Someone posted “Suhana Safar Aur Ye Mausam Haseen” as his status message at facebook.
The song is
It reminded me of Salil Chowdhury, who used to be my favorite composer for a while … in those days! Chowdhury, perhaps, never got the acclaim of Shankar-Jaikishan, SD Burman, LaxmiPyaare, RD Burman, or even Bappi Lahiri, but he carved out his own niche and none could equal him.
In those days, Jayamala was one of our favorite radio programs. We used to make sure to tune in to it and its repeat telecasts the next day (?) and again sometime in the week. It was a program dedicated to our brothers in the military (fauji bhaiyyon ke liye). A celebrity would present his favorite songs or songs relevant to a certain topic/theme.
In one such episode, Salil Chowdhury said that he almost always composed first and then had the someone pen down the lyrics. He said he was amazed at how Shailendra came up with the word Bichua” for his composition from Madhumati after the music was composed!
As a result, I developed immense respect for his lyricists also! Whereas Chowdhary composed some of the most amazing melodies in Hindi Film industry, he had managed to get equally amazing lyrics to go along with them!
