NEW DELHI, May 5: Veteran music director of Indian cinema, Naushad Ali, whose songs regaled South Asia’s grandparents and their grandchildren for more than six decades, died in Mumbai on Friday of illness and old age, family sources said.

He had been undergoing treatment at Nanavati Hospital in Mumbai, where he was admitted on April 20 after complaining of uneasiness, they said.

Popular as just Naushad, the acclaimed genius who would be 87 on 25th December, died pleased in the knowledge that two Indian films accepted for release in Pakistan only recently — the revived Mughal-i-Azam and recast Taj Mahal — carried his musical imprint.

Fellow musicians and actors paid rich tributes to the maestro. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had this to say — genuine words that may well last beyond his famed economic reforms: “Despite being an uncompromising stickler for the grammar of classical music, Naushad saheb also had an amazing grasp of the popular mood,” Dr Singh said in a condolence message.

“As a pioneer of various musical trends and mentor of numerous musical prodigies, Naushad has virtually shaped the broad contours of film music in the country. Generations of music lovers would continue to enjoy his soulful and haunting melodies for years to come.

“In his long and illustrious innings, glittering with memorable compositions in classics like Mughal-i-Azam, Baiju Bawra, Mother India, Ganga Jamuna, Anmol Ghadi and many others, Naushad saheb scaled phenomenal heights in the pantheon of popular music,” the Indian prime minister recalled.

Naushad came to Mumbai in the 1930s from Lucknow. Although he was born a Shia Muslim, his music had vast spaces for eclectic pantheism. It was thus that Naushad’s music would find a glimpse in a soz or a noha in a Moharram congregation in Uttar Pradesh, either because he had borrowed from there or more likely, had been harmlessly, even affectionately plagiarised. And then he would be immersed in a devout Hindu bhajan.

He tended to repeat himself but that was his charm. The capricious “Dagabaaj tori batiyaan na maanu re” of Ganga Jamuna was set to Raag Piloo and so was the racier “Gaadiwale gaadi dheere haank re” a decade earlier in Mother India.

Film director Mahesh Bhat spoke last year of Naushad’s secular appeal apropos of the newly released Mughal-i-Azam thus: “My daughter and my young son were both mesmerised by what our ancestors had achieved in those days, both in spirit and also on the screen.

“My heart just swells with pride when I watch Mughal-i-Azam. It reminds me of what Bollywood once was. Do you know that this magnum opus was made by an almost all-Muslim crew? It was produced and directed by K. Asif, and it had Madhubala and Dilip Kumar in the main lead.

“And above all it had Naushad, the music director whose soul resonated with Hindu bhajans. How can India and Indians ever forget ‘Mohe panghat pe Nandlal chhed gayo re’, a song from Mughal-i-Azam in which the birth of Krishna is being celebrated in the court of Emperor Akbar and in which Madhubala, an actress who is Muslim by birth, dances like Meera?”

There was a minor flaw here though. Naushad by borrowing heavily from Indian music’s rich variety often forgot to give due credit where it belonged. For example, a good two or three decades before Mohe Panghat became a rage through Mughal-i-Azam, it was sung to a highly receptive gramophone audience by the legendary Indu Bala.

At the same time a lot of hard work went into Naushad’s more original and soul-touching music. His song from Mughal-i-Azam “Jab pyaar kiya to darna kya” has been an anthem for romantic rebellion since 1960.

“I remember clearly when we were told to write Pyaar kiya to darna kya, the lyricist Shakeel Badayuni first came with lyrics like ‘Prem kiya tha chori nahi kari’,” Naushad once recalled. “I didn’t like that and then he came up with the words ‘Pyaar kiya to darna kya’. Me, the director, K. Asif and Shakeelsaab sat through the night and finished the song by early morning.

“Then a problem arose because Asifsaab wanted a line in the lyrics to insult Emperor Akbar, but subtly, with dignity. So we were caught in a bind. Shakeelsaab then came up with the line,” ‘Aaj kahenge dil ka phasana, jaan bhi chahye le leye zamana, parda nahi jab koi khuda se banda se parda kya’. Asifsaab immediately agreed, and I too said fine. It was six in the morning!”