Madan Mohan Kohli was driving his Studebaker as his children urged him to drive faster. That was when the police stopped him. The family braced themselves for the worst as the police officer approached the massive vehicle.
“Madanji aapka gaana ‘Aapki Nazron’… kamal ka gaana hai (Madan sir, your song ‘Aapki Nazron’ is great),” the policeman said, according to Mohan’s son Sanjeev Kohli, who was barely six years old at the time. In an interview with Filmfare magazine, he recalls his father looking at his mother, Sheila Dinghra, and saying, “Yeh mera award hai (This is my award).”
Madan Mohan’s bitterness was understandable. He was one of Bollywood’s most talented composers; Lata Maganeshkar called him ‘Ghazal ka Shehzadaa’ (Prince of Ghazals), but he never got his due from the film industry he loved and served. Despite the success of Ae Dil Mujhe Bata De (1956), Jhumka Gira Re (1966), Teri Aankhon Ke Siva (1969) and more he was nominated for only a handful of awards. It was not until 1970—two decades after he worked on his first film Aankhen (1950)—that he won the National Film Award for Best Music Direction for Dastak.
“When he failed to win popular awards, I would always encourage him for the next time and he would be moved to say that the awards did not matter as much as my appreciation did,” wrote Lata Mangeshkar in her tribute to the composer and musician who died on 14 June 1975. He was just 51 years old.
The pallbearers were Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan and Rajendra Kumar. “He had made the front page because of the stars,” Kohli told Filmfare.
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A drum and a pledge
Madan Mohan was born in British-occupied Iraq on 25 June 1924. A story is told of how a two-year-old Mohan joined a police band marching past his house with a small toy drum. His parents, unaware that Mohan had paraded off, later found him at a police depot.
In 1932, his father Rai Bahadur Chunilal, who worked with the Iraqi police as an accountant general, decided to return with his family to his hometown, Chakwal in present-day Pakistan. The substandard education system in Chakwal prompted Rai Bahadur to move the family to Lahore. Once he co-founded the famed Bombay Talkies studio along with his friend, Himanshu Rai, he moved the family yet again, this time to Mumbai.
During his school days in Mumbai, Mohan performed in children’s programmes held at All India Radio. And despite his deep love for music and the movies, he joined the Army in 1943 at the behest of his father where he served as a lieutenant. It was during this period that he got the chance to visit the renowned Prabhat Film Company, Pune, where he vowed to become a music director one day.
In Madan Mohan: Ultimate Melodies, author Vishwas Nerurkar writes that Mohan once said, “If I had not taken my pledge at Prabhat seriously, in those days of army life, I would not be what I am today.”
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Dream versus duty
After World War II, Mohan decided to set aside his regimental uniform and pick up the conductor’s baton. In 1945, he joined AIR Lucknow as a programme assistant, even though he was not even a graduate.
Mohan adored his job. Working at the vanguard of Indian music, he had the opportunity to meet acclaimed artistes such as Ali Akbar Khan, Abdul Wahid Khan and Pandit Ram Narayan among many others, and compose for and conduct classical music orchestras.
When a transfer to AIR Delhi in 1947 shoehorned him into dreary deskwork, he resigned and travelled back to Mumbai to try his luck in cinema—as a singing actor.
Mohan’s homecoming was neither warm nor welcoming. His father was furious and didn’t allow him to enter the family home.
For most of his life, Rai Chunilal was convinced that his son possessed no notable talent as an actor or musician, which is why he decried his son’s decision and never supported Mohan’s ambition, even though he ran a film studio.
Nerurkar notes that Mohan once lamented, “At one time, I was doing so badly that I had to starve for five days at a stretch, but not for once did I think of going to my people for help.”
In 1948, Mohan sang a duet with Lata Mangeshkar and soon carved a name for himself. By 1956, he had sung and composed songs for the films Aankhen (1950), Shabistan (1951), Dhoon (1953), and Fifty Fifty (1956).
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Mohan’s passion prevails
In 1950, Madan composed the soundtrack of his first-ever movie—Devendra Goel’s Aankhen—and invited his estranged father for a private screening. Following the screening, Rai Bahadur was stunned into silence. He left the hall and walked with Mohan to his car, where he sat in the driver’s seat.
Nerurkar documents a heartwarming interaction—Chunilal seated in his car, with tears now trickling down his cheeks said, “Son, you have proved that you not only know music, but have musical feelings. I am convinced that you have chosen the right career. I shall pray for your success.”
When Chunilal passed away two months later, he carried one regret to his grave—not giving his son the opportunity to star in any of his productions.
For the next 25 years following the release of Aankhen, Mohan cemented his signature style as a composer.
A few of his notable hits include the heart-wrenching Meri Yaad Mein Tum Na Ansoo Bahana sung by Talat Mahmood which appears in Madhosh (1951), Lag Jaa Gale sung by Lata Mangeshkar from Woh Kaun Thi (1964), and the cheerful Ae Dil Mujhe Bata De sung by Geeta Dutt from Bhai Bhai (1956).
But by the 1960s, he lost ground to a new generation of composers—RD Burman, composer-duo Laxmikant–Pyarelal, to name a few. As the film industry evolved, powerful music directors were preferentially granted control of the three to four existing music studios, which they would book for months on end, leaving others studio-less.
These grievances weighed on Mohan who started drinking heavily.
Mohan received more recognition after his demise. “How ironical that for my most important project, Veer Zaara, 30 years after he passed away, it was Madanji’s compositions that embellished my film…It was a miracle that all situations had a tune left behind by Madanji. As though many years ago the composer of Heer Ranjha and Laila Majnu had planned songs for the next love legend to be made so many decades later,” wrote Yash Chopra in his tribute to one of Bollywood’s unacknowledged icons.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)