Music composers are creative people who need inspiration to compose music. Often, the composers tap their inner thoughts, feelings, experiences, memories for creating tunes for songs. They follow the trends in the music world.

As a music lover, I admire and honour the most versatile and lady of few words – music composer of Bollywood Usha Khanna. She is the third lady music composer to enter the Indian film industry after Saraswati Devi and Jaddanbai, it’s worth noting that Jaddanbai was daughter of Motilal Nehru and mother of actress Nargis.

Usha Khanna became famous in her music career in Bollywood with Nasir Hussain’s romantic comedy ‘Dil Deke Dekho’ (1959) starring Asha Parekh and Shammi Kapoor. Her father Manohar Khanna used to work for the Maharaja of Gwalior. He was fond of music, and he wrote poetry. Much later he shifted his base to Bombay, and he started working in the film company of Jaddan bai as a writer. She appreciated his poetry after listening to him in a kavi sammelan. Indeewar, the famous lyricist was a friend of Usha Khanna’s father.

Young Usha used to sing and write mukhdas (first few lines). Once her father told her to sing because she used to sing well. Her father told her that he would take her to the famous producer – director of those days Sashadhar Mukherjee. After listening to Usha, Mukherjee saab told her that she is not a good singer as Lata, Asha. But Indeewar informed Mukherjee that she composed the songs that she sang. Mukherjee couldn’t believe this. Mukherjee gave her a mukhda and asked her to compose a song. When he heard the song, he said that she should become a music director instead of a singer.

She is known for her work in movies like Nishan (1965), Khoj (1971), Hawas (1974), Saajan Bina Suhagan (1978), Bin Phere Hum Tere (1979), Souten (1983), and Paisa Yeh Paisa (1985). During her career as music composer, she gave opportunities to little-known singers who went on to become notable singers like Anupama Deshpande, Pankaj Udhas, Mohammed Aziz, and Sonu Nigam.

Usha is known to composers and write original musical scores in various genres for vocal and instrumental performances. She strongly believes that the purpose of the music is generally to convey an appropriate tone or mood for films.

It interesting to note that in her debutant movie 1959 superhit, Dil Deke Dekho, which included a couple of songs inspired from popular Western tunes. The songs carried the style of OP Nayyar, who was extremely popular those days. Shashadhar Mukherjee wanted songs in particular style. When the songs became a hit, people didn’t give her the credit easily. Many people said that the songs might have been composed by O.P.Nayyar because Usha was just a teenager then. The music world was male dominated then. She was the only female composer. Usha had to struggle the odds to prove herself. She was usually asked to give music for ‘C’ grade films. But she kept on working. She has spent almost six decades in the industry.  

Usha credits Mohammed Rafi’s voice for her success as music director.

She worked with Sawankumar Tak in his movies; she was married to him briefly. Though they separated, both maintained their friendship till Tak was alive.

I give here below some of my favourite songs composed by the versatile Usha Khanna. In the last two songs she has lent her voice by humming in them. Humming is a sound made by producing a wordless tone with the mouth closed, forcing the sound to emerge from the nose. Her humming has made those two songs more precious.