Milestone Songs of Usha Khanna... (Music Composer)
Usha Khanna is the only female music director in the
Indian Film Industry till now.She made a history by surviving for three decades in an almost exclusively male dominated profession and industry.
Usha Khanna was born in
Gwalior to a family of good musical background . Her father was a lyricist and singer and had a
Masters in music.she gradually developed interest in music .
Usha was a talented as a kid started learning music when she was very young. Her father was quite a close associate of lyricist
Indeevar. She met S. Mukherjee when Indeevar took introduced her to him . After hearing a few of her songs, he asked her from which film she'd picked them up. She told him they're her own songs!
Hits like ‘Chodo kal ki baaten’ from
Hum Hindustani slowly established Usha.
Remember Usha's lilting 'Chodo kal ki baaten' tune that can be heard in advertisements. Because she had faced so much hardship and resistance when she was once a new comer herself she has always been kind to new comers. This is illustrated by the fact that she didn’t rely on famous singers alone. This sole woman in her field was one who discovered and gave a break to singers like
Jaspal Singh,
Pankaj Udhas,
Anupama Deshpande,
Hemlata,
Vinod Rathod,
Mohammed Aziz,
Shabbir Kumar and Roopkumar Rathod.
The composer was last known for her brilliant work in
Saawan Kumar’s
Souten.
Songs like ‘
Shaayad meri shaadi ka khayal’ and ‘
Zindagi pyaar ka geet hai’ went on to become chartbusters. She also composed soulful music in
Agar Tum Na Hote.’ After achieving success on her own terms perhaps the only thing in life that perhaps didn’t go according to plan was her marriage to producer-director Saawan Kumar. ‘It was my biggest mistake,’ she says with a touch of regret in her voice.
It was good for the film world and music fans that even after the couple broke up they continued working together. Usha did the background score of Saawan Kumar’s ‘
Sajan Bina Suhagan’.
Usha Khanna's father, Manohar
Khanna, was a lyricist and singer, but she had no formal training in music.
Even though she did often take inspiration from
Arabic music, which she liked. Usha claims that she has never lifted of any song directly, but that she has composed something along the lines.
The popular music director
O. P. Nayyar introduced Usha Khanna to meet
Sashadhar Mukherjee, a powerful man in the
Indian film industry at that time. She sang a song for Mukerji, and when he realised that she had composed the song on her own, he told her to compose two songs per day for one year. After a few months, Mukherjee signed her as the composer for his movie
Dil Deke Dekho (
1959) as a music composer. The film, which also introduced the actress
Asha Parekh, became a big hit, and Mukherjee hired her again for another Asha Parekh starrer Hum Hindustani (
1961).
After she started composing music for Hindi movies, Usha Khanna had to struggle hard to establish herself as a music director, despite producing many hit songs. She often used the combination of
Asha Bhosle, who referred to Usha Khanna as her daughter, and
Mohammed Rafi. This trio produced many hit songs.
Saawan Kumar was often the lyricist for Usha Khanna, and wrote most of his lyrics for songs composed by her. He directed and produced the lyrics for eleven movies she scored the music for. In
1979 K J Yesudas received
Filmfare award for her song Dil ke tukde tukde in the film
Dada.
The effort she had put in to establish her in the industry, made her know how difficult it was to break through, and made her often give the chance to new singers. She gave the chance to the singers who were little known at that time – Anupama Deshpande, Pankaj Udhas, Hemlata, Mohammed Aziz,
Roop Kumar Rathod, Shabbir Kumar, and
Sonu Nigam. Many of these went on to become notbale singers. Usha Khanna herself also sing a few song as a playback singer.
Many of Usha Khanna's songs are still very popular. One of
India's most well-known music composers,
A. R. Rahman, used her Har
Nazar Ke Sau Afsane from
Shabnam (1964), as inspiration for the song
Latka Dikha
Diya in the movie
Hindustani (
1996).
Usha Khanna was quite active as a composer until the mid-ninetees. Until now the last movie she has given music to was in
2003. The movie was
Dil Pardesi Ho Gaya, produced and directed by her ex-husband Saawan Kumar who she was briefly married to.
Usha Khanna had given music to non-hindi movies too. The
Malayalam movie 'Moodal
Manju' (
1969) is still remembered for some of the finest songs in
Malayalam including '
Nee Madu Pakaroo' by
K. J. Yesudas and 'Manasa
Mani veenayil' by
S.Janaki. Why she did not get many chances remains a mystery for many music lovers even now.