When living legend Lata Mangeshkar tweeted to describe music maestro Khayyams demise as the "end of an era", she said it all. Khayyam's music, soaked in the spirit of rich classical allure, represents the sort of melody unthinkable in Bollywood mainstream nowadays. He was one of the last bastions of an era of Hindi film music that has all but ended - one that was defined by inherently Indian melody that celebrated the sounds and culture of the soil.

Come to think of it, even in the era when he created music in Bollywood, his adherence to classicism made Khayyam an exception. Through the sixties, seventies and eighties - his busy years - Bollywood was discovering the sound of music coming from the West. Ever the puritan, and never inclined to filch a note from western influences, Khayyam's oeuvre had to be restricted to films that offered the scope for Indian notes.