Music Forever

With Hasta Hua Nurani Chehra, Laxmikant-Pyarelal became the virtuoso for zillions of music buffs. Popularly known as LP, they rose to conquer, inseparable souls who were born to create miracles and to make a difference in Indian music industry. They grew to the top and stayed there longer than any other music composers. Musical duo had the finish and edge to make music lovers go week and engrossed in their tunes.


Being one of their admirers, I got the thriving opportunity to meet Pyarelal recently. I spent two continuous discussional afternoons at his home which was truly a learning ride of my career. From struggles to achievements, from gurus to companions, from violin to piano, from private to public and from studio to home, all were the part of our earnest conversation. In the course of time, shook a leg with their rockstar, mithu (the parrot), His ever caring wife, Sunilaji also took me to the unseen phases of their lives. Funnily, she thought that if I am a South Indian. Pyareji has always been treated as an institution and whose work can be cashed when you hear their creations. He played, ‘ek pyar ka nagma hai’ on piano for me and also he got nostalgic while showing his yesteryears’ photographs. Let’s unfold some magic and visualize his best moments.

Early Phase

For Pyarelal, the journey from his childhood to where he is now has not been easy but all his hard work paid off. Pyarelal was born on September 3, 1940. His father Pandit Ramprasad played the trumpet but wanted his son to learn the violin. At age of eight, Pyarelal, started training, would practice for more than ten hours every day. At the age of 12, he got a job at Mumbai's Ranjit studio as a violinist in an orchestra.
Anthony Gonsalves was his guru who taught him violin, on whom he later composed a song, My name is Anthony Gonsalves in Amar Akbar Anthony. 

Bosom friends

He can’t forget that day at the Ranjit studio when Pyarelal met his lifelong companion Laxmikant. "Laxmikant was working with Pandit Husnlal Bhagatram. He would come sometimes to my place of work. After work, we would play cricket, discuss music and go to the studios of several musicians. As we were from the same age group and our interests were similar, our friendship grew," he said.
Sriramchandraji called me one day and told me he will give me good work. I told Laxmi about it. We worked together in Chennai for two and a half years on the film Devtaa. And this added value to our work and from here we never looked back.

“Moreover, people often thought that Laxmikant Pyarelal was one name. When I was getting married, my wife's relatives believed she was getting married to Laxmikant Pyarelal. Just Pyarelal did not mean anything to them," he queered.

"After the demise of Laxmi, I never thought my right hand has gone; what would I do without him. I was strong enough. But I fell sick after his death and fall into bad habits. I was in bed for six years. Since then, I have given up alcohol. Now I am fine and work for six hours everyday and there are several things in the pipeline.”

Killer opportunities

Now that he was on his way to become the big man he dreamt to be, Pyarelal wanted to go to Vienna to join the Symphony Orchestra. But things didn’t materialize at last moment.

We had recorded the songs for ‘Chhaila Babu’ earlier but that was released after ‘Parasmani’. Our past two canned films were ‘Hum, Tum aur Wo’ and ‘Piya Log Kya Kahenge’. And he hummed ‘piya log kya kahenge’ tune which they later used for ‘Dosti’ and it brought filmfare for them. (*sings ‘Piya log kya kahenge’ to the tune of ‘Aawaaz main na doonga’ from ‘Chahunga main tujhe saanjh savere’)

 "During those days, you had to purchase a coupon to select a movie for a Filmfare award. One who can purchase most coupons could win the award. We were the most amazed of all. I thought the music in ‘Sangam’ was so rich and beautifully composed by Shankar-Jaikishan, I believe it all to be the blessings of Saraswati Mata. Though, Pyarelal gives all credits to Lata Mangeshkar for their success.

Incomplete without Lataji


Lataji have a great share on making us what we are today. She was so simple and supporting that she never denied working with us which resulted into so many fabulous songs. Our first recording was ‘Hansta Hua Noorani Chehra’ where Lataji and Kamal Barot sang that song. For Lataji’s ‘Satyam Shivam Sundram’ title-song, we had used more than 100 musicians and even for Mukeshji’s ‘Chanchal Sheetal Nirmal Komal’ we had employed almost 130 musicians with more than 70 violins!
We also made Lataji to sing cabaret for us, Lataji was aware that we would give best input while composing cabaret in Inteqam for her. In ‘Aa Jaane Jaan’, we tried to bring in that kind of soft rendition style in the cabaret genre and Lataji was outstanding in that. She breathed life into our tune and the song was also conceptualized well on the screen through Helen.

Favourite maestros’

For Pyarelal, there is no better male singer than Mohammad Rafi. Kishore Kumar and Mukesh were also in his favorites list.
He said, “My father had once taken me to Rafi saheb's house to ask for money during our bad times. Once I was working with Rafi saheb and Lataji on the song ‘Yeh dil tum bin lagta nahi hum kya kare’. I remembered that I had to give Rs 500 to both of them. Rafi sahib didn't recall giving me money, Lataji did. But they told me to keep the money as their blessing for me.” "Kishore Kumar was very humorous. As he entered the studio, he would sing hello Laxmikantam Pyarelalam.” he said.

He cannot forget to mention, R.D. Burman, who was easily the finest mouth organ player in the industry. Pyarelal adds “Our careers all began at about the same time, and we indulged in healthy competition while staying the best of friends. Nobody could have composed ‘Padosan’, ‘Kati Patang’, ‘Mehbooba’ or ‘Teesri Manzil’ but him. I challenge anyone to top those scores.”


Music makeover

Today trends of composing music have been changed due to arrival of electronic instruments. At present we are living in digital age, where new and high-tech technologies are introduced in music production. Even whisper and sound of breath can be captured with accurate precision.

I admire many singers of today’s era, like Sonu, Shreya, Sunidhi, Mohit, Sukhwinder and Udit, Sanu, Kavita, Alka from 90’s were the best. I remembered once, Shaan came to my place with his father and sister. I asked him why don’t you sing and he denied that time. Now, see he is one of the finest singers of our industry.

Amongst the music composers he said, “I like the tunes of Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Salim Sulaiman, Shantanu Moitra, and many more. I liked A R Rahman work in Roza and Bombay. I keep learning from these young talented composers, they are doing fabulous job.”

Current affairs


In 2008 October, I conducted an orchestra of 188 musicians in Paris. Director Shaad Ali had presented a show on Bollywood in India Festival over there and for that we were playing our songs. And various musical tours are in pipeline, one is in Dubai early 2012.
In Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om- song ‘Dhoom Taana’, too, I had conducted over 100 musicians. "Vishal-Shekhar came to me; they wanted LP's music," Pyarelal said. "They wanted me to do just one song -- the type of music that was played in the 1970s; a retro song. Though, they wanted me to give music for first half of the film. They had made the tune but wanted the LP trademark in it."
 "One of the reasons I accepted their offer was the importance given to acoustic instruments," the composer continued. "There is nothing electronic in this song." Hope to get more such opportunities to relive the LP trademark.