Sudhakar Sharma Talks About Shankar Jaikishan
Sudhakar Sharma Talks How He Felt Working With Shankar Jaikishan For His Film - Gori.
Shankar Jaikishan (also known as S-J), were a popular and successful Indian composer duo of the Hindi film industry, working together from 1949 to 1971. They are considered to be two of the best music directors of the Hindi film industry. Later, Shankar continued to function as a Music Director alone, still giving music under the banner Shankar-Jaikishan, till 1987.
Shankar-Jaikishan, along with other artists, composed "everlasting" and "immortal melodies" in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. Their best work was noted for being "raga-based and having both lilt and sonority"
Apart from working at Prithvi Theatre, Shankar used to frequently visit the office of a Gujrati director Chandravadan Bhatt who had promised Shankar a break as a Music Director when he produced a film. It was outside the office of Bhatt that Shankar saw Jaikishan a number of times. One day, he started a conversation and discovered that Jaikishan was a harmonium player, and that he too was visiting the same producer in search of work. Shankar later recollected that they developed a liking for each other and it was he who then and there assured Jaikishan of the job of a Harmonium player at Prithvi Theatre (without asking Prithviraj Kapoor, fondly referred to as 'Papaji'). Papaji honoured Shankar's selection and gladly accepted Jaikishan as a Harmonium player at Prithvi. Soon, the two of them developed very close friendship to the extent that the people started referring to them as 'Ram-Lakshman ki jodi' and by several similar-meaning nicknames. Apart from following their musical pursuits, they also used to play significant roles in various plays including the famous play "Pathan".
While working in Prithvi Theatre, Shankar and Jaikishan used to compose tunes and were in touch with Raj Kapoor, who was working as an assistant to the famous director Kidar Sharma and was aspiring to be an actor/director. Thus, the three had met at Prithvi Theatre.