More Raja ho le chal nadiya ke paar
Posted on: February 3, 2009
When one listens to old song, one needs to have some appreciation of history, otherwise one tends to judge old songs by present day standards and thus he/ she may do grave injustice to old songs while making hasty judgements about them.
Making hasty judgements about old songs is nothing new (pun unintended). I too was guilty of that during my younger days when I ridiculed the singing styles of K L Sahgal and others.
It is only when I had a better appreciation of history of Bollywood movies that I revised my opinions and began to look at old maestroes with respect.
When talkies became possible, songs were still at their primitive stage and the early songs were not of very high quality because of the limitations of technology as well by the fact that the actors themselves used to sing those days and not everyone of them was as good a singer as required for high quality singing.
It was then that playback singing was thought about. Anil Biswas was the person who pioneered this idea. He in fact should be regarded as the pioneer of playback singing as well as many other innovations connected with it.
Other earlier pioneers viz Naushad, C Ramchandra etc build upon Anil Biswas’s ideas to help Bollywood music develop further.
The recording technology was not much evolved till 1940s. There used to be just one microphone where all the singers would take turns to sing.
Despite such technological drawbacks, many recordings made during that era sound wonderfully nice and the singers sound so fresh, though all of them have been long dead and gone for many decades.
Take this song from a movie called “Nadiya ki paar” for example. No, this is not the “Nadiya ke paar” of 1982, rather this movie is from 1948. Unlike the 1980s movie, which was a Rajshri Productions movie with Ravindra Jain’s music, “Nadiya Ke paar” of 1948 was a movie featuring a very young Dilip Kumar and a very pretty looking Kamini Kaushal. The music is by C Ramchandra.
Rafi is the male playback singer, and he sings in a clear diction. The female singer Lalita Dewoolkar on the other hand sings in a stryle that was unique to those days and that style is often copied in modern advertisements depicting those days.
This song is a boat song. Dilip Kumar and the lady sit on a boat and the song is about the girl telling the boy to take her across the river. In addition, the two also sing about their love for each other and how the other person is so important in his/ her life.
During my younger days, I would not have bothered to listen to this song even once, but now I find this song a fantastic song to listen to ( and watch too). It is obvious to me that the recording as well as the picturisation of the song is far far ahead of its time. And for that one needs to give credits to all those who were involved in creating this masterpiece of a song.
Audio
Video
Song-More Raja ho le chal nadiya ke paar (Nadiya ke paar) (1948 ) Singers-Lalita Dewoolkar, Rafi, Lyrics-Moti, MD-C Ramchandra
Lyrics
hahaha
More Raja ho
More Raja ho le chal nadiya ke paar
More Raja ho le chal nadiya ke paar
Mori rani ho tumhi mori pran aadhar
Mori rani ho tumhi mori pran aadhar
toone aisa jaadoo daara bik gayi tere haath
toone aisa jaadoo daara bik gayi tere haath
janm janm tak sang rahoongi
janm janm tak sang rahoongi kabhi na chodoon saath
More Raja ho hamko tu deho na bisaar
Mori rani ho tumhi mori pran aadhar
More Raja ho le chal nadiya ke paar
Mori rani ho tumhi mori pran aadhar
pyar ki meethi baaton me saajanwa main gayi haar
pyar ki meethi baaton me saajanwa main gayi haar
pyaari teri aankhon me main
pyaari teri aankhon me main bhool gaya sansaar
meri aankhon me jhooli hai suratiya tohaar
meri saanson me goonje hai naam tohaar
More Raja ho le chal nadiya ke paar
Mori rani ho tumhi mori pran aadhar
Main to preet nibhaaun balma tum bhi preet nibhaana
Main to preet nibhaaun balma tum bhi preet nibhaana
saath saath hi ham tum dono
saath saath hi ham tum dono gaayen mast taraana
More Raja ho le chal nadiya ke paar
Mori rani ho tumhi mori pran aadhar
ho ho
ho ho
ha ha ha
ha ha ha
ho ho
6 Responses to "More Raja ho le chal nadiya ke paar"
February 4, 2009 at 6:34 am
Indeed, recording a song of this quality in those days is simply amazing.
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May 19, 2009 at 1:39 am
Thank you for your explanation for the style of singing for female singers, during those early years.
I have personally known Mrs. Lalita Dewoolkar and have heard her singing this song as well as many other songs and her singing does not sound at all like the old recordings. She has a very clear sweet voice, similar to other great singers of modern era.
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May 19, 2009 at 3:01 am
Indeed I am sure that the singers of 1940s and 50s were outstanding singers. You are lucky that you had the privilege of personally knowing Mrs Lalita Dewoolkar and lisyening to her voice.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
February 3, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Naushad sahib says that many times songs would be recorded with poor or strange acoustics, e.g. studio with a tin roof, and then they would drape blankets to minimize these effects. Then of course there is the famous anecdote walking towards the mike singing the first part of aayega aanewala: there was no other way to create the far-off voice.
It is real genius that they managed to create music like in this song and amazingly well-recorded considering the conditions!
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