On September 18, 1959 two 17-year olds made a dazzling debut in the world of Indian cinema, now known as Bollywood. They owed this fairy tale-like grand entry to producer Sashadhar Mukherjee, the film was Dil Deke Dekho and these two talented girls were Asha Parekh and Usha Khanna. While the former turned out to be a top actress, appearing in many commercially successful films throughout her career and was the highest paid actress during the 1960s and 1970s, the latter received the distinction of becoming one of the most successful female composers produced by Bollywood since the 1950s.
In 1957, after the phenomenal success of Tumsa Nahi Dekha, composer OP Nayyar introduced a highly talented Usha Khanna to producer Sashadhar Mukherjee. The intent was that perhaps there would be some opportunity for her to become a playback singer. Mukherjee asked her to sing something to assess her potential. She sang one of her own compositions. Mukherjee was impressed but realised fairly quickly that the girl had a greater potential of becoming a composer, than a singer. The only problem now was for her to get noticed in a domain which was considered a monopoly of men.
Mukherjee decided to hire her on a monthly salary for a year to compose four tunes a day for him to hear. Any girl of 16 would have run for her life given this task, but not Usha. The owner of Filmalaya listened to at least four different new tunes from her each day for one whole year, before he finally gave her a break in Dil Deke Dekho.
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