasant Prabhu in 1948. The trio of Lata Mangeshkar, Vasant Prabhu and P Savlaram garnered unprecedented success in the field of film music and bhavgeet after the film Kanyaadaan.
Vasant Prabhu had learnt the Katthak dance form as a child. He was tall and well built and wanted to become an actor in films so he moved to Kolhapur and Pune. Finally, he went to Mumbai and got a job as a music composer in HMV.
Prabhu composed the music for some songs as well as choreographed some dance sequences for the film Ram Ram Pavhana. He composed the music for a Thumri for the film Vaadal, which was produced under Lata Mangeshkar’s Surel Chitra. The thumri was so enchanting, that the audience at a movie theatre in Nagpur threatened to destroy the theatre if the sequence was not shown again. Finally, an extra print of only the thumri sequence was made and shown as per the requests for once mores. This is an exceptional incident in the world of cinema!
Through a lot of hard work, Prabhu managed to make actress Sulochana, a non-dancer at that time, dance beautifully for Dinkar D Patil’s film Taaraka. The audience appreciated Sulochana’s dance, and she was thus recognised as an artist who could also dance.
P Savlaram’s songs were full of motherly love, magnanimity and sentiments. His songs, Ghat doivar, ghat kamarevar and Jo avadto sarvanna became very popular. In Dinkar Patil’s ambitious film, Bhairav, Prabhu got some songs sung by Pandit Firoze Dastur and Dashrat Pujari. He made Pandit Firoz Dastur sing in raagdaari, which was unprecedented. In Putra vhava aisa, Prabhu made the Hindi film singer Talat Mahmud sing two songs in Marathi, which was a first for Talatji. He composed music for several films from 1950 to 1975.
He used to refer to Lata Mangeshkar’s voice as a gift from God. It is said that he used to think up tunes while lying in the balcony at night and the next day he would to go to his friend Maruti Keer’s house to play out the tunes on the harmonium. He was very independent and would never go out of his way to ask for work. At the same time, he was not very street smart. He was honest, straightforward, disciplined, punctual and hot tempered. He had an inbuilt sense of music. Nobody used the violin in songs as beautifully as Prabhu. His audio records always used to sell-out. His most memorable songs are: Tuzhya gala, mazhya gala, Kokila ga, Premswarup aai, Madhumaagasi mazhya, Jan palbhar mhantil. Madhu Potdar’s beautifully written book on Vasant Prabhu, Manasicha chitrakaar to has to be read to know more about Vasant Prabhu. Labels: 

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