Raj as actor director has known audience rejection only once in "Aah" but its music a remarkable feast for the ears for years to come, with music to treasure in Boot Polish and Shre 420.
With his romantic tuning with Nargis coming to an end after Shree 420, Raj showed resilience, in the style with which he moved on to Padmini and later on with Vyjayantimala.
Such was the quality of music that he drew out of SJ at RK, that Raj's romantic image remained in tact even sans Nargis. His image broke only with MNJ eventhough the film's music like the film itself became a landmark With Shailendra and Jaikishan gone and KAAK compounding the staggering losses of MNJ, serious differences between Lata and Shankar to such an extent that one of the conditions for Lata to sing for RK was replacement of SJ (Shankar) by LP.
Raj who was on a Disaster Resrruction Plan was under severe pressure at that time and contemplating the various pros and cons on some drastic heart wrenching decisions. Raj was convinced there had to be a change.
Bobby with its refreshing change of pace came to mark a watershed at RK because while going through the painful exercise of breaking with Shankar with that film RK had to accept the harsh and grim reality that his own innings as the perennial romantic was over. He had to not only banish himself as the hero but also banish his soul Mukesh and recreate the Nargis Raj aura through a younger Raj (his son Rishi) a younger Nargis (in the nymphet shape of Dimple and a younger SJ........?.whom he could guide to keep, heart beat with the young lovers.
This drastic switch over came in the form of Laxmikant Pyarelal achieving their lifetime ambition of stepping into the RK sanctuary that belonged to SJ till then.
Ironically it was Mukesh who brought LP in pleading that if the duo missed out taking from Shankar now, the privilege would go to some rival composer since Raj had made up his mind on the change.. RK worked this oracle musically, of course by casting Dimple as Bobby, opposite Rishi Kapoor and took pains to see that LP tuned with him as effecttively as SJ had. The Bobby musical landmark with its young rebel strain of "Hum tum ek kamre me bandh ho..." has a refreshingly electrifying effect, while SSS, and Premrog though popular enough did not quite make the Bobby impact.
This probably happened because Raj even while working with LP and later with other MD's, was hooked on to SJ's style of music. It was inevitable that LP as creative composers themselves should shy away and draw themselves away from RK at some stage. Any MD that walks into RK gets cast in the SJ format.
It happened to LP and later on to Ravindra Jain.
Ram Teri Ganga Maili has proved to be a runaway musical hit and Lata herself at the film's HMV function identified all music in RK Films as given by Raj Kapoor himself much to the consternation of Ravindra Jain sitting in the front row of the function hall.
ssmurthy
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