1. Dulhan banungi doli chadungi by Lata Mangeshkar & Manna Dey(Woh Jo Hasina): An impossibly high-pitched compositions and a marked departure from Raamlaxman’s style. Normally he preferred low-key low-octave tunes. But here he pulled out all stops,With startling results.Manna Dey rarely sang for Raamlaxman. His preferred male voices were Shailendra Singh and S P Balasubramaniam.
2. Tere jaisa koi khubsoorat nahin by Kishore Kumar(Bezubaan): In 1982 , twelve years before Hum Aapke Hain Kaun changed his fortunes, Raamlaxman did the music for this prestigious film starring Naseeruddin Shah, Shashi Kapoor and Reena Roy directed by Bapu. There is a popular solo Har ek jeevan hai ek kahani ny Lataji where I think she never sounded better for Raamlaxman. But my pick from this soundtrack is Kishore’s Tere jaisa koi, an elegant lovesong with elements of inspired poetry egging the tune on to something better than usual.
3. Main jiss bhula doon tera pyar dil se by Lata Mangeshkar & Amit Kumar (Police Public) : Released in 1990 this hit crime thriller featuring Raj Kumar and Naseeruddin Shah featured an outstanding love ballad, a charming tune titivated with talcum freshness with troughs and curves that define romance.Asad Bhopali, Raamlaxman’s preferred poet wrote this beautiful ballad. Lataji says this is among her favourite songs composed by Ramlaxman from his career before Main Pyar Kiya
4. Tum kya miley jaan-e-jaan by Lata Mangeshkar & Udit Naryan( Saatwan Aasman): This Mahesh Bhatt directed 1992 love story featured pretty songs by Raamlaxman. While Lataji sang a lovely solo Dheere dheere chal, it was her duet with Udit Narayan that held you in a thrall. Its movements were so replete in romance, the ballad felt like everything Valentine Too bad this film flopped. It would have preempted Raamlaxman’s glory of Hum Aapke Hain Koun.
5. Soja soja chandni by M G Sreekumar(Muskurahat): When the prolific Priyadarshan directed his first Hindi film he chose to remake his Malayalam hit Killukam, and also brought Malayalam cinema’s foremost playback singer M G Sreekumar to sing some of the songs. Of them, this lullaby is an undiscovered gem , and hard to believe that it’s composed by Raamlaxman. The cadences of the tune are so unlike what he normally did! Many years later Sreekumar was heard in Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se doing the Malayalam portions of Lataji’s hypnotic Jiya jale.