Milestone Songs of Shailendra... lyricist.

In an era where the top lyricists pat their backs in the full media-glare for writing something as mundane as Ik garam chai ki pyali ho, reviving memories of the times when film music had a dazzling array of great lyricists, has assumed even greater value.

Poets like Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Shakeel Badyuni, Pt. Narendra Sharma and Kavi Pradeep enriched film music by penning film songs worthy of competing with best of their poems. In a way all these glittering names belonged to poet-lyricists genre, who did their bit in films as well as in Hindi-Urdu literature. But there was one penman in that golden era who remained a quintessential lyricist all throughout, who used almost all his literary genius for writing great songs which were poems in themselves and in my opinion, he was second to none. His name was Shankardas Kesrilal Shailendra – for his countless admirers he was simply- Shailendra!
Shailendra was born on August30, 1923 at Rawalpindi. Later in his childhood their family moved to Mathura in U.P. His father hailed from Bihar.
Poetry was his first love but family situation forced him to take up a job of a railway mechanic. He used to work in the railway workshop at Parel. His colleagues would later recall amusedly how they thought this 'crazy' man was 'wasting' his time writing and reciting some 'meaningless' poems! How they were to know that the same man would later proudly proclaim through his song –
This poetic zeal and passion appealed to a young film-maker called Raj Kapoor who was in the audience of a stage programme where Shailendra recited his patriotically charged poem Jalta hai Punjab. Raj was making his first film Aag then and he immediately approached Shailendra to ask whether he could write songs for his film. The poet flatly refused the offer saying that his poetry was not for sale!

The birth of his first child Shaily and worsening financial situation finally forced Shailendra to forego any reservations about writing film-songs. After all how long, he could debate with his wife whether they should use one potato for the lunch or for dinner! So he came to the very man, whose offer he had so audaciously turned down. He came to Raj Kapoor who was now in the process of making his second film Barsaat and said, "Now I am in need of money. Is your offer still open?" Raj welcomed him to his fold with open arms. From then onwards, he was to become the permanent member of the famous R.K. musical quartet – Shankar, Jaikishan, Hasrat Jaipuri and Shailendra!

This group of talented artists was to remain together for years and make some of the greatest songs. Shailendra worked mainly with Shankar and this team was responsible for almost all the theme songs of R.K. movies. Through this association we got so many evergreen songs like Barsaat mein hum se mile tum, Mera joota hai japani, Awara hoon and Dost dost na raha. Shailendra's relationship with Raj always remained special. Later on, even in his heydays when he was commanding a then whopping 10,000 rupees per song from others, he worked on a fixed, monthly salary of Rs.500/- for R.K. films.