A re-screening of the documentary at Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) last Friday had a houseful audience, each of them totally desperate to read the lives of Nepali people who became the who’s who in Mumbai.[break]
Primarily a tribute to the late Manohari Singh, popularly known as Manohari Da, the great musician who was the right-hand of veteran Indian musician RD Burman and also a music arranger of Mohammad Rafi for a long time, the documentary also paid tributes to the contributions of a few other people with Nepali origins in Mumbai.
Rest of the faces included playback star of India Udit Narayan Jha, fashion photographer Rakesh Shrestha, actress Manisha Koirala, art director Anjan Gajurel, prominent artist Laxman Shrestha, and cinematographer Basanta P Karmacharya.
Kharel’s documentary is a curtain raiser of those big names in India who represent the Nepali soil and origin.
Each of the real-life characters in the documentary speaks out their stories of success, and the documentary unveils many such interesting anecdotes about these well recognized professionals in India, which would have remained behind the curtains otherwise.
Very few in Nepal and India knew that the background score of Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s blockbuster 1942: A Love Story (1993) was completed by musician Manoharida, Nepal’s Manohari Singh, after the passing of RD Burman.
The great saxophone player, Manohari Singh was one of those legends in India who witnessed the golden era of India’s music and film industry. From arranging music for Rafi Sahab, RD Burman, and Kishore Kumar, he has left his own niche in the industry as a most efficient and versatile musician. He shared more than just an-artist-relationship with the veterans of India.
Perhaps the documentary has him recalling how the veteran singer and actor Kishore Kumar used to ask his chauffer whether tea has been served them or not.
Between the two, “tea” meant the money the director was to pay before recording the songs.
The life story of versatile painter Laxman Shrestha, one of those few in India who rubbed shoulders with maestros like MF Husain and industrialists like Ratna Tata, is equally inspiring and encouraging.
There must be very few actors in Bollywood who haven’t had photo shoots by prominent glamour photographer Rakesh Shrestha.
From Neetu Singh to Sridevi, Hema Malini, Dharmendra Deol, Kajol, Rani Mukherjee to the actors of today, Shrestha is a household name in the silver screen of India.
Kharel’s documentary further deals with the success stories of the diva Manisha Koirala, cinematographer Basanta P Karmacharya, and art-director Anjan Gajurel.
It must be noted that the news The Times of India carried out about the documentary dated June 12, 2011 (“India pays tribute to Nepal’s talent rainbow”) wrongly stated “While Manisha Koirala, the reigning diva of Bollywood in the 1970s…”
Manisha was born in 1970. She debuted next to Vivek Mushran through Subhas Ghai’s 1991 film Saudagar. She reigned through the 1990s for more than a decade.
Coming back to Rainbow over Mumbai, the documentary definitely has the spark and the colors of life, success and stories of encouragements. But what it lacks is the depth of the struggles all the faces in the documentary had to go through to attain what they have today with them.
It would have added more ingredients to the documentary if Kharel could have also dealt with the struggling phases of the maestros along with their success stories. Mumbai is a city where people have no time to stand and stare.
The competition is cut-throat and each of them had to pass through many hurdles to become somebody among the thousands vying for the same status.
If only we could know what Manohari Singh’s initial days in his career were like and if only the documentary had the challenges painter Laxman Shrestha had to pass through to create his space, the documentary would have been a complete package of anecdotes.
On Manisha Koirala’s part, the documentary seems little unfair as it tells you nothing more than she debuted in Saudagar and became a superstar after Bombay and now she wants to indulge herself more into reading and traveling.
Nonetheless, considering the fact that maker Shekhar Kharel had to meet up his deadline, make an appointment with these busier-than-bees people from the creative world and to get as much as possible to frame them together into a documentary, Rainbow Over Mumbai definitely reflects many lives and aspirations of people while it also quietly strengthens the bilateral ties between Nepal and India.
To bring it in a nutshell, I am sure that these veterans will not come back to their soil, at least till the time the country does not recognize their contributions.
The reality is bitter but we live in a country where many prominent artistes have given up, migrated, retired because the country neither gave them the space nor their deserving recognition.
I wonder if someday glamour photographer of Nepal, Rajiv Shrestha, a younger brother of Rakesh Shrestha, will ever get as much opportunity as his elder brother received in India. And what about so many singers and musicians of Nepal, now almost an endangered species!
Related story
Of leadership, for the leaders
