Shankar-Jaikishan - Title music from the film “Bombay Talkie”

Shankarsingh Raghuwanshi and Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal met back in the mid-1940’s, while waiting for a film director outside of his office, both were seeking musical employment. After the two landed work on that same project a friendship quickly developed and when given the opportunity to score a film together, Barsaat, Shankar and Jaikishan eagerly agreed to work together for the first time. The music from Barsaat was a huge success and broke all sorts of boundaries for musical composition in India at the time. The Shankar-Jakishan team was formed and the two, quite literally, ruled Hindi music for the next two decades. They released a staggering number of scores throughout the 50’s and 60’s, more than 100 in fact, to the point where a movie would attract people to the theaters at just the mention of Shankar-Jakishan as it’s music directors. Towards the end of their tenure as a musical duo, in 1971, Shankar-Jaikishan rung the proverbial Saligao bell with this theme from the film Bombay Talkie. To my ears this song has quite an intoxicating chord progression going on behind the main melody, one that is both cool and Hindi-sexy™ all at the same time. What you’re listening to is an instrumental version of an English language song, Good Times, We Had Good Times, that appears in the film. For funsies I like to sing this title over and over as the lyrics to this instrumental version. It all fits quite comfortably!

To be honest, the process of hunting through Hindi/Bollywood film music, at least for me, is equal parts rewarding and headache inducing. But when you do finally find that lost gem it’s well worth the adventure. If you would like to delve further into the mash of Boondi Ka Laddoo that we call Indian music, this would be a great place to start.