Khuda Khair Kare

In my younger days there were very few avenues of entertainment. Sometimes if we were lucky we went to the Cinema Hall to watch a movie or attend a music concert. During Durga Puja Festival part of the excitement was to watch the homegrown theatre groups perform on makeshift stage. The colonies of well to do people at times brought the famous theatre groups from Calcutta to stage shows. These were all free of any entry fee.

However, at home it was either books or the radio. We had a good collection of Bengali books in the local library. For English books there was Gopal’s Circulatory Library in the local market. I don’t know whether Gopal himself read books but he always suggested good ones to my sister or got the ones which my sister or others wanted to read.

Night time radio was a staple. Though we listened to it in the afternoons and other times too. Good programmes were timed when the family would get together and listen. As now we have teasers and promos, in those days we had sponsored programmes on radio which gave us glimpses of new releases of films – the outline of the screenplay with snatches of dialogues and songs. The production banner and the entire crew , especially, the lead actors and actresses, were all announced in these programmes. The programme  lasted for about fifteen minutes. Before these went on air their scheduled day and time of broadcast were made known through advertisements on the radio itself.

Much depended on the compere of the programmes. I remember Ameen Sayani was a hot favourite – his style of presentation made the programmes all the more interesting. His brother Hameed Sayani conducted the Bournvita Quiz Contest – a weekly broadcast –  till his untimely death.

There were other programmes too like Hawa Mahal which broadcasted Hindi stories and plays written by well known and upcoming writers. Inspector Eagle was another of the favourites. I have forgotten whose voice over it was for the lead role in this suspense based series but he always introduced himself as Inspaictor Eagal laying a good amount of highly accented stress on these two words. There was another one where a lorry driver and his assistant got into trouble wherever they took their supplies. The programme ended with the both of them resolving the mysterious issues before moving on to another thrilling adventurous journey.

In those days there was the now extinct breed of radio announcers who inflamed our romantic imaginations with their deep, sonorous voices. Contrarily, their looks did not always complement their attractive intonations, however, they were the “influencers” of those times who compelled us to include an impactful resonance of conversational tone in our playbook of imaginary romance.

Now who could forget that soulful “aap sabko Qabban Mirza ka adaab,” –  the opening line of the nightly musical programme Chhaya Geet –  infusing a kind of mystical charm to the show. Qabban Mirza was not only a known announcer he also dabbled in singing in private gatherings. During those times Kamaal Amrohi, one of the finest film directors of Bollywood, was making his last period movie Razia Sultan, the Warrior Queen. Legend has it that Yaqoob, a black war prisoner enslaved by Razia fell in love with her.

The timeless music of the film was being composed by ace music director, Khayyam Sahab. While the female voice to the haunting scores was being lent by  none other than the Nightingale of India, Lata Mangeshkar, for the male voice for just two songs Khayyam was looking for a grainy, sonorous texture befitting Yaqoob’s foreign antecedents –  a far cry from the those-days’ reigning silky romanticism of Mohammad Rafi and Kishore Kumar or the dolefulness of Mukesh.

Somebody named Qabban Mirza. Khayyam called him over, heard him sing, decided that this was it, recorded the songs and the rest is history. Out of the two songs, khuda khair kare catapulted Mirza to famedom. His typical Urdu diction , the musical drawl over certain chosen phrases of the wistfully romantic Ghazal and above all his booming rendition which was un-Ghazal like but at the same time passionately evocative was what defined the charismatic enigma of unrequited love.

However, Mirza could not savour his popularity for long. Soon after he was diagnosed with cancer and in no time left for  heavenly abode leaving behind two songs in his mellifluously granular, time defying voice.

Listen to the song…