Talat Mahmood: More than just a master of melancholy

The voice that stirred hearts

In times when heartache is increasingly getting reduced to a clinical condition and melancholy has become an undervalued emotion, let us replay the gems of Talat Mahmood (1924-1998) whose birth centenary is being celebrated across the world.

The tremolo in Talat’s timbre echoes the feeling you get when your heart is broken and asks ‘Jaaye toh jaaya kahan’ (Taxi Driver, 1954). For those in a blue mood, his velvety voice works like the wind is to fire. Its greatest examples are Jalte hain jiske liye (Sujata, 1959) and “Tasveer banata hoon, tasveer nahin banti” (Baradari, 1955) where the gentle charm of his voice gradually moves you.

To mark the occasion, his grand-niece Sahar Zaman has penned a heartfelt biography, which combines journalistic rigour with the flair of an expert raconteuse telling the story of her Bambai Nana, as she fondly calls him. The book clears several misconceptions and brings to light some lesser-known facts about the singer. He gave up Bimal Roy’s Madhumati so that his friend Mukesh could tide over a lean phase and galvanised playback singers to get a royalty from music companies.

Talat, the dashing but quiet young man from Lucknow, inspired by K.L. Saigal chose to put all his expressions into his songs. Perhaps, that’s why he gave up acting after working with some top female actors in a dozen films. As ghazal singer, Talat Aziz says in the book it’s hard to define his voice. “He had a soft, rounded voice, yet he had a tremolo. When he sang a note, you could hear the tremolo on that one note. It’s very difficult. You can’t do it unless it’s a natural tremolo,” explains Aziz

Talat Mahmood found initial fame under the name of Tapan Kumar singing Bengali songs in Calcutta before shifting base to Bombay. His family faced the pangs of Partition as his brother Kamal Mahmood shifted to Karachi. Sahar notes when Talat went to see off his brother, he heard voices that said, ‘That’s Talat Mahmood, is he going to migrate? Hold him back. Don’t let him go.’ He responded to the emotion by singing, ‘Jai Hind, Allah-U-Akbar’ and ‘Bharat mata ke do pehlu.”

Years later, during a visit to Pakistan, Talat Mahmood discovered that Mehdi Hasan was an ardent fan of his. Noor Jahan wanted him to shift base to Pakistan but Talat was not for it. But he agreed to perform there. Apart from Mubarak Begum, he is the only singer to have sung in Pakistani films.

Discovered by Pankaj Mullick and nurtured by Anil Biswas, Talat was the favourite of composers who wanted to convey deep emotions through their tunes. When Ghulam Mohammad was composing for Sohrab Modi’s Mirza Ghalib (1954), Talat was the obvious choice to bring alive the bard’s iconic ghazal ‘Dil-e-nadaan tujhe hua kya hai’. Sahar writes, Madan Mohan was ready to give up Jahan Ara if Talat was not allowed to sing the three songs that he felt only Talat could sing. The film flopped but ‘Phir wohi sham’ remains timeless.