Music director duos are a unique Bollywood feature, and many have become iconic.
In this special series, Dinesh Raheja explores prominent music duos, and their dynamics.
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The first music composing duo to achieve success in Bollywood were the brothers Husnlal Bhagatram.
They hit their peak with their melodious soundtracks for two of Suraiya's biggest hit films -- 1948's Pyar Ki Jeet (Tere Naino Ne Chori Kiya) and 1949's Badi Bahan (Woh Paas Rahe Ya Door Rahe) -- but couldn't repeat this feat, though the composers and the singer-actress were trying to do so even a decade later with Trolley Driver (1958).
Husnlal Bhagatram were also credited with two of Lata Mangeshkar's earliest gems (Abhi Toh Main Jawan Hoon and the perennially popular Chup Chup Khade Ho) but that couldn't halt their precipitous decline in the mid-1950s.
Husnlal, disheartened, moved to Delhi where he is said to have taught music and died while still in his forties.
Elder brother Bhagatram stayed back in Mumbai and tried to get his solo composing career off the ground but to no avail.
He too passed away in 1973 ... unhailed and unsung.
Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff
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