Music director Sapan Sengupta, who formed one half of Sapan-Jagmohan, the popular Bollywood composer duo of the 1960s and ‘70s, passed away at his residence in Powai, Mumbai, on Saturday. He was 90.
Sapan Sengupta’s daughter Shilpi Ghosh told Times Of India, “We celebrated his 90th birthday on July 17 by cutting a cake and making him taste it a little. But he had been ailing since January this year.”
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Jagmohan Bakshi had passed away in 1999.
Sapan’s career spanned over three decades. Sapan-Jagmohan scored music for Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi and Bhojpuri films and television serials, an overwhelming majority of them for small banners. The films are forgotten but the songs continue to come alive on retro radio shows. The inviting Ulfat mein zamane ki (singer: Lata Mangeshkar/Kishore Kumar, film: Call Girl) and the melancholic Main toh har mod par (singer: Mukesh, film: Chetna) to name a few. ‘Main to har mod par’ was the biggest hit of their career, finishing 23 rd in the 1971 annual countdown show of Binaca Geetmala. Both songs were penned by Urdu poet Naqsh Lyallpuri with whom they collaborated most frequently.
Some of their most remembered tunes were sung by Asha Bhonsle. The haunting title track of the Teri Talash Mein, the playful Saiyyan ke gaon mein in Sajjo Rani and the sultry Tumhi rehnuma ho in Do Raha maximised her vocal range and showcased the varying shades of her voice.
Shilpi recounts a delightful anecdote which further underlines the quality of their craft. She says, “Kishore Kumar was known to be very particular with his payments. But he walked off without charging a paisa after recording ‘Mera jivan kuchch kaam na aaya’ (film: ‘Mera Jivan’, lyrics: MG Hashmat). He just told the producer, ‘It is a beautiful composition and I won’t charge anything for it’.”
Sapan was born in Dhaka but grew up in Kolkata, says Shilpi. In 1957, he travelled to Bombay hoping to become a playback singer and joined the Bombay Youth Choir where he met Jagmohan, who too was was aspiring to be a singer. “When the two realized that the world of singers was intensely competitive, they decided to team up as composers,” says Shilpi, adding that the composer duo also assisted veteran music director SD Burman.
Hindi cinema has enjoyed a long history of composer duos and some such as Husnlal-Bhagatram and Shankar-Jaikishan were already delivering chartbusters. Sapan-Jagmohan recorded their first song with Asha Bhonsle for an incomplete Hindi film, China Bridge. Jijaji (1961), a Punjabi film, turned out to be their first release. However, the pair made a bigger impact with their first Hindi film, Begaana (1963), a love triangle starring Dharmendra, Supriya Chowdhury and Sailesh Kumar.
