Golden Era of Bollywood: Remembering SHANKAR of Shankar-jaikishan on his 94th Birth Anniversary

Shankar Singh s/o Ram Singh (15 October 1922 – 26 April 1987) was a native of Telangana, and spent his early years in Hyderabad. During his formative years, Shankar played the tabla and learned the art formally from Baba Nasir Khansahib. For many years, Shankar studied as a disciple of the legendary composer Khawaja Khurshid Anwar, in whose orchestra he performed.
Shankar started his career with a theater group run by Satyanarayan and Hemawati, before shifting to Prithvi Theatre where he played tabla and performed some minor roles in plays. Shankar worked as assistant to the leading composer duo of Husnlal Bhagatram.
Shankar used to frequently visit the office of a Gujrati director Chandravadan Bhatt who had promised Shankar a break as a Music Director when he produced a film. It was outside the office of Bhatt that Shankar met Jaikishan Both used to visit Prithvi theatre and became good friend.

While working in Prithvi Theaters, Shankar and Jaikishan used to compose tunes and were in touch with Raj Kapoor, who was working as an assistant to the famous director Kidar Sharma and was aspiring to be an actor/director. Thus, the three had met at Prithvi Theater.
Raj Kapoor made his debut as a director with the film Aag in 1948. Its music director Ram Ganguly was assisted by Shankar and Jaikishan. However, during the recording of a song for his new venture Barsaat, Raj Kapoor had some serious differences with Ram Ganguly and decided to assign its music to Shankar who insisted on taking Jaikishan as his partner. Thus came into existence the new pair of music directors named 'Shankar-Jaikishan' who composed the music for the film.

A Rare Photo of Shankar with R K Team

While working as a team, Shankar and Jaikishan used to compose their songs separately. Generally, Shankar liked to work with Shailendra and Jaikishan with Hasrat Jaipuri though there are notable instances where Shankar worked with Hasrat and Jaikishan with Shailendra. Between the two, Shankar was the senior partner and hence, he would usually arrange the orchestra, even for Jaikishan's songs. There was a gentleman's agreement between them for not identifying the actual composer of the song.
Dance numbers, title/theme songs and soulful songs were Shankar's forte while Jaikishan was a master of composing background score, apart from romantic songs.

They,specially Shankar didn’t just stick to established singers but made sure they found the right voice for the mood. For instance, they used an unknown Subir Sen for Dil mera ek aas ka panchi from Aas Ka Panchi (1960), Suman Kalyanpur for Dil ek mandir hai from Dil Ek Mandir (1963), Manna Dey for Yeh raat bheegi bheegi, Chori Chori (1956), Asha Bhosle for Mud mudke na dekh from Shri 420 (1955), Mukesh (for Dilip Kumar) in Yeh mera diwanapan hai, Yahudi (1958) and made many more such off kilter choices.

Shankar and Jaikishan began to give music separately but few may be aware about their split Though the two never disclosed the separation, the fact is that the two did started working separately in the mid-60s. The reason is attributed to the fact that Shankar introduced a new singer Sharda (famous for her song Titli Udi... in the movie SURAJ) much against the disagreement of Jaikishan. Further Shankar's fondness for Sharda and Jiakishan's inclination towards Lata Mangeshkar created differences between the two and in the mid-60s the two split. They always credited their name on screen as music by Shankar Jaikishan.

The impact of this separation was so severe that Jaikishan took to heavy drinking. In an interview, Shammi Kapoor, who was very close to Jaikishan, confessed that the prime reason of Jaikishan's untimely death was his consumption of excessive alcohol due to his separation with Shankar.

After the death of jaikishan gave the Hit music of Lal Patthar and Sanyasi but slowly& slowly Shanker's career goes downhill.First Raj Kapoor opted for Laxmikant Pyarelal for Bobby then Loyalist Sohanlal Kanwar, who has been with him since 1970, leaves him..

Shankar died in the night of April 26, 1987 due to a massive heart attack as known from his family source. The world came to know about his death a day after the cremation was over.
, Shankar was a very private man and, thus, maintained a very low profile. He married a widow named Kunda with two sons. The two did not have any children of their own. Kunda also passed away a few years after Shankar. No one knows the whereabouts of the step sons.

RAJ KAPOOR & SHANKAR JAIKISHAN SONGS
Raj Kapoor & Shankar Jaikishan's association was one of the most successful and memorable music collaborations in Hindi Films. Other such collabrations were Dev Annand and S D Burman,Dilip with Naushad etc.S J and Raj Kapoor team worked together in 19 movies including 9 for R K Films.The first time they came together in Barsaat 1949.