It's really surprising that a music composer like Madan Mohan who was mainly productive in the late 50′s, 60′s and early 70′s never received a Film Fare Award. Overall Madan Mohan often had difficulty finding assignments as he was not a part of a group.
There were actors who were also studio heads and had preferred composers like Dilip Kumar - Naushad, Dev Anand - R.D. & S. D. Burman, Raj Kapoor - Shankar JaiKishan etc.
Keeping the above factor aside here is a brief analysis as to how many times Madan Mohan was nominated as best music director and to whom he lost the black lady.
Madan Mohan was nominated first time for Anpadh. Though Anpadh had good songs, the other tough contendor was Hemant Kumar for Bees Saal Baad but the award went to Shankar Jai-Kishan for Professor.
His next nomination was for Woh Kaun Thi? and seriously, Lag jaa gale deserved an award but the contenders were Shankar-Jaikishan for Sangam and Laxmikant-Pyarelal for Dosti. This was a tightly contested race. We all know that each and every song of Dosti is popular even today. So, again a miss for Madan Mohan.
His third nomination was for Gulzar's Mausam. The other nominees were Khaiyyam for Kabhie Kabhie, R. D. Burman for Mehbooba, Kalyanji-Anandji for Bairaag and Ravindra Jain for Chitchor. Khaiyyam won it for Kabhie Kabhie.
Madan Mohan's fourth nomination was posthumous. His unused compositions were re-created by his son Surinder Kohli in 2004 for Veer-Zaara. The music was like a breeze of fresh air. This time the other nominations were Anu Malik for Main Hoon Na and Murder, Jatin-Lalit for Hum Tum, A. R. Rahman for Swades and Pritam for Dhoom. The award went to Anu Malik for Main Hoon Na.
My personal opinion is that this time it could had been Madan Mohan (no doubt Main Hoon Na had good tracks and a modernised qawalli after a long time) but just for the freshness of the compositions of Veer-Zaara which were 4–5 decades old.
Please let know in the comments section what do you think about the nominations and when Madan Mohan deserved the black lady.
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