Sardar Malik

Sardar Malik happens to be the father of Anu Malik whom we all know as the most dominant composer of the 1990's. He has been the winner of several Filmfare awards (Sardar Malik won none), judged reality music shows and was quite a prominent figure in the show-biz. Sardar Malik was never counted among the top five composers, the place which was occupied by Naushad, Shankar Jaikishan, C Ramchandra, OP Nayyar and SD Burman. He would not have been counted among the top dozen, some people might have difficulty in including his name even in the top twenty music directors of the Golden Era. Anu Malik's songs are not that perennial and evergreen, but songs like Saranga Teri Yaad Mein from movie Saranga, directed by Dhirubhai Desai featuring Sudesh Kumar, Jayshree Gadkar and Nilofer as leads and Ae Gham-E-Dil Kya Karun of Sardar Malik’s compositions would remain immortal.

Bits of information collected about him from here and there indicates that he was born in 1925. He learned music from Ustad Allauddin Khan and was a dancer, trained under Uday Shankar at his residential school at Almora. He was a gifted singer and started getting both singing and composing assignments. Witnessing the rise of playback singers such as Md Rafi and Mukesh, he realized that he could not match them, and confined himself to music direction, and came to Bombay. He got married to the sister of Hasrat Jaipuri. His first noteworthy film was Laila Majnu (1953), in which he gave music along with Ghulam Mohammad. The film starred legendary Shammi Kapoor and Nutan. In spite of his obvious talents, he remained consigned to B-grade films. He passed away in 2006.

The Maliks’ Family Tree (Infographic Family Tree)