
MAHENDRA KAPOOR
28th March is the death anniversary of Pandit Sri Nath Tripathi, known to all of us as — S.N. Tripathi. A person with the phenomenal musical talent, he remained an under-rated musical composer. He came from a family of academic scholars—–his grandfather was principal of Sanskrit vidhyapeeth and father, principal of govt high school in Kashi—–with keen interest in music. Growing up, he got his formal training in classical music from the schools of repute those days and he went on to acquire such ‘upadhis’ as Sangeet Praveen and Sangeet Visharad.
A man of many talents, SN Tripathi ji wrote dialogs and stories for the films, acted in major roles in few films and in smaller/cameo roles in more than 50 films, directed more than 10 films like Rani Roopmanti, Sangeet Samrat Tansen, Piya Milan Ki Aas and others. He gave memorable music to movies like Janam Janam Ke Phere, Rani Roopmati and Sangeet Samrat Tansen. In the movies that he himself directed, he used his classical music training and composed some most beautiful raag based songs. Here is one such song — a melodious Malkauns composition sung by Asha Bhosle and Mahendra Kapoor….from the film Dev Kanya.