On Saturday, February 28, 2004 at 2:56:33 PM UTC+5:30, naniwadekar wrote:

Last month, I tried to find the list of all songs
included in the LP release titled : Vasant Bahar. I guess
this LP was released around 1978; its release may even
have been prompted by 10th death anniversary of Vasant
Prabhu who died in Sept/Oct 1968 at the age of 45. The
LP 'Vasant Bahar' (not Bahaar but Bahar, IIRC) is a
collection of 12 songs composed by Prabhu and sung by
Lata. P Savlaram, who died around Dec 1997, was the
lyricist for 10 of 12 songs on the LP. He had written
a note for the LP.

Vasant Prabhu is a forgotten legend today, not known even
to many of those who have liked his songs over many
decades but very dear to those who know what a genius he
was. His Hindi output is not much. He composed music for
the film 'Gharbaar'; his two non-film Hindi bhajans by
Lata are fairly well-known : 'dil dharawe so ik nyaaraa
hai' and 'mai.nyaa morii mai.n nahii.n maakhan khaayo'.
He was very prolific in Marathi space. Savlaram has
mentioned how Prabhu's very first song for Lata became
a rage : 'gangaa yamunaa DoLyaat ubhyaa kaa', sung by
a mother bidding farewell to her daughter as the latter
leaves her village with her in-laws after marriage.
This was the first song for which Prabhu, Savlaram and
Lata worked together. Lata was 19 that time, Prabhu 25.
I don't know which songs, if any, Prabhu had recorded
before this. Savlaram went on to write many songs for
Prabhu. A vast majority of Prabhu's songs were sung by
Mangeshkar sisters. Contribution by Sudhir Phadke and
Hridaynath to Asha's sterling Marathi career is often
recalled. As he was in life, Prabhu is forgotten in
death. Asha herself rarely/never mentions him and should
be ashamed of herself. As great as Prabhu-Asha combo was,
Prabhu-Lata pair was in a class by itself. Prabhu's
songs, like Talat's, are repetitive but no less dearer
to his fans for it. As poet-composer Sudhir Moghe has
remarked, the songs are like siblings who are very close
in looks and traits but each of whom has just enough
distinctiveness which makes him special. Alas, Lata is
in a class by herself as ungrateful person and does not
mention Vasant Prabhu any more than her younger sister
does.

Vasant Prabhu was a dance teacher. This is reflected in
his songs. They use theka which has 'bounce' to it. Even
in his somber songs, its unseen presence can often be
felt. I cannot recall any song of his set to Deepchandi
or Roopak taal, let alone the rare Jhaptaal. It is dadra
and keherwa and more dadra and more keherwa all the time.
He was composing songs in significant quantity soon after
1950, mostly of non-film variety. But he did some films
like 'Wadal' (waadaL), too, in that time-frame. In the
second half of the fifties, he got quite a few film
assignments and his non-film output became more numerous.
Much of it is utterly forgotten but nearly all of it is
of very high calibre.

Nerurkar's book on Lata carries an announcement about a
book on Prabhu. The book was supposed to come out in 1990
but later the project was abandoned. Due to lack of good
source material, I am having to depend on memory and some
guesswork to compose this post. But after 1960, the
assignments to Prabhu became less frequent and he started
drinking heavily. His depression was darkened by the
death of his daughter. He was very fond of her but one
day when she requested to skip school due to ill-health,
Prabhu in his drunken state beat her and ordered her to
attend the school. She left home reluctantly only for her
dead body to be returned home when her health
deteriorated rapidly after leaving home. The tragedy cast
a dark pall over the remaining years of Prabhu's life.
His wife lives in Mumbai and I had toyed with the idea of
meeting her but time was short and I abandoned the idea.
Even Prabhu's mother was alive until very recently. She
died around 1998.

It is a measure of the neglect suffered by Prabhu and a
mark of how slow we Indians are in many areas that even
the information about a great LP put together to
commemorate his genius could not be found on the web or
in Usenet archives. With the help of some friends, I could
finally put together a list of the songs on the Vasant
Bahar LP. I had first planned to post a request on rmim
for the LP's stats, then thought of posting the stats
and have now ended up composing this post (over 3-4
weeks) which I hope will awaken memories of Prabhu's fans
and alert those who did not know about him to explore his
output. The MIO site (musicindiaonline dot com) features
quite a few of Prabhu's songs and deserves our gratitude
for it.

I will post the Vasant Bahar LP's stats soon.

Just as Ga Di Madgulkar and Sudhir Phadke formed a
lyricist-MD pair, so did P Savlaram and Vasant Prabhu.
When the pair joined forces with Lata and their very
first song together took Maharashtra by storm, Bai
Sundarabai Jadhav, herself a singer and composer of
genius, said to them : "The three of you are blessed by
the God. That is the reason everything has come together
so beautifully in your song." Sundrabai died in 1953 and
did not get to enjoy the fruits of Prabhu's genius beyond
the first few years of his career but it was a fitting
tribute by an artiste about to take her bow to a budding
combination which ranks very high among the delights
available to connoisseurs of vintage music.

- dn

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