Was it a mere coincidence that RK Films was set up in 1948, just a few months after Independence? Probably not, for Raj Kapoor's coming of age was in a sense symbolic of the unshackling of the Indian genius. Independence resulted in the blossoming of our creativity hitherto hemmed in by colonial constraints and alien cultural values. India's recent emergence as an Entertainment Superpower, next only to the United States, is thus closely linked to the country's post-Independence saga, its trials, tribulations and triumphs.

Hindi cinema has performed two crucial roles over the past 60 years. First, it became the contemporary version of Nehru's "silken bond" that invisibly knit India together over millennia and, second, it helped the country acquire the confidence to take on established entertainment giants. In the process India's film industry emerged as the world's biggest. If the legislature, executive and judiciary are the three recognised pillars of democracy, in India three other pillars - the media, cinema and cricket - are undoubtedly the additional columns of support on which the national edifice rests.

While Indian cinema is a celebrated global story, the contribution of film music to that story is very often underplayed. It is music that distinguishes Indian films from the rest. Can you remember a Hollywood film since Sound of Music, My Fair Lady or Mary Poppins in which the leading protagonists burst into songs? They were all early 1960s stuff, a time when Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard were not just music icons but celluloid heroes too.

But in Hindi (or any Indian language film for that matter) it is unimaginable that the hero/heroine won't lip at least a couple of songs, even if nowadays they don't make soulful romantic duets any more. Music, truly, is the soul of Indian, especially Hindi, cinema. Even today, despite the frightening decline of quality, the pre-release sale of overseas music rights generates sufficient revenues to insulate producers against possible commercial failure at home.

On the occasion of India's 60th Independence Day, it is time to recall the magnificent contribution of music to the shaping of the Bollywood Saga. Appropriately, the musical journey too began with Raj Kapoor, the first producer-director to accord music the primacy it truly deserved. Admittedly, RK Films' first offering, Aag, did not really break with norm. A 20-something Raj Kapoor was diffident about experimentation and settled for tested composer Ram Ganguly who came up with a competent score, the one memorable number being Dekh chand ki ore musafir, dekh ghata ghanghor.

But the commercial success of Aag spurred the director to boldly hire two young instrumentalists, part of Ganguly's orchestra, as India's first music director duo. Shankar and Jaikishan, both roughly Kapoor's contemporaries, became salaried employees of RK Films, drawing Rs 500 every month and contracted to compose for all films made under that banner. Barsaat was the duo's debut venture and, although the tune structures were still quite conservative, Shankar-Jaikishan lived up to the faith reposed in them. The public lapped it up.

By the time Awara happened in 1951, the songs were on everybody's lips. Even in post-Soviet Russia, an Indian is often accosted on the streets with garbled renditions of its simple, melodious title song.

Shankar-Jaikishan blazed a trail rarely etched in any nation's culture of music. Blending Western instruments like the guitar, bongo, drums, saxophone, trumpet, violin, piano accordion, with Indian ragas as well as accompaniments like the tabla, sitar, sarod and sarangi, the duo were a flamboyant expression of our innate genius for creativity and fusion. They were equally adept at foot-tapping, fast-paced numbers like Mud mud ke na dekh and the lilting Pyar hua iqrar hua (both Shree 420) and Ae bhai zara dekh ke chalo in contrast with Jaane kahan gaye woh din (Mera Naam Joker).

This is not the place to recount S-J's incredible repertoire, but no account of India's musical journey can be attempted without recording their humungous contribution to enriching our popular culture and communicating through the eternal language of music to help the process of cultural integration.

The 1950s and 1960s have rightly been termed the Golden Era of Hindi film music. India was throbbing with vitality during that period, at least till the border conflict with China, Nehru's consequent demise, the Bihar drought of 1966 and political instability resulting from the fractured verdict of the 1967 General Election, caused some of the post-Independence euphoria to subside.

Interestingly, Hindi cinema was at its escapist best during the 1960s, turning away from the grim realism of Mother India and Do Bigha Zameen, Dharmaputra and Pyasa to Shammi Kapoor or Joy Mukherjee extravaganzas like Junglee, Kashmir Ki Kali, An Evening In Paris, Love In Tokyo, Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon, Tumse Achchha Kaun Hai or breezy Dev Anand entertainers like Kala Bazaar, Love Marriage and the like. It would be incorrect to say that serious commercial cinema was completely relegated to the background. Risking commercial failure, Basu Bhattacharya made Teesri Kasam, while Vijay Anand's Guide set a benchmark for quality cinema with box office ingredients.

But the running thread through all these films was their extraordinary musical appeal. If composers like Naushad, Madan Mohan, Roshan focused on India's inherent classical heritage in films like Baiju Bawra and Mughal-e-Azam, Anpadh and Haqeeqat, Barsaat Ki Raat and Mamta, the 1960s also saw the emergence of talented music-directors who broke away from set patterns to bring rhythm into our lives.

OP Nayyar was the celebrated emperor of the new trend. His innovative clippety-clop hoof-beat captured the imagination of the first generation post-Independence teenager. Compositions like Tareef karun kya uski, Pukarta chala hoon main, Haule haule saajna, Laakhon hain nigaah mein, preceded by numbers like Yeh hai Bombay meri jaan, sent youth into ecstasy.

Ramchandra Chitalkar (better known as C. Ramchandra), although highly under-rated, gave us classics like Meri jaan meri jaan Sunday ke Sunday, Shaam dhale khidki taley, Shola jo bhadke and countless other foot-tappers. Ravi, favourite of the BR Chopra camp, oscillated between foxtrot (Baarbaar dekho) and soulful melodies like Chalo ekbar phir se ajnabee ban jayen or crooner numbers like Aage bhi jaane na tu and an innovative qawwali, Ae meri Zohra zabeen. Jaidev came up with an extraordinary score in Hum Dono with Main zindagi ka saath and Abhi na jaao chhodkar.

Khayyam had already made his mark as a serious composer with Woh subah kabhi to aayegi in Phir Subah Hogi, although he had to wait till the 1970s to get his due recognition with Kabhie-Kabhie. Even a barely acknowledged composer, Iqbal Qureshi crafted an incredibly sensuous number Ek chameli ke mandve taley for an obscure film titled Cha Cha Cha (with Helen and one Chandrashekhar in the lead). Innumerable compositions by Hemant Kumar, especially for Bees Saal Baad, and Salil Choudhury (crowning glory, Madhumati) helped reveal the multi-hued bouquet of musical talent that India possessed.

Melodies crafted by such hugely talented men probably made the depressing 1960s - fraught with a succession of military conflicts, food shortages, separatist agitations, insurrections and trade union militancy - somewhat bearable. No wonder, among the first diktats from the Naxalites in the late 1960s was against Hindi films and particularly the broadcast of Hindi film songs over loudspeakers at pujas and other public functions.

Trends started to change from the mid-1960s with the entry of talented youngsters like Rahul Dev Burman and Shankar-Jaikishan's worthy successors, Laxmikant and Pyarelal. RD Burman inherited the fabulous legacy of his legendary father Sachin Dev, while L-P worked for a while with another successful duo Kalyanji-Anandji, before branching out independently.

SD Burman was a discerning composer who refused to join the rat race and confined himself mostly to films made under the Navketan banner with Dev Anand as leading man. His compositions for films like Baazi, Taxi Driver, Bambai Ka Babu, Tere Ghar Ke Samne, Shart, Kala Bazar, Jewel Thief and Prem Pujari, apart from Guide, not only catapulted Dev Anand into a league of his own but also charmed at least two generations, setting a high water mark of musical quality.

His incredibly talented son Rahul Dev, similarly fashioned the taste of the 1970s generation with Hare Rama Hare Krishna's superhit Dum maro dum. By the time untimely death snatched him away, RD Burman had etched an iconic place for himself. His swan song, 1942: A Love Story showcased the enormity of his musical genius. So much so that Jhankar Beats, a crossover film made a couple of years ago, was a tribute to his mastery over both melody and instrumentation.

Laxmikant-Pyarelal's contribution lay in awakening middle India to the charm of commercial music. Most composers hitherto targeted the urban audience and Westernisation was seen as the route to fame and fortune. Starting with C-grade potboilers starring Dara Singh, Sheikh Mukhtar and then glorified 'extra' Mumtaz, in films like Ustadon Ke Ustad and Shreeman Funtoosh or mythologicals such as Sati Savitri and Sant Gyaneshwar, L-P ended their career composing for every big banner in the industry, dislodging S-J from RK Films with Bobby, Ravi from the Chopra camp with Daag and Dastaan, Kalyanji-Anandji from Manoj Kumar's films with Shor and Roti Kapda Aur Makan, besides being the favoured music directors of Manmohan Desai (Amar Akbar Anthony) and Subhash Ghai (Karz to Karma).

L-P's trademark dholak beat and mastery over folk (Milan, Do Raaste) helped them strike an instant rapport with rural and semi-urban audiences that became massive consumers of popular music following the transistor revolution and growth of Vividh Bharati.

Through the 1990s and initial years of the 21st century's first decade, film music has undergone further mutation. Although Nadeem-Shravan have faded out now, their breezy romantic compositions for Aashiqui, Dil Hai Ke Maanta Nahin and Pardes filled the vacuum caused by the exhaustion of the veterans by the early 1990s and provided much needed continuity to the popular musical tradition. The hugely talented AR Rahman took the world of music by storm in the late 1990s with Roja and Bombay and still enchants music lovers with his originality, which effortlessly creeps into listeners' minds.

Rajesh Roshan on occasion, Jatin-Lalit till recently and Anu Malik the indefatigable, are probably the only composers to straddle the change. Anu started with Mard, evicting L-P from the Manmohan Desai camp, but still manages to uphold the supremacy of melody in the face of middle India's reigning icon Himesh Reshamiyya, as in the 2004 hit, Murder. Music direction is nowadays a clinical activity, involving loads of research, wanton fusion and hi-tech mix 'n' match. Lovers of melody bemoan the demise of creativity in an age characterised more by remixes than originals.

Yet, it would be unfair to conclude melody is dead. Young trio Shankar, Ehsan and Loy has contributed some splendid stuff to our burgeoning heritage particularly in Karan Johar's NRI-oriented films. Their vast repertoire need not be judged only by the superbly blended hit, Kajrare kajrare.

Film music continues to be the most powerful cultural bond for nearly 1.2 billion Indians. It is a bond that has crossed our shores and captivates the Indian diaspora for whom music is a constant reminder of their roots. It is a much more effective unifier than cinema since linguistic diversity often comes in the way of non-Hindi speakers fully grasping a movie's content. Music, on the other hand, has no language. Thus Tamilian Rahman communicates with Indians across the globe with the same easy facility as bhangra superstar Daler Mehndi.

India is secure as a nation and so are Indians as a people as long as film music continues to play its rarely acknowledged role of catalyst of cultural integration. On India's 60th birthday, what better way of reaffirming our affection than singing in unison, Yeh mera India, I love my India?

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, August 12, 2007