O.P.Nayyar Rare 117th Birthday Interview

"Even when I was sitting at home without any assignment in exile for seven years, I declined to do regional films, because a lion will not stoop down to eat grass"

Way back on January 16, 1926, O.P was born in Lahore. To commemorate his 117th birth anniversary today, I watched the evergreen film Ek Musafir Ek Haseena today on Zee5 to listen to his chartbusters as a music director before I reproduce excerpts from a rare interview with O.P. NAYYAR by JYOTHI VENKATESH which appeared first 46 years ago in the now defunct PICTURPOST dt November 1978). It is with great fondness and nostalgia that I, in this intimate article to commemorate his death anniversary, remember the good old days that I had spent in the company of the revered but jovial music director..

O.P as I used to call him fondly had developed some kind of affiliation towards me from the time I had met him the first time way back in 1975. Every time he was free in the evening, he used to make it a point to call me on my landline (there were no mobile telephones in those good old days, you see) to join him for an evening for drinks and dinner when I was just 23. While O.P sahab was staying at Breach Candy, I was living with my parents at Worli which was not very far off and he used to send his driver with the car to fetch me after I was back home after a tired day of work at the hotel Oberoi Sheraton then.

Though he used to insist that I drink Scotch as he could afford it, I used to politely excuse myself and ask for only chilled beer. Inevitably when I used to drink as many as three bottles of beer just because I wanted to give him company as he drank his favourite scotch, I used to develop a hangover and very kindly he used to open his suitcase at home and offer me homeopathic pills to eat before I used to sleep to get rid of the hangover. And also make it a point to see to it that his driver drove me back home after midnight