Jaidev Verma (3 Aug 1919 - 6 Jan 1987)
Born in Nairobi, 3rd of August, 1919. Jaidev’s father was an employee in the Kenya Railways. Jaidev had deep interest in music from a very young age and played the mouth organ with arresting skills. Kenya had limited facilities for education, and Jaidev was sent to India for schooling. He travelled alone by ship on months-long journey to India playing his mouth organ all the time. His music journey had begun.
Straying with his uncle while doing schooling, he also started formal training in music. At the age of 14 Jaidev saw a movie for the first time. The film was 'अलिबाबा और चालीस चोर'. That experience took such a hold of him that he started seeing many films. A great urge to become an actor possessed him and he ran away to Bombay to act in films. He did land up getting small roles, however Jaidev wasn’t making enough money and was living off the streets of Bombay as a street boy. Luckily, his father who had just come to India searched for and found him in Bombay, took him back to Punjab and admitted him to a school. Love of music kept motivating him. He got a few opportunities to sing at the local Radio stations.
He returned to Bombay at the age of 19 but this time he sought opportunities in music. Realizing that he lacked knowledge in saleable skills in music, he joined and quickly learnt the mores of Hindustani classical music from Jawarkar Brothers of KiranaGharana.
Later he went to Almora in Uttar Pradesh to join Sangeet Kendra run by Pandit Uday Shankar and Ustad Akbar Ali Khan. But the Kendra shut down, and he packed his bags and followed Ustad Akbar Ali Khan to Lucknow to learn playing the Sarod. To Ustad Akbar Ali Khan’s wonder, his young disciple was able to master this difficult instrument within a year. (you can notice ample use of Sarod in Jaidev’s compositions).He shifted to Bombay and became an accredited music artiste of All India Radio and started singing and playing Sarod for All India Radio. Later, he became an assistant to composer Khemchand Prakash who was at the height of his fame.
This was the time when Jaidev met and got introduced to young composers like Roshan and Madan Mohan. On introduction, Madan Mohan and Jaidev needed no time at all to become the best of friends, a friendship they cherished and it was Jaidev who finished Madan Mohan's unfinished movies after his death.
In 1951-52, Ustad Akbar Ali Khan became a film music composer by scoring music for Navketan films आँन्धीया and हमसफर. He asked Jaidev to be his assistant for these films. The films flopped. With that Ustad Akbar Ali Khan packed his bags and left film music for ever, but Jaidev was retained by Navketan films as an assistant music director on a retainer. Navketan invited S.D. Burman to compose music for their next film टॅक्सी ड्रायव्हर. S.D. Burman recognized not only Jaidev’s skills at music arrangement, but also his enviable command on Hindi and Urdu. It was a time when S.D. Burman, was struggling to come to terms with Hindi and Urdu. From that time Jaidev continued as S.D. Burman’s assistant for most of his films.
His big break as a full-fledged music director came with Chetan Anand's film, जोरू का भाई, followed by Chetan Anand's next अंजली, both of these films became very popular. But it was the success of हम दोनो (1961) that Jaidev truly became a star, with classic songs like, "अल्लाह तेरो नाम", 'अभी ना जाओ छोडकर", "मै जिंदगी का साथ निभाता चला गया" and "कभी खुद पे कभी हालात पे". His other big success came with the Sunil Dutt starrer, मुझे जीने दो (1963).
Jaidev's films, though failed at the box office but they were super hit for his imaginative musical scores, such as आलाप, किनारे किनारे and अनकही. Jaidev’s compositions had a distinct flavour to them, always ‘special’ always ‘हटके ’, be it the घरोंदा songs, or गमन or आलाप or अनकही scores. He had a unique capability to mix traditional and folk music into Hindi film situations, giving his compositions a unique flavour. He was awarded with National Award for Best Composer thrice, even though his total film count was under 50.
His songs were long, many of them running typically into 6-7 minutes, and the longest of his compositions will remain alive, till Hindi poetry is appreciated in the country. I am of course referring to his epic effort to put to tune हरिवंशराय बच्चन written‘मधुशाला’, which Manna Dey sung with such ease and elan, that it sounds next to impossible that any other effort of this magnitude will find similar favour with the hindi poetry listener. Jaidev also set tunes to poems of Maithili Sharan Gupta, Nirala and Mahadevi Varma.
Jaidev never married, though he remained close to his sister’s family, who later settled in the United Kingdom. He died on 6 January 1987, at the age of 68 in Mumbai. Hats off to this simple man and his refined sense of melody that he shared with us, not in numbers but by the sheer freshness of his musical concepts.
To listen to the song played on Accordion by Shirish Purohit click the link below
"ये दिल और उनकी निगाहों की सांये"
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Shirish Purohit
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