Golden Age of Hindi Film Music...In Ten Episodes

Let us step into the sixties.  Actually before we do that, one more thing. When I termed the years 1950 to 1975 as the Golden Age of Hindi Films, did the so-called "regional" industries from the rest of India share that sentiment about their respective filmdom as well? Meaning, were they going through their own version of the Golden Age? Perhaps. Just in terms of sheer numbers, the studios in Madras made more movies per year compared to Bombay. That is because the four South Indian industries were headquartered in Madras till the late eighties and in some years made over three hundred and fifty movies a year.  Kodambakkam was teeming with filmy talent. (Photo above:  Southern music directors   (Clockwise from top):  MB Sreenivasan,  Devarajan master, MS Viswanathan, Ghantasala, KV Mahadevan, GK Venkatesh,  S Rajeshwara Rao, G Ramanathan) Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy (the Shankar Jaikishan of the South), KV Mahadevan, Ghantasala,  GK Venkatesh (I...

I don’t know if there is anyway to be objective about music. It is not like string theory or the tuning fork experiment that you can postulate things through a well-established procedure. Music is one of those disciplines where you are afforded the right to be openly prejudiced about your preferences, and allowed to get away with phrases such as “personal taste”, “can’t relate to that music”, et al, and shut out the counter-opinion without sounding chauvinistic or downright stupid. I am starting there because this series will have a bunch of opinions. Opinions that you will perhaps vehemently disagree with.  Opinions that will shake the very foundations of your thought process.  Opinions that will make you pose the existential question, Who Am I ? No, no. I am not going that far. Just know that my music tastes were largely conditioned by my family of delightful bigots. That includes my mom that bursts with South Indian pride quite inopportunely; my rabid SPB-S Janaki loving ...