Birthday: When KL Saigal heard a song by Mukesh Chand Mathur and said...

Born on 22 July 1923, Mukesh was a music lover since childhood. He was the sixth among ten siblings. His engineer father Zorawar had called a music master for his sister, but when the music master heard Mukesh along with his sister, he made him sit with him. From here, music entered Mukesh's life for the first time.

Time passed, in the year 1941, during the wedding of the same sister, when 17 years old Mukesh was singing a song of K-L Saigal at his sister's wedding, his distant relative and famous actor of Indian cinema Motilal noticed him and took him to Mumbai. He left him with Pandit Jagannath Prasad in Mumbai and gave him time to learn music starting from the basics.

If you have been judging Mukesh's personality by listening to his songs, you are absolutely wrong. Mukesh always had a smile on his face and his appearance looked like a hero. This was the reason why he became both an actor and a singer in the 1941 film Nirdosh and he sang his first song for Bollywood - "Dil hi bujha hua ho.."

After this break, he had to wait for a long time. Mukesh passed his tenth standard and started working in public service. But Motilal once again put his hand on his shoulder and gave him the opportunity to sing for the first time in his own film Pehli Nazar. That song was composed by Anil Biswas and that song was “Dil Jalta Hai To Jalne De, Aansoo Na Baha, Fariyaad Na Kar”

Do you remember anything? Yes, in the 2001 film Gadar, Sunny Deol, while repeating this same song of Mukesh, said to Amisha Patel, “That new singer Mukesh has done wonders, what a song he sang… Dil Jalta Hai To Jalne De”

Mukesh was so much influenced by K L Saigal sahab and he started singing in Saigal sahab’s style to such an extent that after listening to this song Saigal sahab himself was surprised and said “I cannot remember when I sang this song” meaning he considered Mukesh’s voice as his own.

Here superstar music composer Naushad entered Mukesh's life and he freed Mukesh from the tag of being a copy of Sehgal sahab and gave him the talent of singing in his own voice, in his own style.

Naushad made Mukesh sing songs in films like 'Mela', 'Anokhi Ada' and 'Andaz' and you will be surprised to know that before Raj Kapoor, Mukesh had come as the voice of Dilip Kumar and Mohammad Rafi used to sing playback for Raj Kapoor. Songs from Mehboob Khan's film Andaz were liked more.

"If you say so, I will keep singing songs to you all my life"

"We lost our hearts somewhere today"

"Don't break, don't let your heart break"

People loved these songs and Mukesh became established as a singer with a voice that could fill the heart with pain.

Mukesh fell in love with Saral when he was 23 years old. But in Saral's father's eyes, singing in films was not a respectable job at all. In his eyes, Mukesh would have been better off if he had been an engineer like his father. Saral's father was a millionaire, and he was right. But Mukesh and Saral were determined to get married anyway. They got married in a temple on 22 July 1946. Note the date. Their birthday and their wedding anniversary are both on the same date.

Then the relatives of both the sides said that Saral will not be able to survive on such a low income and in some time both of them will separate, but separate? These two were so close that only death could separate them, apart from that no one had the courage to snatch Saral from Mukesh.

Mukesh had five children, half the number of his father, out of which Nitin Mukesh, like his father, took up playback singing and gave some memorable songs to the film industry.

After this, Dilip Kumar chose Mohammad Rafi to sing his songs instead of Mukesh and Raj Kapoor saw his voice in Mukesh. Mukesh and Raj Kapoor's friendship was such that except for a couple of songs, Raj Kapoor worked with Mukesh till his last breath.

Now because Raj Kapoor's films had fixed Shankar Jaikishan music, so out of 1300 songs of Mukesh, 133 songs were bound to Shankar Jaikishan's music but most of Mukesh's chartbuster songs were with Kalyanji Anandji. Mukesh recorded 99 songs with this pair, just one song missed the century. Some of the special songs are  

From the song "Naina hai jadoo bhare" composed by Kalyanji in the film 'Bedard Zamana Kya Jaane' (1958) to the song "Chahein aaj mujhe napaas karo" from the 1977 film Darinda, he gave many great songs.

These include “Chhaliya Mera Naam”, “Puchhe Mere Toote Hue Dil”, “Dumdum Diga Diga Mausam Bheega Bheega”, “Mujhko Is Raat Ki Tanhai Mein”, “Humne Tumko Pyar Kiya Hai Jitna”, “Chand Si Mehbooba Ho Meri Kab Aisa Main Socha Tha”, “Waqt Karta Jo Wafa”, “When Someone Breaks Your Heart”, “Which You Like Will Talk About” etc. became very famous songs.

The best feature of Mukesh's songs was that they represented the common man. His voice was such that anyone could hum his songs. Because in those days Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar were ruling the roost, they did not have time, they had such busy schedules, but Mukesh, unlike all these, used to sing only a few selected songs. After Raj Kapoor, Mukesh also sang many songs for Manoj Kumar, among which the above mentioned song "Koi Jab Tumhara Hriday Tod De" from Purva Aur Paschim was a bumper hit.

In the 1968 film Milan, he also sang for Laxmikant Pyarelal and its songs also became record-breaking hits. The song "Sawan ka mahina, Pawan kare sor" is still counted among the popular songs.

Another amazing thing is that Mukesh sang very few songs for Salil Chaudhary but the songs he sang became record-breaking hits. Please take a look-

“Maine, Tere Liye Hi Saat Rang Ke Sapne Chune”, “Kahin Door Jab Din Dhal Jaye”, both these songs were in Anand and you all know how popular the songs of Anand became.

He was also awarded the National Award for the first and last time for a composition by Salil Chaudhary. His song in the film Rajnigandha "Kabhi baar yun bhi dekha hai, ye jo mann ki seema rekha hai..." Imagine, this song won the National Award but did not even get a nomination in any category of Filmfare.

But there were four occasions in Mukesh's life when he was honored with the Filmfare Award. Out of these four, the music director of three songs was Shankar Jaikishan.

He received his first award 15 years after his career for the song "Sab Kuchh Seekha Humne Na Seekhi Hoshiyaari" from Raj Kapoor's film Anari. This award was not only Mukesh's but also Filmfare's first award function.

But after this he had to wait for 11 more years for the next award. The next award was for the song “Sabse Bade Naadaan” from the film Pehchaan. He again received the award two years later for the sarcastic song “Jai Bolo Beimaan Ki” from the film Beimaan.  

The fun was when Khayyam sahab, who had composed music for very limited films like Mukesh, called him to lend his voice to the songs of his film Kabhi Kabhi. The songs of Kabhi Kabhi were written by Sahir Ludhianvi and every singer was eager to lend his voice to Sahir sahab's songs. When this team was formed, the songs turned out to be one better than the other.

The demand for the songs of this film, which was released in 1976, was such that Mukesh started going abroad to perform concerts with Lata Mangeshkar. The song “Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein Khayal Aata Hai” from this film won the Filmfare Award. But the song “Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shayar Hoon” from this film was liked the most by the people.

The cricket connection between this song and Mukesh is also very strong. Legendary leg spinner Bhagwat Chandrashekar was a big fan of Mukesh. The situation was such that whenever the then-captain Sunil Gavaskar had to boost him up, he used to play Mukesh's songs for him.

And our former and the best ever Indian team captain, World Cup winner Mahendra Singh Dhoni loves “Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shayar Hoon”. Dhoni loves this song so much that he even announced his retirement through this song.

Mukesh ji went to Michigan United States with his wife in 1976 for a concert of this song and other songs. On the morning of 27 August, he went to the bathroom and almost immediately came back with his hand on his heart and said that he was having pain in his chest. Everyone was aware of his condition. Due to the weakness of his heart, he had reduced singing, otherwise his contemporary Kishore Kumar had sung more than 2600 songs. He was immediately taken to the hospital and the doctors said “He is no more” as soon as they checked his pulse.

Lata Mangeshkar and Nitin Mukesh completed that concert with teary eyes. Lata Mangeshkar brought his body to India.

When Raj Kapoor heard this news, his tears did not stop. He said in a choked voice, "I have lost my voice"

The entire Bollywood was stunned by this news. Mukesh ji was only 53 years old.

Mukesh is gone but his voice and his legacy remain forever. Manmohan Desai along with Laxmikant-Pyarelal considered themselves lucky that they had recorded a song in Indian film music which had never been done before and could never be done again.

Yes, I am talking about the song "Humko Tumse Ho Gaya Hai Pyar" from the movie Amar Akbar Anthony. This song had Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh himself, and Lata Mangeshkar. A song like this was never made again, nor could it be made.

Even after Mukesh's death, many of his films kept coming for the next 3 years and people kept liking his voice. If someone asks me which is the song of Mukesh that I remember first, then without thinking twice, I will name this song  

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