Anand Bakshi

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Anand Bakshi (21 July 1920 – 30 March 2002) was a popular Indian poet and lyricist.

Biography of Anand Bakshi

Early days

Anand Bakshi was born in Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan, in 1930.^[1] His ancestors were from Kurree, near Rawalpindi, and had origins in Kashmir. His mother, Sumitra, died 1940, when he was 20. Bakshi's family migrated to India (Lucknow) on 2 October 1947, in the aftermath of the partition, when he was 27 years old.^{[citation needed]}

Before he established himself as a lyrics writer for Hindi film songs, he served for 2 years in the Royal Indian Navy, (Karachi) and after partition he served 6 years in the Indian Army, based at Jabalpur, with The Corps of Signals, and later with the E.M.E., Infantry.^{[citation needed]}

His first published poem appeared in an Army publication, “Sainik Samachar”, 1950's and this fact boosted his morale and gave him confidence to try in Hindi films. While in the army he would write songs of the films he had seen just to get a feel of if he were the lyrics writer of that film what would he write. He would perform as a singer and actor in the theater plays, Bara Khambas, held on campus and earned the appreciation of his seniors too. All this fueled his dream to leave the Army once again for traveling to Bombay and join films.^{[citation needed]}

(Later on, in the late 90’s, he even wrote a special song for the Indian Military Academy, Dehra Dhun. He even wrote a song for the Corps of Signals, on their invitation. After his death, the Corps of Signals established a “Bakshi Corner” in their Corps Museum.)^{[citation needed]}

Success

Anand Bakshi came to Hindi films to make a name for himself in writing and singing but ended up becoming more successful in writing lyrics. He got his break writing songs in a Brij Mohan's film titled, "Bhala Aadmi", 1958, acted by Bhagwan Dada. He wrote 4 songs in this film. His first song in this film was "Dharti Ke Laal Na Kar Itna Malaal" which was recorded on 9 Nov 1956.

He found big success only in 1965 (Jab Jab Phool Khile) and went on to work as a lyricist of over 3500 songs and 650 films in the course of his life^{[citation needed]}. He got his first time singing in a film was in Mome Ki Gudiya(1972). The first song he sang was a duet “Baaghon me bahaar aayi hothon pe pukaar aayi”, along with Lata Mangeshkarfor music composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal. He also sang songs in 4 other films: Sholay (1975) where he sang the quawwali "Chand Sa Koi Chehera" along with Manna Dey, Kishore Kumar, Bhupinder; Maha Chor (1976); Charas (1976); and, Balika Badhu (1976).

After writing for few movies from 1956 onwards, Bakshi made a mark for himself for writing a quawalli for the 1962 film Kaala Samundar, the song was “Meri Tasveer Lekar Kya Karoge tum”, and the film Mehendi Lagi Mere Haath. He got his real big breakthroughs in 1965 with Himalaya Ki God Mein, and a huge breakthrough again in 1965 with the super hit film Jab Jab Phool Khile, starring Shashi Kapoor; and then again in 1967 with the super hit movie Milan (starring Sunil Dutt).

Anand Bakshi’s association in Hindi films with film Music Composers include appox 302 films with Laxmikant Pyarelal, 99 films with R D Burman, 32 with Kalyanji-Anandji, 26 with Anu Malik, 17 with Rajesh Roshan and 11 with Anand-Milind ans his songs have been sung by singers like Shamshad Begum, Alka Yagnik, Khursheed Bawra, Amirbai Karnataki, Bhushan & Party, Sudha Malhotra and more.

He wrote the first recorded songs of singers like Shailendra Singh, Kumar Sanu, Kavita Krishnamurthy, etc., and he established himself as a versatile lyricist with the song "Dum Maro Dum" in the movie Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1972).

After this, he wrote memorable lyrics in many movies including Bobby and Amar Prem (1971), Aradhana 1970, Jeene Ki Raah, Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Aaye Din Bahar Ke, Aya Sawan Jhoom Ke, Seeta Aur Geeta, Sholay (1975), Dharam Veer, Nagina, Hum (1991), Mohra (1994), Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Heer Raanjha, Dushman(film) (1998), Taal (1998), Mohabbatein (2000), Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001) and Yaadein.

Death

Late in his life, he suffered from heart and lung disease as a consequence of lifelong smoking. In 2001, he caught a bacterial infection at Nanavati hospital, during a minor heart surgery. He finally died of multiple organ failure on 30 March 2002, 8:00PM (IST) at Mumbai's Nanavati Hospital, at the age of 82^{[citation needed]}. The last released movie with lyrics by Anand Bakshi was Mehbooba (2008).

Awards

Bakshi received 40 Filmfare Award nominations, and won four Filmfare awards as best lyricist.

The songs awarded the Filmfare award were:

40 nominations of Filmfare awards:

1967 – C.I.D.A.L.C. (Committee International for the Diffusion of Arts and Literature through the Cinema) at the Festival Des Films Asiatiques, Frankfurt (Frankfurt Sur Main 1967).

He also won innumerable Ruby Film Awards, Aashirwad Film Awards, Sushma Shama Awards, 3 Screen awards, and Zee & Stardust Hero Honda Awards.

Bakshi won an award from the SPCA for his hard-hitting lyrics for the song Nafrat Ki Duniya Chhodke Pyar Ki Duniya Mein from the film Haathi Mere Saathi.

Bakshi wrote the most lyrics—for 300 Hindi movies—with the music directors duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal as the movies' composers. Not coincidentally, he was the lyricist on all the occasions they won the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director, except their first award winning album, Dosti, for which the lyrics were written by Majrooh Sultanpuri. Bakshi also wrote the lyrics for many films whose music was composed by Rahul Dev Burman and their association resulted in many hit songs.

Miscellaneous

• Anand Bakshi wrote the lyrics for the very first films of several of today's stars, including Sunny Deol, Jackie Shroff, Kamal Haasan, Rishi Kapoor, Amrita Singh, Shahrukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, among several others.

• He worked with several music directors who were the sons of the music directors that he had worked with in his early days: SD and RD Burman, Chitragupta and Anand-Milind, Kalyanji Anandji and Viju Shah, Roshan and Rajesh Roshan, Nadeem-Shravan and Sanjeev Darshan etc. He also worked with father-son pairs of film directors like Manmohan Desai and Ketan Desai, and Yash and Aditya Chopra.

• He wrote the first recorded songs of playback singers Mukesh, Shailender Singh, Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu, Kavita Krishnamurthy and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, to name a few.

• Stars like Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Sunny Deol, Shashi Kapoor, Sunil Dutt, Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Rajendra Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Shahrukh Khan and Juhi Chawla opted for Anand Bakshi when they started their own film production companies.

• The song he sang in Sholay, a qawwali, "Ke Chand Sa Koi Chehra" for R.D.Burman in Sholay along with Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey and Bhupinder. Anupama Chopra's Sholay: The Making of a Classic mentions that "The qawwali was recorded but never shot - the film was already longer than the requisite three hours. Bakshi was most disheartened. 'Perhaps if they had kept it' he wondered 'I might have had a career as a singer'."^[2]

• However, Anand Bakshi sung a song in film Charas Dharmendra. The song was "Ke Aaja ter yaadi aayi" and has to satisfy himself by singing only the "mukhda" of song - the rest of the song is sung by Lata-Rafi pair. It was great hit of the time. He stopped singing as many of the films he sang in did not do well at the box office and he got superstitious and stopped singing after "Balika Badhu".

• Anand Bakshi acted as a Fakir, begging for alms, in the 1966 film Picnic (1966) starring Manoj Kumar, Kalpana, Azra & Shubha Khote.

Anand Bakshi’s songs remixed and released in foreign films:

• In 2001, Anand Bakshi’s song, "Aaj mausam bada beimaan hai", was included in Monsoon Wedding.
• In 2009, Anand Bakshi’s song "Choli ke peeche kya hai", was included in Slumdog Millionaire.

See also

Poetry portal

• Filmography of Anand Bakshi

References

External links

• Anand Bakshi at the Internet Movie Database