(b Lucknow, 25 Dec 1919). Indian Hindi film music director. Naushad was among the most successful Hindi film music directors of the 1940s to 1960s, earning widespread fame as a composer of film songs based on Indian classical and folk traditions. As a young boy in Lucknow he spent many hours listening to the orchestra accompanying silent films in a nearby cinema, in defiance of his father's wishes. In his teens he formed a touring theatrical company with its own orchestra, which visited cities in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan. After this first experience as a composer, Naushad moved to Mumbai (Bombay) in 1937 seeking work in the Hindi film industry. For a short time he played piano in the orchestra at the Film City studio, Tardeo, but soon acquired work as assistant to music director Khemchand Prakash in Ranjit Movietone. His début as a single music director came in 1940 with Bhavnani Production's Prem nagar. When Naushad became music director at Kardar Studios in 1942, his popularity as a film song composer began to soar. He produced a succession of enormously popular songs in Kardar's films, including those based on his native Uttar Pradesh folksongs in Rattan (1944) and classically based tunes for the historically orientated Shahjahan (1946). A.R. Kardar granted Naushad permission to accept contracts outside the studio, which led to further hit songs in films such as Mehboob Studios' Anmol ghadi (1946) and Andaz (1949) and Wadia Films' Mela (1948), which greatly increased the films' box-office draw.
In the 1950s Naushad drew more heavily on Hindustani classical music, beginning with Baiju bawra in 1952. His film songs based on classical rāgas (such as Tu ganga ki mauj on rāga Bhairavī, Insaan bano on rāga Gujari Todī, and Man tarpat Hari darshan ko aj on rāga Malkauns from Baiju bawra) met with huge success among Indian audiences, and this use of rāgas as a base for film song melodies became a stamp of his musical style.
Naushad continued composing songs for Hindi films into the 1990s, although with increasingly fewer commitments. He has received numerous awards for his contributions to Hindi film music, from a Gold Medal presented by the Gramophone Company of India and Columbia Records in 1947 for the highest number of record sales in India and abroad to Best Music Director awards from Filmfare, the Indian Film Journalist Association, the Film Sansar League, the Bombay Youth Circle, and others. In 1977 he received the Maharashtra State Government Award and in 1982 the Dada Saheb Phalke Award (named after the first Indian silent film maker).
ALISON ARNOLD