Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

PRAKASH MEHRA

While he would indeed be remembered as the man who created a brand image of ''angry young man''' few people would be aware that Prakash Mehra had a keen sense of music as well. In fact there never was a film, which did not have a super hit music. All right, every director of the past gave lilting music, so what is so special about the music of Prakash Mehra's music.

Well, he was the director who can be credited with giving longest songs to the Hindi cinema. Average length of a song in Hindi cinema otherwise has a length of 3-4 minutes, but songs directed by Prakash Mehra rarely were less than six minutes.

Right from the time when he directed ''Yaari hai Iman Mera'', in ZANJEER to NAMAK HALAAL there hardly was a song that did not have a detailed picturisation. From ZANJEER, in MUQADDAR KA SIKANDAR again, the Salaame Ishq song was quite a long song and it still is one of the super hit songs. It happened in LAAWARIS as well, where the song ''Apni to Jaise taise'' was again one of the longer songs in the history of the Hindi film songs. LAAWARIS also had the popular folk song ''Mere Angne Mein Tumhara Kya kaam Hai''… which again was a longish song, but riveting and entertaining.

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His acme came in NAMAK HALAAL whose song'' Pag Ghunghroo Baandh meera Nachi thi''... is probably one of the first fusion songs having an eclectic mix of Indian instruments and western instruments. Besides, it was also the song where though Manna Dey was not provided the credit for singing the classic interlude in this song, grape wine holds the view that it was he who sang the interlude. It was followed by the title song of SHARAABI, ''Log kehte hain main Sharabi hoon''... which though Prakash Mehra wrote, did not take credit for it, is also one of the longest songs in the Indian music history.

Interestingly enough, those were the times when as soon as a song started unfolding on the screen, people used to run to the washrooms, but it seldom happened in case of Prakash Mehra's films. He used to rivet the attention of the audience through his songs, as his songs never were band-aided into the story, but they were integral part of the continuum of the story. May he weave more such songs in the heaven, as now he would have his wife's company as well!


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