IT has been 54 years since Asha Bhosle and music director, Rahul Dev Burman, gave the world two great songs, one of which would never have been recorded if it wasn’t for the modern mind of Asha Bhosle.
One composition was the featured song from a film about the hippie generation that swept the world in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was produced by a director and star that India will not see in another hundred years – Dev Anand. He made Hare Rama Hare Krishna with the former Miss Asia, Zenat Aman. Asha Bhosle voiced the song for Aman. It is Dum Mara Dum.
It remains one of the most iconic songs in India and one of the iconic Indian songs in Guyana. Asha Bhosle did the voice-over Helen for the song, “Piya Tu Ab To Aaja” from the movie about gypsies titled, Caravan.
I will never forget those two songs and those two movies. Dum Mara Dum and Piya To Ab To Aaja will never die in India and Guyana. The next generation in both countries that will be born will appreciate those two songs.
When I read that Asha Bhosle had died, memories came tumbling down. She reminds me of Guyana Oriental College and the days I spent in Indian culture and Indian music. I only mentioned this once and here I am printing it again. I once lived in an ashram on Craig Street, Campbellville. It was a source for food which was not available at home on D’Urban Street.
I didn’t go to high school. I studied for my GCE at Guyana Oriental College (GOC) which now stands, Eureka Labs. The principal of that school was from India and became a naturalised Guyanese, Shruti Kant.
Shruti is one of my heroes. If ever I have a personal moment of historical reflection with President Ali, I will ask him to rename, the western half of Thomas Street in Cummingsburg as Shruti Kant Street; He was a very fine human.
The afternoon lesson system at GOC started early in the afternoon, so many of the students in lessons came to know the fulltime students at GOC. A group of us became friends, especially two of them from Bar Street, Kitty that became like my brothers to me. We would go every week to Liberty Cinema.
In those days, Liberty would run one movie for two weeks. This was unlike the cinemas that would put on a different movie three times a week. Plaza on Camp Street would run a different movie each afternoon. It was at Plaza I saw some of the great political movies, two in particular were directed by Costa Gavras, “State of Siege” about the Tupamaros guerrillas in Urguguay.
One of those guerrillas, Jose Mujica, decades later became the President of Uruguay. He remains a hard act to follow from any country.
The other film was “Z” about the military dictatorship in Greece in the 1960s. Because Liberty would show one movie for two weeks, Empire formerly on Middle Street, got our patronage, since it ran an Indian movie once a week.
There are only four Indian movies I saw twice and two of them – Hare Rama, Hare Krishna and Caravan – was party because of those two songs that everyone of us in Guyana that loved Indian movies adored.
The other two were Janbaaz with Feroz Khan and Qurbani with Khan and Zenat Aman, the lady from Hare Rama Hare Krishna. Strangely, for me, Khan was my favourite actor and director for Indian movies (partly because I think he was avant-garde and a maverick way ahead of his contemporaries). I think he was very much underrated by the Hindi screen.
If anyone Asha Bhosle reminds me is that of my mother. Strangely, Asha was her favourite over Asha’s famous sister, Lata Mangeshgar. The two had different ranges. Lata and Asha excelled in two different formats. Lata was the crooner, the lady that sang love songs that were soothing, maudlin, sentimental and romantically inviting.
Asha on the other hand was the up-tempo performer. I do not think up to this day that Lata could have done Dom Mara Dom and Piya Tu Ab To AaJa, and I believe the film directors knew that. At the beginning, I mentioned that Dom Mara Dom would never have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for Asha.
There was adverse reaction to the song because since it was about the hippie generation, there was objection because it feared that it encouraged drug smoking. It was Asha that insisted and today the song has become immortal in India and Guyana. Goodbye Asha! And thank you for the memories and the music.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.