There is an apocryphal story about Roshan requesting S. D. Burman's permission to use the tune of Thandi hawaein, lehera ke aayen from Naujawan for a song Roshan was composing for Mamta. It seems Burman agreed and Roshan used it to create that lilting Rahein Na Rahein Hum. Parables like these, almost always have more than one lesson. First: that genuinely creative people are marked by a magnanimity and a respect for creative ownership that others, less endowed, lack. Second: the stamp of an individual's genius can forcefully wipe out every trace of the original material that he starts with. Listen to the ravishingly embellished Lata voice, the little tinkles in the background, the small flute interludes, the perfectly orchestrated flourishes - the little musical Shringars in the Mamta song and you will see Roshan sweetly dress-up Sachin Dev's musical gift with care and respect. Many years later, in the age-old Indian tradition of the son laying claim to his father's legacy, R. D. Burman's reversioned his father's Naujawan song for Sagar: Sagar Kinare is positively flat in comparision to Roshan's.

Whenever I have listened to many of the incredibly beautiful melodies of Lata singing for Madan Mohan, my heart has always gone out to the unfortunate character who sang it on screen. Nothing good was ever going to come her way. Even the happiest of melodies seemed only a brief interlude in this tragedy called life. The most passionate of songs were only an invitation to a doomed love. Each note from these beautiful compositions seemed to ride on a background of melancholy - sometimes only a hint like in Main To Tumse Nain Milake Haar Gayee Sajana from Manmauji, sometimes so completely suffused with it as in Rasm-e-Ulfat ko Nibhayen to Nibhayen Kaise from Dil Ki Rahein. Except for a few honourable exceptions, Sadhana (Mera Saaya, Woh Kaun Thi), Nutan (Dulhan Ek Raat Ki) and Nargis (Adalat), almost all Madan's compositions were sung by heroines who were never quite top-rung. Two of his great compositions Woh Bhuli Dastaan and Chala hai kahan from Sanjog was picturised on Anita Guha. Enduring classics Hai Isi mein Pyaar ki Aabroo and Aap ki nazron ne samjha were shot on Mala Sinha and Bindu sang Jiya le gayo jee mora sawariya in Anpadh. The number of Madan's gems wasted on Priya Rajvansh is an indication of the saturnine misfortune that dogged him all his life. When the heroine was right, the film flopped. Nutan's Dulhan Ek Raat Ki with Sapnon mein agar mere was removed from theatres after just four days. Just once, Madan had his moment in the sun. The Director was right. The Heroine was right. And the film was a certified hit - Raj Khosla's Woh Kaun Thi with Sadhana ran for 25 weeks and every one thought Madan's work in the film would surely get the Filmfare award for that year. It got a nomination. But as the rumour goes a rival Music Director rigged the poll and laughed all the way to the podium. Raj Khosla who had worked with him before on the musically memorable Mera Saaya used him in the flop Chiraag and then never worked with Madan again.

A beat in a song is a strange thing. Most often composers use it as a simple benign metronome, providing a reference point for the orchestra and the singer to move around and periodically return to. Sometimes it can be overpowering as in O. P. Nayyar's compositions tightly reigning the singers to its unchanging and unyielding authority. Between these extremes lies a third role: percussion as accompanying singer with equal role and prominence with the singer and the beat making openings for one another as in a duet. None used this to sweeter effect and success than the master Sachin Dev Burman. Here are 5 five songs that best illustrate this:

Script writing is the art of compressing time on celluloid. Garm Hawa (dir: M. S. Sathyu, 1973) opens with a tired Salim Mirza (Balraj Sahni) emerging from the Agra Railway Station. The waiting tongawala, possibly a low-caste Hindu, asks him, his voice - a half mock the other half half pity - Aaj Kise chod aye miyan.... In those first 5 seconds of the film and in that line, is compressed the post-partition trauma of the sub-altern Muslim in India of that period. Of hard painful choices and each one made at great personal cost. Of the oppotunistic mendacity of the ruling class in both communities. And of the thoughtless strife that those in power spread in the lives of innocent bystanders. I saw Garm Hawa in 1973. I was fifteen then and I remember the 130-odd minutes of the film to be a major rite of passage in my first steps to adulthood. Such was the power of Balraj Sahni's potrayal of Salim Mirza that for the first time I knew what it meant to be an adult in the real world. With real pain and with real consequences of real decisions.