And the Songs of Yore Award for the Best Music Director goes to?

I start with wishing the readers  Merry Christmas. After the Overview post and the three category-wise wrap ups – Wrap Up 1 for the best male solos, Wrap Up 2 for the best female solos, and Wrap Up 3 for the best duets – we now have a fairly good idea of who the dominant music directors were. Naushad with all his songs in Anokhi Ada and Mela – totalling about two dozen – being super hits, is undoubtedly top of the pack. Anil Biswas in Anokha Pyar, Gajre and Veena; C Ramchandra in Nadiya Ke Paar and Khidki; Husnlal-Bhagatram in Pyar Ki Jeet; Ghulam Haider in Shaheed; Ram Ganguly in Aag; and Khemchand Prakash in Ziddi gave some everlasting songs. The underrated genius, Ghulam Mohammad never fails to create outstanding songs, and he did so in Grihasthi and Pugree. There were others, too, whose one or two songs featured in the best lists.

Let us see how the above general picture is reflected in the category-wise lists. I am pooling together the three lists in the composite table below (I have also given the YT link of all the songs):

Best songs of 1948

We can now present the abstract of the same table music director-wise as follows:

Best music directors of 1948

The above Table speaks quite loudly – Naushad is miles ahead of the competition in the year. I have to add two caveats here. One, I am seen as a Naushad-partisan. And two, the general point that quantity does not necessarily denote quality. Even after making corrections for these two factors, I think we can fairly conclude that Naushad was the best music director in 1948.

What do the readers say? Arunji’s choice is Naushad (for Anokhi Ada). Gaddeswarupji’s choice is Naushad. KS Bhatiaji’s choice, too, for the best music director is Naushad. Shalan Lal chooses C Ramchandra, but, interestingly, not for the more obvious Nadiya Ke Paar, but Khidki. Mumbaikar8 goes for Ram Ganguly.

Mahesh makes an interesting observation – Gaaye ja geet milan ke is the only solo with the combination of Dilip Kumar, Mukesh, Shakeel Badayuni and Naushad together. This is true, because in the next Dilip Kumar-Mukesh-Naushad combination Andaaz (1949), the lyricist was Majrooh Sultanpuri. Thereafter, Naushad dispensed with Mukesh in spite of huge success with him in three films, until he resurrected him after about two decades in Saathi (1968), but now the hero was Rajendra Kumar. Dilip Kumar himself was never too excited about Mukesh, in spite of all his songs acquiring an iconic status [besides Mela and Andaaz songs, think of Suhana safar aur ye mausam haseen (Madhumati, 1958, Salil Chaudhary) and Ye mere deewanapan hai (Yahudi, 1958, SJ)]. Ironic!

Coming back from the digression, I think the readers would agree if I declare that:

The Songs of Yore Award for the Best Music Director of 1948 goes to Naushad.  I also pay a tribute to him on his 98th birth anniversary (25 December 1919 – 5 May 2006).