Golden Era of Bollywood: Remembering C RAMCHANDRA on his 99th Birth Anniversary

Thursday 12 January 2017

Remembering C RAMCHANDRA on his 99th Birth Anniversary

C Ramchandra was born on 12th Jan 1918 in Puntamba, a small town in Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra.His real name was Ramchandra Narhar Chitalkar ,he was also known as Annasaheb and Ram CHITALKAR. Although he’d studied music, it was as an actor that C Ramachandra joined the film industry—he debuted in a lead role in a film called Nagananda. This didn’t continue for long, though; he eventually shifted to composing songs, For his career as an occasional playback singer he used only his surname Chitalkar. Chitalkar sang some renowned and unforgettable duets with Lata such as Kitna haseen hai mausam in film Azad or Shola Jo bhadke in Albela.
He debuted as music director in Tamil movies with Jayakkodi and Vana Mohini. He received public notice as a good composer in Bhagwan Dada's "Sukhi Jeevan", and established a long association that culminated with the musical box office hit "Albela".
He came like a breath of fresh air to Hindi film music: in a period dominated by classical tunes composed by the likes of Naushad, Anil Biswas and Pankaj Mullick.
C. Ramachandra's biggest success as a music composer was the 1953 movie Anarkali starring Beena Roy in the title role and Pradeep Kumar. The songs that he composed for this movie are today legendary. Songs of this movie like "Yeh Zindagi Usiki Hai", "Mujhse Mat Poochh Mere Ishq Main Kya Rakha Hai", "Mohabbat Aisi Dhadkan Hai", "Jaag Dard-e-Ishq Jaag" etc. went on to become huge hits and were also highly acclaimed as masterpieces. Anarkali also perhaps saw the famed composer-singer combine of Ramachandra and Lata Mangeshkar at their best ever together.
Who can forget the songs of V shantaram's NAVRANG released in 1958,the extremely popular Aadha hai chandrama raat aadhi, the defiant Toh maati sabhi ki kahaani kahegi, and the Holi song Arre jaa re hatt natkhat.
The highly popular patriotic song "Aye Mere Watan Ke Logo", which was sung by Lata Mangeshkar and penned by poet Pradeep, was a composition of Ramachandra, it was later performed live, by Lata Mangeshkar, in the presence of Jawaharlal Nehru at the Ramlila grounds, in New Delhi on Republic Day, 26 January 1963.
In the late 1960s, Ramachandra produced two Marathi movies, "Dhananjay" and "Gharkul". He also acted in them and composed music for them. C. Ramchandra died on 5 January 1982 in Mumbai.
My TRIBUTE TO C RAMCHANDRA

Great compilation of songs of one of the most underrated music directors of Hindi cinema. C Ramchandra’s range and versatility was amazing. He was also good at semi-classical type of songs