Thursday, September 15, 2016

The story of Laxmikant Pyarelal - the immortal duo

Laxmikant Kudalkar and Pyarelal Sharma formed arguably the most famous music director duo of our times, churning out so.e of the best melodies of 70s and 80s. But Laxmikant and Pyarelal had parallel lifestyles.

They were unity in diversity. Laxmikant liked the good things in life and was into frequent late night parties. He was famous for hosting lavish Diwali Card parties (Teen Patties) in Bombay where booze flowed like water. His reckless lifestyle probably contributed to his death at an early age in the year 1998, when he still continued drinking ignoring his doctors warnings.

Pyarelal Sharma in contrast was a more of a private person, a reticent family man who mostly kept to himself. These two, socially poles apart music partners shares something in common in their growing up days - Poverty. Yet together they produced some unparalleled music, giving the Burman father and son duo run for money.

The pair were the favorites of the producers Manmohan Desai and the legendary Raj Kapoor, especially the later who after the box office flop of his  lengthy, drab MERA NAAM JOKER, switched his music director from Shankar - Jaikishan to Laxmikant - Pyarelal duo from his movie BOBBY.

Though LP,  as the popular music director pair were known that time scored many melodies before, Bobby was to them, as ARADHANA was to Kishore Kumar, catapulting them to break into the musical limelight. Post Bobby, the pair never looked back for 15 years, until Laxmikant's death separated them.

(Interestingly Raj Kapoor for reasons best known to him, never opted for Kishore Kumar, even at later's peak, when the Bollywood producers virtually formed a beeline after the eccentric genius. However the LP pair scored several major popular hits of Kishore).

The Laxmikant Pyarelal duo scored some great numbers, doing a balancing act between the Muhammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar. In fact they directed the music of AMAR, AKBAR, ANTHONY and SARGAN which saw Rafi making a comeback of sorts after being in the wilderness for a while due to Kishore's dominance.

After Laxmikant Kudalkar's hedonistic lifestyle led to his early demise, Pyarelal continued to direct music for a while. But the absence of his partner was akin to the missing chord of an accordion.

As it's impossible to clap using one hand, the hand of Laxmikant was missing in action. The JUGALBANDI or dual chemistry delivered by the duo for decades, couldn't be replicated by Pyarelal alone as his music was never the same without his partner. Bollywood will forever indebted to these mastestro duo for entertaining us with some immortal melodies.

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