For Rs 700, you get a complete list of songs composed by the pair, as well as insightful articles written by those who knew them or their work closely, actor Deven Verma, for instance. In fact, Mr Vishwas Nerurkar has watched around 130 films for which the music wwas composed by Shankar-Jaikishen to boost his research.

Mr Nerurkar is employed with the Bank of India, and his eight-hour work schedule leaves him enough time to pursue his interest in music and musical personalities. He owns around 8,000 film booklets, from Alam Ara to Kurukshetra, not to mention a vast collection of music.

The complete bibliographies of Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, R D Burman, Naushad and O P Nayyar are available in his earlier books. In fact, it was he who proved that Lata Mangeshkar had sung only 5,066 songs until 1990.

Subsequently, her claim to having sung 34,000 songs was dismissed from the Guinness Book of World Records.

It was his interest in music that led Mr Nerurkar to cinema, he says. "I would write down the lyrics of the songs that were played on radio. I once chanced to hear a recording of Ms Mangeshkar's performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Among the songs she sang was Khelo na mere dil se, which, although recorded for Haqeeqat, was removed from the film. I liked that song very much, and found out that Madan Mohan had composed it. This led me to look through the collection I had amassed by then, and I found that 70 per cent of the songs I loved had been composed by him!"

One thing led to another. Mr Nerurkar's obsession grew, and he was successful in his attempts to gather information on Madan Mohan. "Then a friend named Mr Chandrakant Pai saw the material I had and said it was so rare, it ought to be compiled into a book. But I had no funds to do that. So it was decided that we would publish it in the form of typewritten cyclostyled notes. And we did." So Mr Nerurkar's maiden attempt at publishing took off with a mere 200 copies, each priced at Rs 20, which sold solely by word of mouth publicity.

"This motivated me to work on other music directors, and I compiled cyclostyled volumes on C Ramachandra, O P Nayyar, Vasant Desai and Sudhir Phadke," Mr Nerurkar says. Initially, he did not find it easy to source all the material he required, and went to the music company, HMV, to try and fill the gaps through their vast storehouse of information.

It was his cyclostyled volume on music maestro Vasant Desai that did the trick. "One of the officers at HMV had been an assistant to Mr Desai for over 10 years, and even he did not know many of the facts I had provided in my book. It was then that he took me seriously and allowed me access to the archives," he says. But Mr Nerurkar was not permitted to take any material home or photocopy it. The transcripts had to be handwritten.

A more difficult task awaited him as he tried to gain access to the celebrities he was writing about, or those people who knew them personally.

"I had no proof that I sincerely wanted to record their work. I had to convince them that I had no ulterior motive!" laughs Mr Nerurkar. After the initial two or three volumes, though, they were convinced.

The author does not allow any advertisements to be inserted in his books so that the editorial content is undisturbed, but gets around the financial difficulty by allowing sponsorship of the photographs featured in the book. Indeed, the pictorial content of Mr Nerurkar's works is a singular delight thanks to the rare pictures he manages to obtain from his celebrated subjects.

His most treasured compliment came from singer-musician Bhupinder Singh. Mr Singh, who worked with R D Burman for years, thought Mr Nerurkar's book on the music director was exceptional. "Pancham did not leave behind any disciples or children through whom his name may live on. But all those who read your book will never forget him," was the beautiful way in which Mr Singh expressed his appreciation of the writer. It is compliments like these that keep Mr Nerurkar going.

How do his colleagues at the Bank of India react to his work and his near celebrity status? "Well, to be honest, I don't talk about my books at the workplace. A few of them get to know what I'm up to from other sources, but I don't let on!" Mr Nerurkar says and smiles. So they probably don't know that his volume on composer Khayyam will be out next year.