walking upstream…
Himesh Reshammiya
photo: bollywood hungama · cc by 3.0 ↗Himesh Reshammiya
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Himesh Reshammiya spent nearly a decade as an in-demand Bollywood composer before he sang a note on record, writing hits for other voices out of the same Mumbai studio his father, composer Vipin Reshammiya, had built. His 2005 turn to playback singing on 'Aashiq Banaya Aapne' introduced a nasal, high-pitched delivery critics mocked and Himesh defended - once by comparing himself to R.D. Burman, a claim that drew a public rebuke from Burman's widow Asha Bhosle. The 2006 solo album 'Aap Kaa Surroor' fused that voice with electronic dance beats into a sound, cap and sunglasses included, that made him one of Hindi film music's most divisive commercial forces, and later, beloved kitsch.
the sound in question
2005
Aashiq Banaya AapneHimesh Reshammiya
walk the tributaries ↓
Vipin Reshammiya1970s–80s · Filmi / Hindi film music
Vipin Reshammiya was, per his Rotary Club tribute, "the pioneer who had introduced electronic keyboard musical instruments - a Combo Organ and many other electronic instruments - in the history of our Indian film industry." Press coverage is blunt about the throughline: Himesh "inherited his love for music from his father." The bond held through crisis, too - when Himesh was thirteen and his older brother died, he told Filmfare, "Dad was completely shattered. I promised him I'd make it in life," and went to work in his father's studio.
listen: upstream & here
1988
Insaaf Ki JungVipin Reshammiya
2012
Hookah BarHimesh Reshammiya
listen forVipin's own discography survives mostly as uncredited session and producer work, and his one released composer credit - a 1988 patriotic ballad from "Insaaf Ki Jung" - doesn't showcase the Combo Organ and Clavioline sound the obituaries credit him with pioneering, so the ancestor side here is documented rather than audible. What is audible is the son's: on "Hookah Bar," a full-strength synthesizer, not strings or a horn section, carries the entire arrangement - the instrument Vipin plugged into Bollywood scores decades earlier, now running the whole room. The audible content of that 1988 score could not be verified, so the connection here is documented rather than heard.
R.D. Burman1970s · Hindi film music / Filmi / Rock
Defending his own polarizing voice on Radio Nasha, Himesh reached straight for Burman: "RD Burman would also sing nasally" - a line that angered Burman's widow and longtime collaborator Asha Bhosle enough that she said he deserved to be slapped for it, and that he later admitted, "I shouldn't have said that." By then Himesh had already put the debt on record: he composed and sang "Mehbooba O Mehbooba (A Tribute to Panchamda)" alongside Bhosle herself on his 2007 soundtrack "Aap Kaa Surroor," a credited remake of Burman's own "Mehbooba Mehbooba."
listen: upstream & here
1975
Mehbooba MehboobaR.D. Burman
2007
Mehbooba O Mehbooba (A Tribute to Panchamda)Himesh Reshammiya
listen forBurman sang "Mehbooba Mehbooba" himself, a rough, chest-deep chant built for a campfire scene, half-shouted over dholak and tambourine. On Himesh and Asha Bhosle's "Mehbooba O Mehbooba," that chant survives almost note for note, but Himesh pushes the melody into his own tight, nasal register and buries the dholak under a programmed dance beat - the same tribute-turned-signature move he ran across "Aap Kaa Surroor," naming a source out loud while rebuilding it in his own voice.
Kishore Kumar1970s · Filmi / Bollywood playback / Indian pop
Himesh has never hedged about the debt: "Kishoreda is a role model for any aspiring singer-actor," he told Gulf News in 2007, "I don't think anyone can match his talents." The devotion outlasts interview boilerplate - in 2019 he traced the tune of his own "Cutie Pie" to a specific afternoon on a film set twelve years earlier, when a Kishore Kumar song playing in his car between takes handed him the melody unplanned, mid-shoot, years before he had a film to put it in.
listen: upstream & here
1969
Mere Sapnon Ki RaniKishore Kumar
2020
Cutie PieHimesh Reshammiya
listen forKishore Kumar sings "Mere Sapnon Ki Rani" on a conversational half-laugh, a voice that sounds like it's grinning as it performs, sliding off pitch for a beat and landing exactly where the joke needs it. Set "Cutie Pie" beside it: the same sing-speak cadence, treating melody as punchline rather than showcase, is the register Himesh says the tune arrived in, out of a Kishore Kumar song he never named - the pairing here is illustrative of that mood, not a confirmed exact source.