O. P. Nayyar was born in Lahore, British Punjab, British India on January 16, 1926. O. P. Nayyar ( "Opee" ) started his career as a movie music composer by composing the background score for the movies, Kaneez (1949) and Aasmaan (1952). He started receiving increasing public recognition from his compositions for Guru Dutt's Aar Paar (1954), Mr. & Mrs. '55 (1955), C.I.D. (1956), and Tumsa Nahin Dekha (1958). Opee went on to notch up even higher distinction through his compositions for Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon and Mere Sanam. The former movie included his enormously popular song, Bandaa Parwar, Thaamlo Jigar, while the latter included Jaayiye Aap Kahaan Jaayenge and Pukaarataa Chalaa Hoon Main. Some months later, his scores for the movie, Kashmir Ki Kali, once again gained high popularity.
Opee is reported to have commanded the highest fees in the Hindi movie music world at the height of his reign as a composer[citation needed]. He was the first Hindi music director to receive 100,000 rupees for his compositions for a movie. It was a very substantial sum of money in the 1950s.
Opee was known to have a stubborn individuality, and traits of aloofness and imperiousness. However, he was always generous with struggling newcomers and artists who had been marginalized in the movie industry. The press was always deferential to him, and frequently referred to him as a "rebel" composer. Many columnists too labeled him as a maverick. Judging from his combative performance in various TV talk shows later on, Opee seemed to enjoy those epithets.
During the 1950s, the state-controlled All India Radio found Opee too "trendy", and put for quite some time a ban on broadcasting most of his famous tunes[citation needed]. He seemed to have remained undaunted by this highhanded government order, and went on to create more, similar tunes, and most of them continued to receive national popularity. The far-away Radio Ceylon, (which later transformed into Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation), was at that time the only source from which Opee's new hits could be heard. Soon the English language press began referring to him with the honorific, "maestro", though Opee was still very young then. He died in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India January 28, 2007 at the age of 81.
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