Bollywood producer-filmmaker Chetan Anand made his debut as a director with Neecha Nagar in 1946. Legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar started his career as a music director with Neecha Nagar. Nine months after Neecha Nagar, he also scored for K.A. Abbas's Dharti Ke Lal. Neecha Nagar won the Grand Prix at the first Cannes Film Festival. Both with Indian People's Theatre Association backgrounds, Chetan Anand was Chetan to Ravi Shankar and K.A. Abbas was Khawja to the sitar icon.
Whilst working together, Ravi Shankar was impressed by Chetan Anand’s sense of music. For one intense sequence, Ravi Shankar played three sitar counters. Chetan Anand requested Ravi Shankar to opt for a violin piece, too. The composer obliged the filmmaker without any hesitation. The result was superb. For the climax, Ravi Shankar opted for Indian drums, dholak, the sitar and bamboo flute. The music of Neecha Nagar earned international acclaim. Legendary music director Maurice Jarr defined the music as 'objectivity mingled well with a romantic rebel touch'.
For Dharti Ke Lal, Ravi Shankar gave a different kind of composition. He was not willing to compose songs for the film based on the famine of 1942. The novel Nabanna by Bijon Bhattacharya was a heart-touching realistic tale of the famine. Yet, keeping commercial and box office reasons in mind, Abbas opted for songs. Ravi Shankar did full justice and his use of a single sitar counter to actor David whistling in the night with a licentious attitude gave goosebumps. He used mainly the sitar and bamboo flute for the film’s background score. In 1952, Chetan Anand conducted an experiment unknown to Indian cinema. He assigned the task of music direction of Aandhiyan to Ali Akbar Khan. He was Alubhai for his dear Chetan. The title and background score of Aandhiyan had Ali Akbar Khan’s sarod, Ravi Shankar’s sitar and Pannalal Ghosh’s flute.
It is a tragedy the trio of Chetan Anand, K.A. Abbas and Ravi Shankar never worked together later. Viewing their efforts and being influenced by them, Satyajit Ray and Tapan Sinha opted for Ravi Shankar to score for the Apu Trilogy, Paras Pathar and Kabuliwala. Ravi Shankar often said that it was Chetan Anand who got him to learn the art of composing film music. Ravi Shankar scored haunting melodies rendered by Lata Mangeshkar and Mohd Rafi for Anuradha and Godan. The scores of Meerabai were works of a tired genius. Similarly, the musical score for Genesis lacked his earlier golden touch. Ravi Shankar at this stage did state that film music was no more his forte.
Not to forget Maurice Jarr’s comments on the music of Neecha Nagar that it did convey a feeling of revolution. In an exclusive interview to a leading French publication in the backdrop of 60th anniversary of the film in 1997, Ravi Sankar said that Chetan Anand was a source of creative inspiration and Abbas, a writer-director with true grit.
