Down Melody Lane..::..Composers

Music director Sajjad Hussain was a unique personality. He did only 14 films (approx.) in a career span of 20 years. He was an excellent Mandolin player. He had the honor of being the only musician in the world able to play classical Indian music on the mandolin, an almost impossible task because of its limitations. Sajjad Hussein was a genius . However he never witnessed the glory or fame that he deserved because of his unwillingness to compromise on the smallest of details. Sajjad was born in 1899 in a village Sitamau in Madhya Pradesh, India. His father taught him Sitar. In his teens he mastered himself in Veena, Violin, Flute and Piano.

In 1940 Sajjad came to Bombay and a friend introduced him to Mir Allabaksh (Father of Mina Kumari) who was a composer and was associated with Minerva Movietone. Mir was impressed by Sajjad's Mandolin and he employed him as his assistant. He worked with him for few films. Later he joined music director Pt. Hanumaan Prasad as an assistant. He assisted him in Gaali (1944) and he composed two songs for the film, i.e., 'Aag Lage Saawan Mein..' and 'Ab Aa Jaa Dil Na Lage..' both were sung by Nirmala Devi.

In 1944 he got Dost as an independant music director solely on the basis of his own talent. The songs of the film sung by Noor Jahan became very famous. In 1947 he came out with '1857'. The song 'Teri Nazar Mein Main Rahoon, Meri Nazar Mein Too..' sung by Suraiyya and Surendra became a rage. In 1950 Khel was released which had two songs by Lata Mangeshkar, 'Bhool Jaa Aei Dil..' and 'Jaate Ho To Jaao..', both of them became very popular. In 1951 came his films Saiyyan which was a huge hit. Sajjad was a very moody and short tempered man. He had some problems with lyricist D. N. Madhok who penned the songs of Saiyyan. After Saiyyan they never worked again.

Since Sajjad had earned fame all by his efforts, he became very proud of his talent and he always found himself in controversies with his co-workers.In 1951, he was preparing music for Sangdil during which he clashed with its actor Dilip Kumar and as a result the two were never seen together after that. He not only worked very hard for the songs of Sangdil, but also for its background music. His hard work paid him and the he got lot of appreciation for the overall music of Sangdil. Songs like 'Ye Hawa Ye Raat Ye Chandni..' created history and it is counted as his best compositions.

He teased Talat Mehmood as 'Galat Mehmood', Kishore Kumar as 'Shor Kumar' and even commented adversly on Lata Mangeshkar once. As a result of which he had problems with Lata for some time. It was his rude behaviour that he got few chances. He also rejected an offer by S. Mukherjee of Filmistaan. The result of his tussles and controversies was that he has just 14 films and less than 100 songs to his name in his 20 years long film career spanning from Dost (1944) to Rustam Sohraab (1963). Most of his songs were hits and are memorable but his behaviour kept him from a rich film career and us from many more good songs. Anil Biswas' compliment gives us the insight of the capabilities of this great composer, according to Anilda, Sajjad Hussain was the only original composer of Hindi cinema. Every note of his was an original.