Shankar Jaikishan - Jaikishan's Death and SJ's Post-Jaikishan Era

Jaikishan's Death and SJ's Post-Jaikishan Era

"What can I say... my musical partner in life has gone, what is left of me to say anything more, I had never thought that at such an early age he would leave us all and go; Anyway his good qualities of maintaining goodwill, giving love and receiving love were innate in him and I too don't have them in me. He used to regularly remind me of my innate quality of being in a boisterous mood all the time and always abrasive with some one or the other and so on and so forthwith......."

Shankar on Jaikishan's death in an interview with Ameen Sayani.

Jaikishan died in 1971 due to cirrhosis of liver, a disease caused by excessive consumption of alcohol. At the time of his death, the duo enjoyed an unparalleled popularity which was underlined by a massive turnout at his funeral procession. Gaylord, a restaurant at Churchgate (Mumbai) where Jaikishan used to be a regular visitor, mourned the death of its illustrious patron by lighting a candle on his favorite table for one month and keeping it out of bounds for other guests with the sign "Reserved for Mr. Jaikishan".

After Jaikishan's death, Shankar carried on with the banner of Shankar-Jaikishan alone (as per their mutual understanding made during their lifetime that in case of the demise of any one of them, the surviving partner will continue to work with the same team name). He was clearly hampered by numerous reasons such as the departure of his soul-mate Jaikishan his favorite lyricist Shailendra, betrayal of Raj Kapoor, continued Shankar-bashing and false propaganda by his rivals and lack of motivation on his own part due to which his music appeared to suffer in comparison to S-J's own high standards. Also, in spite of his continued experimentation on music, the projects themselves for which he worked did not turn out to be commercial successes due to which even his good scores went largely un-noticed.

According to Lata Mangeshkar herself, it was the late Mohd. Rafi who brought about a rapprochement between the two and she did start singing again for Shankar starting from Sohan Lal Kanwar's `Sanyasi' and several other films later. Although Shankar's creations during this period for Lata as well as other singers like Rafi, Kishore, Manna Dey were quite good, most of these went un-noticed due to non-descript status of such films which bombed at the box office. His most-successful musical hit was Sanyasi in 1975 for which he scored all songs and the entire background score based upon SJ's favorite Raag Bhairavi to prove the point that SJ' Bhairavi was as much Shankar's as that of Jaikishan !

After Sanyasi, although some of Shankar's later songs did exhibit flashes of the old maestro's brilliance, overall, these films (Aatmaram, D-Jhooth, Garam Khoon, Papi Pet Ka Sawal Hai, Chorni, Eint ka Jawab Pathar etc.) did not succeed in endearing him to leading production houses, though there were some exceptions. For example, actor Dharmendra had signed Shankar to compose the score for his film Bichchhoo, however, since Shankar did not accept Sai's (who was more keen in having Raj Kamal as MD) intereference in his work, he opted out of the project. Eventually, the project itself was abandoned by producer-to-be Dharmendra.

Shankar was in the running for Raj Kapoor's film Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978), but was overlooked in favor of Laxmikant Pyarelal whose candidature was supported vigorously by Mukesh. Ironically, Mukesh owed his standing in the film industry primarily to S-J's compositions.

Shankar was also considered for Raj Kapoor's proposed film Param Vir Chakra (his case was supported by Raj Kapoor's sons), but the project did not see the light of day and Shankar never returned to the RK camp.