Tribute to the great music composer Naushad ji

Naushad Ali (25 December 1919 – 5 May 2006) was  the foremost music directors for Hindi films and is particularly known for popularizing the use of classical music in films. He composed 600+ songs in 69 films, of which 50 were jubilee hits.
His first film as an independent music director was Prem Nagar in 1940. His first musical success film was Rattan (1944), following it up with 35 silver jubilee hits, 12 golden jubilee and 3 diamond jubilee mega successes. Naushad was conferred the Dadasaheb Phalke Award and the Padma Bhushan in 1982 and 1992 respectively for his contribution to the Bollywood film industry.
Naushad was born and raised in Lucknow, a city with a long tradition as a center of Indian Muslim culture. His father, Wahid Ali, was a munshi (court clerk). As a child, Naushad would visit the annual fair at the Deva Sharif in Barabanki, 25 km from Lucknow, where all the great qawwals and musicians of those days would perform before the devotees. He studied Hindustani music there under Ustad Ghurbat Ali, Ustad Yusuf Ali, Ustad Babban Saheb and others.
In time Naushad formed his own Windsor Music Entertainers or just Windsor Entertainers, so named because he had seen the word "Windsor" around Lucknow and liked its ring. It led to the Indian Star Theatrical Company in a theatre at Golaganj colony in Lucknow. He was trained under Laddan Khan until he became capable of working independently as a composer. T
Naushad had already become a cinema fan in the silent era and then, in 1931, Indian cinema got voice and music that further fascinated the 13-year-old boy. But his family was strict follower of Islamic diktat of prohibition of music and his father gave him ultimatum to leave music if he wanted to stay at home. He ran away to Mumbai in the late 1937 to try his luck as a musician.
In Mumbai, he initially stayed with an acquaintance from Lucknow (U.P.) at Colaba and after a while, shifted to Dadar opposite the Broadway theatre where he would sleep on the footpath. He assisted music director Ustad Jhande Khan who was at the peak of his success those days, at a monthly salary of Rs 40. The producer was a Russian and the studio was at Chembur. The film could not be completed. Naushad was a piano player so he worked as a pianist in composer Ustad Mushtaq Hussain's orchestra. He then polished off an unfinished film score and got a credit as assistant to Hussain. Then the film company collapsed. Composer Khemchand Prakash took him on as his assistant for the film Kanchan at Ranjit Studios at a salary of Rs 60 per month, for which Naushad remained extremely grateful and in interviews, he had called Khemchand his guru.
His friend, lyricist D. N. Madhok, trusted Naushad's unusual talent for composing music and introduced him to various film producers. Chandulal Shah, the owner of Ranjit Studios, offered to sign Naushad for one of his forthcoming films. Naushad composed a thumri for this film, "Bata de koi kaun gali gaye Shyam", but the film never got on the floors. He was assistant music director for the Punjabi film Mirza Sahib (1939).

He composed for his first independent film Prem Nagar in 1940 that had a story set in Kutch for which he did a lot of research into the folk music of the area. With A.R. Kardar's film Nayi Duniya (1942), he got first credit as "music director" and he began to work regularly for Kardar Productions. He however had a flexibility that he could work outside Kardar Productions and this arrangement continued ever after. He first got noticed with A.R. Kardar's film Sharda (1942) wherein 13-year-old Suraiya debuted with the song "Panchhi Ja" for the playback for heroine Mehtab. It was Rattan (1944) that took Naushad right to the top and enabled him to charge Rs 25,000 a film during those days.

From 1942 until the late 1960s, he was one of the top music directors in Hindi films. Naushad worked with several lyricists, including Shakeel Badayuni, Majrooh Sultanpuri, D. N. Madhok, Zia Sarhadi, and Khumar Barabankvi. Mother India (1957), for which he had composed music, was the first Indian film that got nominated for Oscar. In 1981, Naushad was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for his lifetime contribution to Indian cinema. He composed the tunes of Taj Mahal: An Eternal Love Story (2005) at the age of 86. Amongst his assistants, Mohammed Shafi, Jerry Amaldev and Ghulam Mohammed stand out prominently.
Naushad died on 5 May 2006 in Mumbai.
Awards and recognition
• 1954: Filmfare Best Music Director Award – Baiju Bawra
• 1961: Bengal Film Journalists' Association's best music director Award for Gunga Jumna
• 1975: "Naushad Ali", a 30-minute documentary film produced by Television Centre, Mumbai
• 1981: Dada Saheb Phalke Award
• 1984: Lata Mangeshkar Award (Madhya Pradesh State Government's Award)
• 1987: Amir Khusro Award
• 1992: Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
• 1992: Padma Bhushan
• : Maharashtra Gaurav Puruskar
• : Best Music for "The Sword of Tipu Sultan"