It is impossible for today's generation of lovers of film music to even feel the throb in the hearts of millions that

the voice of K.L. Saigal, the first real super star of Indian films created. A memory that never dies, a melody that always haunts and those wistful eyes of alove lorn Devadas which Saigal portrayed, a wastrel cheated by his own elder brother out of his property, remained etched in the minds of many generations. It had not dawned on many of us of that generation gap could be a stroke of irony, a cruel piece of joke, an unpredictable quirk of changing public tastes. Other singers sang. Saigal sang and also conversed musically. Such was his unique musical style. The ringing pathos of "Dukh kedin ab beetata nahi" is neither singing nor a conversation but both. It pierced the heart andeyes welled up with tears. So, I decided to write about K.L. Saigal without knowing if Iwould ever succeed in collecting material about his life and times easily. Collecting information Bit by bit, the portrait of that legendary figure got pieced up out of the haze in which the biographical details of cine celebrities get lost. The celebrity who appears like an immortaltoday fades into oblivion once the glamour that surrounds him vanishes. K.L. Saigal too suffered some such fate. It has shocked so many of his ardent admirers and fans. In that era to which K.L. Saigal belonged, tragedies of middle class existence were portrayed with artistic delicacy, in undertones, suppressed sobs, half-stifled half expressed agony, which is what life is. Those haunting scenes were lifted out of great literary classics like Devadas of Sarat Chandra Chatterji or from legends and history like the immortal singer of Moghul times, Tansen, or Surdas, the saint poet. The rapid-fire excitability of the late twentieth century Bombay films, with fast action and crime and borrowed tunes from western pop music has added to Indian life all the vulgarity of permissive societies. It is a wilderness and cultural chaos that surrounds us now. K.L. Saigal's is not even the echo of a melody for the present generation.

Parental influence We must remember that Hindu parents always wanted to replicate those aspects of their own authoritarian upbringing in planning the careers of their children, which they had accepted willingly without suffering. They discovered in their parents their best and trulysincerest well wishers. K.L. Saigal was a victim of all this. His father

thought, and veryrightly considering the few career openings available then, that his son was wasting his lifeand years in singing, a career he pursued without any training. For such an authoritarian father it was unimaginable that a child of his should develop his own personality and preferences, ignoring all his admonitions. There was the angelic protective wing of his mother to save him. She was a gifted singer herself with her deep preferences for devotional and folk songs.