When Manoj Kumar stepped in to save 'Lag Ja Gale' from rejection

"'LAG Ja Gale', that plaintive ode to love sung by Lata Mangeshkar in the 1964 classic "Woh Kaun Thi", almost didn't see the light of day. Quite simply, director Raj Khosla didn't like the track and it took composer Madan Mohan to first convince the film's star Manoj Kumar who then persuaded the filmmaker that the song was finally included.

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Once he heard the song again, Khosla picked up his shoe to hit himself, according to "Raj Khosla: The Authorized Biography", released on May 20 ahead of the filmmaker's 100th birth anniversary on May 31.

"I got a call from Madan Mohan one day. 'Raj Khosla has lost his mind,' Madan said. 'Ek gaana sunaya. Usko pasand nahi aaya. (I made him hear a song. He didn't like it.) You come and handle this please,” the book quotes Kumar as saying.

However, Kumar, who hadn't heard the song yet, was reluctant to intervene, reasoning that it was ultimately "Khosla's film", and opted to speak with producer NN Sippy about the matter.

"There were only a few days left for the shoot and the song was yet to be finalized. What was to be done? Sippy concurred with the music director. He, too, wanted Manoj Kumar to approach Raj Khosla and sort this out," recounts the book by author Amborish Roychoudhury in association with Khosla's daughters Anita Khosla and Uma Khosla Kapur. Kumar agreed to intervene when the composer played the song for him.