At a time when it was unusual for amateurs to perform for radio broadcasts, vocalist and organ player Khurshid Minocher-Homji and her sisters presented monthly “Variety Entertainment” programmes on All India Radio. Known as Homji sisters, they also played the sitar, mandolin and dilruba.
Khurshid Minocher-Homji had her training at the Sharada Sangeet Vidyalaya under music educationist Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, and later joined the Marris College in Lucknow, first as a student and then as a music teacher. She went on to become famous as Saraswati Devi, India’s first woman film music director and worked with Bombay Talkies between 1935 and 1941.
Unfortunately, we do not have any recordings of her art music performances or those of the Homji sisters. But in the twelfth episode of our series on Hindustani musicians composing for Hindi cinema we will listen to some of the songs composed by her for Hindi cinema.
We begin with a duet from Achyut Kanya (1936), sung by actor-singers Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar.
The second song is from Janmabhoomi (1936) and the text accompanying the film clip mentions that it has been sung by Saraswati Devi.
The next song is from Jeevan Naiya (1936), sung by actor-singer Ashok Kumar. Listeners will remember a similar song sung by Kishore Kumar several years later.
We have another song sung by Saraswati Devi and chorus. Describing the Holi festival, this song is from the film Jeevan Prabhat (1937).
The last song included in this episode is sung by Ashok Kumar for film Jhoola (1941). A version of this song was sung a few years later as a duet by Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey for the film Padosan (1968).
One of India’s leading tabla players, Aneesh Pradhan is a widely recognised performer, teacher, composer and scholar of Hindustani music. Visit his website here.
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