Khayyam, the king of melody

Rakesh Chopra

As I was getting ready to retire for the day, a message in a WhatsApp group caught my eye: Music composer Khayyam passes away. As I tried to come to terms with the news, my mind went back to the 1970s.

I was a small boy living in a Himachal town, where my only means of entertainment was a transistor. I would often listen to Hindi film songs on AIR, one of them being Kabhi kabhi. 

Years later, I realised that the man behind the melody was Khayyam, whose burning ambition to be an actor made him run away from home at Rahon in Nawanshahr to his uncle’s place in Delhi. Acting’s loss was music’s gain, as he became a composer instead. After a brief struggle, he composed ‘Akele mein woh ghabrate toh honge’ from the film Biwi, rendered by Mohammed Rafi, which became popular. With ‘Jaane kya dhoondti rehti hain yeh ankhein’ in Shola Aur Shabnam, he gave glimpses of his talent that had been honed by composers Husnlal-Bhagatram and Chishti Baba of Lahore.

As my love for Hindi film music grew, I found Khayyam’s melodious tunes quite different from those of other composers. In a career spanning some 50 years, he worked in almost as many films. He would often refuse projects that were not close to his heart. Even if some films he scored for didn’t fare well, his music stood out for its melody. He took on only those projects which had beautiful poetry by the likes of Sahir Ludhianvi, Kaifi Azmi, Gulzar, Nida Fazli and Naqsh Lyallpuri.

His composition based on Raag Pahadi, ‘Baharo mera jeevan bhi sanwaro’ from Chetan Anand’s Aakhri Khat, gives me goosebumps to this day. I can’t get enough of his ‘Tumhari palkon ki chilmano mein yeh kya chhupa hai’ from Nakhuda. ‘Jalta hai badan’, ‘Tera hizr hi mera naseeb hai’ and ‘Khwaab ban kar koi aayega to neend aayegi’ from Razia Sultan simply leave me gasping for more. ‘Aap yun faslon se guzarte rahe’ and ‘Kahin ek masoom nazuk si ladki’ from the lesser-known Shankar Hussain were rare gems. So were ‘Chanda re mere bhaiya se kehna’ and ‘Parmeshwar rakhwala’ from Chambal Ki Kasam.

His teaming up with Sahir Ludhianvi gave us memorable songs as he was among the few who did justice to the maverick poet’s verses. He married singer Jagjit Kaur, whose rendition of ‘Tum apna ranjo gham apni pareshani mujhe de do’ from Shagoon under Khayyam’s baton, achieved a cult status. The couple lost their only son, Pradeep Khayyam, early and recently turned all their property into a trust for the welfare of artistes.

The falling standards of the current film music hurt Khayyam, but he was hopeful that the change was round the corner when music would no more be assembly-line production and melody would reign once again. Just like his unforgettable composition, ‘Woh subah kabhi to aayegi’.