Filmi Flashback -2: It’s the centenary of one of Hindi film’s leading lyricists

Among the top 12 lyricists whose works have spanned the sands of time and remained evergreen in the hearts of its listeners the world over, lyricist Shyamal Babu Rai aka Indeevar is among the top five. Having written over 1600 songs for over 300 films in a career spanning four decades, Indeevar is matchless as he moved effortlessly from the black-and-white era to the 1990s. His words were on everybody’s lips as modern- day heroes like Shah Rukh Khan used to lip sync it on the big screen. January 1 happened to be his birth centenary.

His effective word play came in good use during the 1980s when the disco wave hit the Hindi film industry. Pakistan-born siblings, Nazia and Zoheb Hassan, who were the first of the neighbouring talents to find favour in Bollywood belted out foot-stomping numbers penned by him and which are listened to with relish even today. ‘Boom Boom’ by Biddu, an unconventional music composer was a hit right from the time it boomed across sound boxes all over the country and beyond.

Not surprisingly, Indeevar’s lyrics served the musical cause of multi-generational music directors which included the father-son duo of Roshan and his son, Rajesh Roshan, whose songs are still popular today. From Mukesh to Nitin Mukesh, his grandson, playback singers have lent their sonorous voices to his immortal songs. With another contemporary of his, Shailendra, whose birth centenary is already underway, Indeevar is surely a writer whose songs continue to entertain the music lovers.

With technology enabling the nostalgia-loving fans to revive his life and times, the social media will surely see a lot of his old hits coming back into circulation once again.