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A son’s emotional bonding with his father cannot be truly estimated. It is a full-blown assortment of memories that maintains fragrance for decades. Nitin Mukesh, 76, revisits precious reminiscences on the 50th death anniversary of his legendary Papa, as he calls Mukesh.
He begins with his father’s statement that singing was “A beautiful hobby but a painful profession.” “He had undergone so much of trauma that he did not want me to suffer in the same way,” recalls Nitin. He smiles, “At different times, whenever a relative or a friend became a doctor, or passed Chartered Accountancy or graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, my father would tell me, ‘See! XYZ is a doctor, and so on!” I would tell him, ‘Papa, I can’t be any of them. I want only to be a singer.’ And that had been my dream since I can remember, probably from the time I was a toddler!”
He goes on, “But Papa wanted me to be educated, to have a degree. He finally decided to send me to England to study at the London School of Economics, and did not think twice about spending that kind of money on me. It was his big dream, and he was there with me in London for the first week. But apart from looking forward to the excitement of boarding an international flight, I was miserable!”
“On the day before he left for India, Papa sat by my side in the paying guest accommodation he had taken for me, and began weeping copiously. When you cry in front of my son, you make him weak: he was killing me inside, and by that time, he had already got his first heart attack. I tried not to share my misery,” Nitin adds in a choked voice.
Nitin cannot forget those memories. His voice again breaking, he says, “When his cab left, he was waving to me till it turned a corner. By that time, I had mentally decided that I did not want to be in England! But I still put in my best, thinking that this man was slogging back in India to pay for my fees and accommodation, and I was feeling guilty. I wrote him a series of letters explaining how I was not liking it in England, and that I was finding the education extremely tough, but he would console and encourage me all through. He would tell me not to worry if I failed one examination and to work relentlessly. He said that after passing out I could get jobs in any of the big Indian companies!”
Says Nitin, “But I was very lonely, and there was no access then to our music either. Finally, after four months—it was 1967 and I was about 17—I wrote to him and said that I was breaking his heart, but I could not do this anymore and only wanted to be a singer. And do you know what he did? Raj (Kapoor) uncle and he had a friend in London and my father phoned the latter and told him, ‘Put my son on the first flight out!’. But he made me land in New Delhi!”
Emotionally, Nitin continues, “Papa felt that people in Mumbai would make me feel embarrassed, feel a failure! That is why he had suggested Delhi, where we had some relatives. At Delhi airport, he simply hugged me and said, ‘I am so happy to see you. I too was not happy when you were not around. And now, I am totally convinced that you want to be a singer.’ Let me tell you about this great man’s greatness. He lived for nine years after that, but never once did he say that I had shattered his dream or broken his heart. Never!”
Mukesh, however, still felt that Nitin should not go through the kind of heartbreaks he had undergone. He told him that he could try learning film direction, as a director was always the boss. Nitin became assistant to Hrishikesh Mukherjee from 1970, even as he kept learning music from his father’s guru, Pandit Jagannath Mishra. “I worked with Hrishi-da from Anand and Guddi to Chupke Chupke and Mili,” he recollects.
He treasures his Papa attending his first ‘proper’ recording, of Teri jheel si gehri ankhon mein, the Dhuen Ki Lakeerduet with Vani Jairam, and praising him. “I had sung a few lines in English for Rishi Kapoor in Mera Naam Joker¸Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye earlier,” explains Nitin. “After that, Hrishi-da had made me sing Dil dil se milega, from Sabse Bada Sukh, for a lark. But Teri jheel si was my first proper song, and the only recording Papa attended.”
Soon, Nitin also became a part of his father’s concerts, and he can never ever forget the first show, where his beloved Papa told him, Tu accha gaata hai (You sing well).
Nitin also remembers his father advising him to listen to all his contemporaries, and absorb their best points, especially Mohammed Rafi. “Woh kya gaata hai (He sings so well)!” he would rave. “Papa would make me sing Rafi uncle’s Badan pe sitare (Prince) and other hits!” he recollects. “After Papa, in a show, I sang my father’s duet with Rafi uncle, Saat ajoobe iss duniya mein from Dharam-Veer, but in my father’s concerts, he would make me take on Rafi uncle’s portions in their duets like Do jasoos kare mehsoos from Do Jasoos or in the title-track of Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya.”
A very personal and fond recent memory for Nitin is of a music lover calling him from Gujarat, and declaring, “In my state, we thrive on Vitamin ‘M’ with ‘M’ standing for Mukesh. Please don’t think you have any extra rights on him just because you are his family!”
Yes, the Mukesh Music Rights lie not with any music label but with the universe of Mukesh fans around the globe.
