Abhimaan

Awards

Album Awards:
• 1973 - Filmfare Awards - Best Music Director - S.D. Burman

Trivia

Album

• It has been said that director Hrishikesh Mukherjee based this film on the real-life story of Pandit Ravi Shankar and his first wife, Annapurna Devi. Their wedding was arranged by the renowned Hindustani musician Baba Alauddin Khan, the father of Annapurna Devi - then called Roshanara Khan. The two met when Ravi Shankar came to learn the sitar from Baba. Annapurna Devi was considered a much better sitar player and this apparently made Ravi Shankar jealous of her. This and other marital issues eventually led to their divorce. While the film may have been based on their story, its happy ending deviates from the real-life tragedy. There are other theories about the origin of this film. According to one, the film was inspired by the plot of the Hollywood film "A Star Is Born", various versions of which were released in 1937, 1954, 1976 and 2018. The Hindi film "Aashiqui 2" (2013) was a remake of this series. Another theory is that this film was inspired by the real-life story of singer Kishore Kumar and his first wife, Ruma Guha Thakurta.[1][2][MR21]
• This film was produced by Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri's production company, Amiya, whose name was derived from the two actors' names. However, they were not credited as the film's producers. Pawan Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan's secretary, and Sushila Kamat, the film's Chief Assistant Director, were credited as the film's producers.
• After debuting as a producer in this film, Pawan Kumar went on to produce several films for Shatrughan Sinha's production house, Ramayana Chitra. Both Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha shared Pawan Kumar as their secretary for some time.
• The opening credits of this film listed three playback singers who did not have any songs in the film's audio release - Sunil Kumar, Anuradha Paudwal and S.D. Burman. These singers only lent their voices to the film's background score.
• Anuradha Paudwal made her singing debut for this movie, albeit for the rendition of a small Shiv shloka in the film's background score. The male voice singing the shloka with her was probably Sunil Kumar. Anuradha Paudwal's husband, Arun Paudwal, who assisted S.D. Burman in the film, had recorded her voice for the scene in which Amitabh Bachchan's character first hears Jaya Bhaduri's character's voice. Her voice was later supposed to be recorded over with Lata Mangeshkar's voice but S.D. Burman liked it so much that he decided to use Anuradha's voice for the final cut.
• S.D. Burman sang his own song "Sun Mere Bandhu Re" ("Sujata", 1959) for this film's background score in the scene in which Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri's characters reconcile with each other. This song also appeared in an otherwise songless, "Achanak" (1973), which had Vasant Desai's score.[3][4]
• This was one of the few films that had three different singers sing for the film's hero. It has been hypothesized that the voices of the three singers singing for Amitabh Bachchan in the film - Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi and Manhar Udhas - represented the three different mental states of Amitabh Bachchan's character at various points in the film.
• This film was originally titled "Raag Ragini".
• The lead actors of this film, Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri, had gotten married a few weeks before its release.
• With this film, S.D. Burman became the oldest music director to win a Filmfare Award for Best Music Director at 67 years of age. It was his first Filmfare Award in almost two decades. The last time he won the award was for the film "Taxi Driver" (1954).[5]
• When Shankar Singh Raghuvanshi called S.D. Burman to congratulate him for winning the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director for this film, Burman thanked him and clarified that he had not spent any money on it! The senior composer's clarification was a dig at Shankar - Jaikishan's reputation for buying Filmfare awards. Burman had reportedly been offered the award for "Guide" (1965) for a sum of Rs. 50000. He had rejected the offer and Shankar - Jaikishan's "Suraj" (1966) had won the award that year. Filmfare had clarified later that the individuals who had approached Burman for the award were not connected to them in any way.[6][7][8][MR21]

Song

• Tere Mere Milan Ki Yeh Raina - This song was S.D. Burman's adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore's "Jodi Taare Naai Cheeni Go". Bappi Lahiri also adapted the same Tagore song for the Hindi film song "Chanda Dekhe Chanda" ("Jhoothi", 1985).[9][10]
• Loote Koi Man Ka Nagar Ban Ke Mera Saathi - S.D. Burman had initially planned for this song to be sung by Mukesh. However, he was so impressed by the scratch version recorded by Manhar Udhas that he decided to retain it as the final version.[MR21]

1. ^ Annapurna Devi profile
2. ^ Aashiqui 2 (2013)
3. ^ Sun Mere Bandhu Re (Sujata, 1959)
4. ^ Achanak (1973)
5. ^ Taxi Driver (1954)
6. ^ Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma on S D Burman - Part Three
7. ^ Guide (1965)
8. ^ Suraj (1966)
9. ^ Jodi Taare Naai Cheeni Go
10. ^ Chanda Dekhe Chanda (Jhoothi, 1985)