Music Maestro C Ramachandra’s Biography Reveals Interesting Nuggets About Suraiya

The Bitter-Sweet Cocktail, a biography of celebrated music director C Ramchandra by journalist Dilip Phansalkar is quite interesting. Ramachandra has given some exceptional songs. The author who personally knew the gorgeous movie star and singer Suraiya (1929-2004) narrates an incident while interviewing her at Krishna Mahal residence in Marine Drive, Mumbai. The year was 1954 when her just released movie Mirza Ghalib was a box-office hit. Suraiya, it seems, was approached by a publication, with a proposal that they would like to honour her with the Best Actress Award. But only if she pays a certain amount. A furious Suraiya told the gentleman “Why should I pay you for my hardwork” and showed him the door. Likewise when Suraiya signed for Duniya, she learnt that the music will be scored by C Ramachandra. Those days the talk of the town was the affair between Ramachandra and Lata Mangeshkar. Suraiya felt she would lose out on getting a singing assignment for the movie. So she approached Ramachandra and said, ’Annaji, I have no objection if Lata Mangeshkar gives my playback for all the songs in the film.” He responded, ‘No, never. The film would draw crowds at the box-office because of your name, star power and singing, not because of Lata’s voice. You must sing all the songs.’ And so I sang all the songs.”