CHALTE CHALTE , JHOOMTE NAACHTE BAPPIDA CHAND SITAARE KE PAAR KOI AUR DUNIYA MEIN CHALE GAYE ..... BY ALI PETER JOHN

There are some men ( and women ) who achieve so much fame and success in life that God and destiny get into a debate about who should take the credit for it -  Ali Peter John

This was the question that came to my mind when the Queen of melody Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar died and hardly ten days have passed and one more talented gem like Bappi Lahiri has passed into the great beyond where it seems like God is in a sudden need for great singers and composers to enlighten and entertain the kingdom of heaven .

Like the story of Lataji can never end , the story of Bappida also cannot end easily , his physical story must have ended on February 16 , but his musical journey will go on and on and last till music lasts .....

What can you say about a three year old baby boy called Alokesh Lahiri who could play the tabla with effortless ease and excel ? . What can you say about the same boy who grew up to be a musician who could play every kind of instrument and specialise in synthetic music and even international music and what can you say about the same boy who scored the music for a Bengali film called "Daadu " for which he had the courage and the confidence to approach Lata Mangeshkar to sing and she had the same confidence in him and not only sang for him , but also predicted a bright future for him ?

It was the encouragement of great people like Lataji and Kishore Kumar who was his "Mama" that brought him to Bombay when he was just 19 . He came with his father Aparesh Lahiri who was a musician and a singer and his mother Banusri who was also a musician and singer .

His story as a successful composer of Bengali films had already reached Bombay and it did not take him long to find breaks in good films like "Zakhmi" "Waardaat " and the list kept growing till he created history with "Disco Dancer" which gave Hindi films a super star as a disco dancer in Mithun Chakraborty who had other big successful films like Dance Dance and "Kasam Paida Karne waale ki ", also with music by Bappi Lahiri .

And by the time Bappi was 25 he was a music composer whose music could make stars and among the actors who his music turned into stars were Sanjay Dutt , Anil Kapoor , Jeetendra and even Amitabh Bachchan .

By the late 80s Bappi had reached cult status and every filmmaker and every big star and every lyricist and dance director wanted to be associated with his name .

There came a time when Bappi had five recordings in five different recording studios in one day.

He had one year when he recorded the music for 38 films in a year which was a record no other composer had to his name and no one will ever have now . He had done the music for 33 films of Jeetendra , mostly Hindi films made in the South . He had also scored music for films made in languages of the South like Tamil, Telugu and Kannada and films in Gujarati and Marathi .

He had by now grown into a miraculous musical one man machine without losing the spirit and the soul of music . The critics and so called music lovers made a mockery of his music and songs and called it noise , but he went on without caring for the opinions of others and it was this attitude of his that made him a name not only in the country but also in different parts of the world .

He collaborated with some of the leading music labels of India and even worked with the top labels and the leading singers from the west . He had become a star in the true sense of the world .

For those who believed that his music was only noise , he proved that he could be equally good in soft music , melodious music qawwallis and even devotional music . And he never lost touch with his roots and like he cut musical albums on various subjects , he also came out with albums on Bengali music , classical , local , songs for Durga pooja and even out and out entertainment music .

His hectic affair with music continued till early 2000 and the sudden splurge of music of a very different kind took him by surprise and he found it difficult to face this new challenge and found work not coming to him like it used to once when he was king ....

It was at this stage that his mind was in a flux and he had to make up his mind about his future .

And he decided to go in for politics . He like many others was charmed by the magic of Narendra Modi and joined the BJP in which he saw a bright future for the country and for himself .

The BJP chose him as its Lok Sabha candidate for the Sreerampur constituency in West Bengal , but all his popularity could not help him in politics and he lost the elections to the Trinumool Congress of Mamata Banerjee . And this defeat had a very bad impact on him both as an upcoming politician and a star composer .

He had been lying low for the last few years and spending time with his family , his wife Chitrani , his son Bappa , daughter Rema , daughter in law Taneshree and grandson Krrish .

Bappi was always a blend of a creative and sensitive man and a businessman. He had a part in all his musical business activities. He built his first house in the Juhu Vile Parle Scheme after the grand success of his music in Namak Halaal and named his bungalow Namak Halaal .

But when he grew more successful , he changed the name of his bungalow to Lahiri House where he had his grand birthday parties and poojas . I once asked him which his best party at Lahiri House was and it didn't take him a second to say , " the night when Dev Anand came to my house to wish me on my birthday " .

Bappi was always grateful to filmmakers like Tahir Husain , Satyen Choudhury , Prakash Mehra , Anil Ganguli Partho Ghosh , Vijay Anand , Ketan Anand , Amit Khanna and above all Dev Anand , even though he worked with him in just one film with him which was Sau Crore

It is very extremely difficult to end an article on someone who u have seen grow from the time he or she was a nobody , a speck of dust on the large shore called the film industry , but I will have to end this article with a heavy heart .

My only regret is that Bappi could have taken a little more care of his health or his family could , lekin woh ho na saka , aur ab Bappi aisi jagah chale gaye jahan unse koi sawaal bhi poocha nahi jaa sakta .

BAHUT SAAL PAHELE , LATAJI NE EK GEET GAAYA THA BAPPI KI NIRDESHAN MEIN ,. "PHIR. JANAM LENGE HUM " AB LATAJI BHI CHALE GAYE AUR BAPPIE BHI. KYA WOH DONO PHIR JANAM LENGE ?