Talat Mahmood: The velvet voice of Indian cinema and his curtailed career

With his velvety, soulful and ethereal voice, marked by a slight quaver, Talat Mahmood was well suited for the elegant poetic compositions that are the bedrock of Hindi film music, and rose to great heights initially. But given the fickleness of popularity and public demand, his singing career was stilled prematurely.

In his heyday, in the early 1950s, Talat Mahmood served as the voice for all the leading stars, as well as the emerging ones. "Ae mere dil kahin aur chal", "Main dil hoon ek armaan bhara" and "Jaayen to jaayen jahan" were picturised on the trinity of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand in "Daag", "Anhonee" and "Taxi Driver", respectively. "Chal diyaa karvan, lut gaye ham yahan" sung for Shammi Kapoor in "Lailaa Majnoon" and "Jalte hain jiske liye" for Sunil Dutt in "Sujata" are melodies that resonate even today.

After roughly a decade or so in the limelight, Talat Mahmood saw music composers root for other voices Shankar-Jaikishan made Mukesh Raj Kapoor's voice, Naushad plumped for Rafi for Dilip Kumar, and Rafi became the voice of choice for Dev Anand as well