The musical fantasies…

Sattiraju Lakshminarayana, known more as Bapu, for his admirers and wellwishers, is a renowned name for his unique, humane and sincere kind of cinema. His films had a distinct identity of looking into the lives of ordinary, marginalised people and their challenges to make it big in this world.

‘Woh Saat Din’, the film which he directed in 1983, launched Anil Kapoor as a hero in Hindi cinema, after his not-so-noticed entry into Telugu cinema under the same director with his ‘Vamsa Vruksham’, a Kannada remake, in 1980. This Hindi film, in many ways, was a tailor-made one for the legendary director but it was K Bhagyaraj who had crafted it in Tamil. Subsequently, under Bapu it travelled as Radha Kalyanam and ‘Woh Saat Din’ in Telugu and Hindi respectively.

A delectable combination of sentiment, comedy, tears and the ubiquitous melodrama components, it was received well all across wherever it was released. While the Kerala musician duo of MS Viswanathan and KV Mahadevan took care of the music and songs in Tamil and Telugu, the opportunity went in the direction of the famed duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal in Hindi. On their part, they too did not disappoint, as the songs they composed are still heard by the 45-plus film music patrons, even today.

“ Pyaar kiya nahi jaata, ho jaata hai, dil diya nahi jata, kho jata hai” is the perfect example of how simple, impactful lyrics set to a basic thump and tap tune always worked for LP as they were popularly known. Anand Bakshi, the titan of film songs in those days having replaced the ‘Majroohs’ of the earlier decades just revels in keeping things grounded, as the lead pair frolick around on mountain tops and paddling in serene lakes. Just sample these lines: “Pyaar pe zor nahin koi, neend hazaron ne khoyi”…

Padmini Kolhapure, an erstwhile child artiste, who plays Kapoor’s love interest, had by then touched reasonable heights in her career as a heroine, even as she was just all of 18+! A popular name who went on to act along bigger names in the next decade, she made a good impact with this film, by being shown as torn between a doctor husband and a struggling music director lover. This is where the melodrama component appealed to the female audience.

The other leading names in this song, shot in picture-perfect locales and slanting landscapes, are that of the cinematographer Baba Azmi, related to the actress Shabana Azmi and N Chandra, the film’s editor who later went on to strike it big with films like ‘Tezaab’ and ‘Narasimha’. Of course, the dapper Naseeruddin Shah, who comes in a cameo role in the film, anchors it firmly.