Novelty singing of a divinely ordained besura Mukesh(by ssmurthy)

Retakes were very common between atleast Shankar and Mukesh rendered songs.

Shankar is on record that "Mukesh was considered a "besura" singer. Maybe he was slightly, but he had his own "khubsoorti" in it. Not many know that while recording the song "Awara hoon....it took us days before Mukesh sang it perfectly. It became a craze after its release." and the final melody, always was the result of a lot of working on his vocals during the retakes.

Mukesh was himself conscious of this fact and even after attaining dizzy heights as a singer , he would often humorously chide his fellow composer colleagues that their songs were famous because of besura singers like him.

Mukesh was more than once bewildered when one MD okayed straightaway a song sung by him and also complimented him for his beautiful rendering, stating " How can you say I sang so well ? Your song will click only if I sing besura once or twice".

It was to Mukesh's credit that he never ever made composers feel that it was they who needed him though often it was so. SD Burman was known for his penchant for distancing himself from Mukesh's singing voice but yet his musical genius warranted presenting 'Chalri sajni ab kya hoga ..." for "Bombai ka Babu" through him (his second choice his first being Kishore who was unavailable) and even told Mukesh that he would scrap his version of the number if the recorded results were not to his expectation.

Mukesh answered Dada Burman the only way he knew singing "Chal ri sajni..." with a feeling of meaningful depth, leaving Dada for once overwhelmed at the deliverance and retained it as a rare pristine acievement not only here but also when it came to recording of " Oh jaane wale ho sake tho laut ke aana....." for Bimal Roy's "Bandini". Most of us and SDB fans would surely recollect these two rare SDB Mukesh novelties with great relish and nostalgia.

Hasrat Jaipuri recalls the many recording sessions with Jaikishan the Mukesh number "Duniya banane wale .... for "Teesri Kasam" and Mukesh would always sit on the floor and since Hasrat was sitting on a sofa, would request him to sit on a chair, Mukesh would say "We are all going to die one day, nobody is going to take a chair along" Strangely the same essence was embedded into its macrocosmic level into the other famous number, as Mukesh recalls with fond sagacity,

"My regard for Shankar is astute and full of reverence, as most of the title songs sung by me , were from his domain " and continues philosophically

From whom else can I get a composition like

"Sajan re jhoot mat bolo , khuda ke paas jaana hai ,
na haathi hai na ghoda hai, wahan paidal hi jana hai "

rgds
ssmurthy