Retro Express | When A Piano Spoke Louder Than Words

Once upon a time, we had movies with party songs, happy birthday songs, songs of welcoming back a foreign-returned hero/heroine or announcing a (surprise) engagement. The songs were usually located in large mansions that could house a dozen families, with huge chandeliers, expansive spiral or Y shaped staircases (often lined with velveteen carpets, usually red), and someone in power (Ashok Kumar, Rehman, Pran, KN Singh or some such) walking down the aforementioned staircase in a suit (or a silk dressing gown), puffing on his pipe.

And a grand piano to tie it all in.

The piano was not just a mise-en-scène, but a living personality, an important character in the films of yore. It was a symbol of westernisation, class, opulence and modernity. If you had a piano, you had arrived. For the rich-poor divide, there was no motif as strong as the piano. Filmmakers were quick to realise that at times, a song accomplished much more than what verbose dialogues could have done. This is what led to the birth of the piano song, which was sung either in the confines of the character’s home or at a grand party in front of a hall full of guests. Piano songs were usually full of meaning, and conveyed the mood of the character and often, deep emotions. In many ways, they set the tone for the scene and what was to come.

Can you imagine Dilip Kumar serenading Nargis with “Tu kahe agar jeevan bhar” (Andaz, 1949) without sitting at the grand piano? And when later he realises that there is a third wheel (Raj Kapoor), he sings “Jhoom jhoom ke nacho aaj” to express his anguish to the same piano.

In Ram Aur Shyam (1967), when Dilip Kumar sings “Aaj ki raat mere dil ki salaami le le” to Waheeda Rahman to clear the misunderstanding about his identity, the grand piano is the trusted ally.

Or when Sunil Dutt has to (once again) part from Mala Sinha in Gumrah (1963), the piano provides the backdrop for a poignant moment with the words, “Chalo ek baar phir se ajnabi ban jaayein hum dono”, while her husband (Ashok Kumar), lurks around the grand piano after he opens it for Dutt, smirking while puffing on his pipe, as she steals guilty glances at her past lover.

The fifties and sixties were probably the golden age of Hindi music; and there were plenty of piano-centric songs; sometimes the piano notes were the prelude to the song. Anil Biswas, the granddaddy of piano songs was responsible for the use of the piano in most of his films. Naushad also composed several piano songs, which went on to be super hits, as did Roshan, Ravi, Madan Mohan, Shankar Jaikishan and later, R.D Burman.

There was a multi-faceted personality to the piano. It was a kirdaar, not only meant for the lead to show his or her musical prowess, but for resolving tension without direct interface, for expressing deep emotions of love and heartbreak, and for taking the story forward. Sometimes, when the hero played the piano, the leading lady leaned on it, gazing at him in adoration. (When the moll did the same thing, the objective was usually seduction).

The piano song served many purposes: on some occasions it conveyed that the hero is in love with the heroine; on others, it helped vent feelings of betrayal, when she doesn’t love him back. Often, it expressed class divide, especially between a poor hero and a rich girl, who he was in love with. In some songs, the piano also served to suggest that the lead couple are not going to live happily ever after. It remained an important cue of the lost-and-found formula, reuniting families through the family song. It could simultaneously help clear misunderstandings, or serve to take musical revenge on someone you love, who actually loves someone else. Any celebration in the cinema of yesteryears centrally featured this grand instrument.

Unlike most films, where the player just pretend-plays the piano and is often just gazing into the distance through most of the song (most of Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar and Shashi Kapoor’s piano songs fall in this category), Vinod Mehra in “Geet gaata hun main” (Lal Patthar, 1971) and Sadhana in “Kaun aaya ki nigahon mein” (Waqt, 1965) actually kept their fingers in the right position as they played.

The disappearance of the piano from Hindi films is more about the obliteration of obvious motifs of class and opulence, the disappearance of grandness. The size of the homes has also shrunk since then, making it hard and impractical to accommodate a piano, let alone play it.

I hardly remember seeing a piano song in Hindi movies recently. The only one that comes to mind is Parineeta (2005). For a story set in the early 20th century, in which the hero was from an aristocratic family, the piano was a necessary element of detail in “Piyu bole”. Saif Ali Khan surprisingly reads sheet music and writes down new notes as he composes and plays for Vidya Balan—a detail that was often missing in piano songs of the 50s and 60s, where the hero or heroine is usually looking everywhere else but at the keys, while seeming to play the piano. Yes Boss (2001) also had Shah Rukh Khan serenading Juhi Chawla with Chaand Taare on a piano and recently, there was Andhadhun (2018), a whodunit noir thriller, in which Ayushmann Khurrana, a blind pianist, often played the piano menacingly.

The 40s, 50s, and the 60s were the heydays of piano songs and they survived the 70s fairly well. The 80s had a few memorable piano songs (Bade Dil Wala (1983), Karz (1980), Meri Jung (1985)). By the 90s, piano songs were few and far between. The grand piano, the grand living room spiral staircases, suits, aristocratic houses and the parties all became the past, as did the piano, which was only added when directors wanted to build an aura of the past.