Muhabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai
Posted on: August 30, 2010
- In: "Get together" song | Amitabh Bachchan songs | Amitabh Bachchan songs by Yesudas | Guest posts | Kishore Kumar songs | Lata song | Party song | Post by Santosh Ojha | Song sung by three or more singers | Songs of 1970s (1971 to 1980) | Songs of 1978 | Yearwise breakup of songs | Yesudas song
- 12 Comments
This article is written by Santosh Ojha, a relatively new visitor of this blog and a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music
May 5th 1978 was a most awaited day for an Amitabh Bachchan fan. That day his latest movie Trishul got released. Zanjeer, Deewar, Sholay, Adalat and Khoon Pasina had been released in the preceding years and had proved to be super-duper hits. Amitabh Bachchan’s distinctive “positioning” as the “angry young man” in the rather cluttered world of Bollywood heroes was firmly established. That the above-mentioned movies were interspersed with blockbusters like Kabhi Kabhie (romantic hero) and Amar Akbar Anthony (comedian) only helped to intensify the hero’s aura among his fans.
Yours truly, then a gangly teenager growing up in Jamshedpur, was one of his millions fans. Jamshedpur, in small town India with five cinema halls, four of them were called “talkies” (like Basant Talkies, Regal Talkies) and the fifth reverentially known as “cinema”; Natraj was its name, Natraj cinema. The nomenclature perhaps drew its source from the fact that Natraj was the newest cinema in town and it was the only one to have air-conditioning and push-back chairs in the “Dress Circle” section. (The others had intermittently working ceiling fans and torn seat cushions). Of course the ticket price was higher for Natraj Cinema as compared with the lowly talkies. Rs 3.72 for a first class ticket in Natraj and Rs 3.15 for one in the talkies.
I have digressed. Let me now tell you why the date was so important. Jamshedpur was participating in a simultaneous All India release. Trishul was premiered on in Jamshedpur on the same day as its all India release!! Truly historic for a kid in Jamshedpur used to seeing “new” movies only after a few months after its release in the metros and other lucrative circuits. So how could I miss the first-day-first-show of this movie!
Together with my regular movie-going pal, we figured out a way of raising the finances and also an excuse to stay away from home during those hours. Soon enough I was groping my way into the darkness towards my seat in Natraj Cinema.
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After a rather long build-up, Amitabh Bachchan emerges on the screen through a cloud of smoke and dust at a construction site. The lanky Amitabh with fitted jacket and trousers puffing at a bidi. He puts his bidi to a better use when he nonchalantly picks up the fuse of the dynamite and lights it up casually. He unhurriedly walks away from the site even as we see his co-workers running away from the blasting area. When the cloud clears after this most recent blast, his colleagues asked him how he could do it without being scared. His reply, ”Jisney pachchis saal sey apni maa ko dheerey dheerey marety dekha hai, ussey maut sey dar kaisa?” I still remember to this day the thunderous applause this dialogue received from the already noisy crowd in the Cinema! Needless to say, my friend and I were two of the more voluble ones!
The magic had begun!
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The magic had actually begun twenty minutes prior when the director, Yash Chopra, started laying the foundations of the story.
Young R. K. Gupta (Sanjeev Kumar) is in love with Shanti (Waheeda Rehman). His mother (I forget her real name now, Sudha something?) persuades him to marry Kamini (Priya Siddharth) who is his boss’ daughter. (Compare and reflect on the meanings of Shanti (the wronged one’s name) and Kamini, the usurper’s!). The boss is a construction magnate in Delhi.
R.K. Gupta succumbs and ditches Shanti who most “stoically” wishes him well and informs him that she is carrying her child. And that she does not need his patronage, as she does not want to assuage his guilt feelings of being a ditcher. She declares she is leaving town and that she will most certainly bear their child. She works on construction sites to support the child, a son. She, of course, dies rather prematurely and her son swears to take revenge on his biological father, RK Gupta, who has now inherited his father-in-law’s business and is now the biggest builder in Delhi.
That child happens to be Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan).
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He walks into Delhi, penniless, “merey paas paanch footi kaudiyaan bhi nahin hain”, as he informs his father in their first encounter. He demolishes competition with devices fair-and-foul and soon rivals RK Gupta’s empire and finally bests him. Along the way he meets his half brother, Shekhar, (Shashi Kapoor), and his half-sister (Poonam Dhillon’s debut movie). He befriends an RK Gupta loyalist Geeta (Raakhi) and nearly ensnares Sheetal Verma (Hema Mailni). What a multi-starrer! Throw in some more in the picture, Sachin, Yunus Parvez, Prem Chopra etc., etc. Total multi-starrer!
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The crowd in that first-day-first-show in Natraj is besides itself with joy, admiration, and adulation! We are supporting Vijay- and his Shanti Constructions- all the way in its contest with the “RK and Sons” banner. Till, after the denoument in the movie, this hoarding transposes into “Shanti Raj Constructions”.
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This song is from a party thrown by AB; Shashi Kapoor and Hema Mailni celebrating the joys of love; by dancing, and singing. “Mohabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai”. Shashi Kapoor in his jerky but lovable self and Hema Malini as only Hema Malini would. AB, who is the host, responds with “Ye bekaam, bekaar si cheez hai.”- utterly useless stuff this romance is. This is understandable, considering the tribulations his mom went though. “Kitabon mein chhatptey hain chahat key kissey, haqeeqat ki duniya mein chaahat nahin hai” , AB goes on to sing in Yesu Das’ voice.
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Enjoy this song!
Video
Audio
Song-Muhabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai (Trishul) (1978) Singers-Lata, Kishore Kumar,Yesudas, Lyrics-Sahir Ludhianvi, MD-Khayyam
Lyrics
har taraf husn hai jawaani hai,
aajki raat kyaa suhaani hai
reshmi jism
haa
reshmi jism thartharaate hain,
marmari khwaab gungunaate hain
dhadkanon mein suroor phailaa hai,
rang najdeek-o-door phailaa hai
daawat-e-ishq de rahi hai fazaa,
aaj ho jaa kisi haseen pe fidaa
phir
muhabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai,
kaam ki cheez hai
muhabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai,
kaam ki cheez hai
muhabbat ke dam se hai duniyaa ki raunaq
muhabbat na hoti to kuchh bhi naa hotaa
nazar aur dil ki panaahon ki khaatir
ye jannat naa hoti to kuchh bhi naa hotaa
yahi ek aaraam ki cheez hai,
kaam ki cheez hai
muhabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai,
kaam ki cheez hai
kitaabon mein chhapte hain,
chaahat ke kisse
haqeeqat ki duniyaa mein
chaahat nahin hai
kitaabon mein chhapte hain,
chaahat ke kisse
haqeeqat ki duniyaa mein
chaahat nahin hai
zamaane ke baazaar mein ye wo shai hai
ke jiski kisi ko zaroorat nahin hai
ye bekaar bedaam ki cheez hai,
ye kudrat ke inaam ki cheez hai
ye bas naam hi naam ki cheez hai
kaam ki cheez hai
muhabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai,
kaam ki cheez hai
muhabbat se itnaa khafaa hone waale
chal aa aaj tujhko muhabbat sikhaa den
teraa dil jo barson se veeraan padaa hai
kisi naazneenaa ko isme basaa den
meraa mashwaraa kaam ki cheez hai,
kaam ki cheez hai
muhabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai,
kaam ki cheez hai
ye bekaar bedaam ki cheez hai,
kaam ki cheez hai
muhabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai,
kaam ki cheez hai
muhabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai,
kaam ki cheez hai
12 Responses to "Muhabbat bade kaam ki cheez hai"
August 30, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Lovely write-up, Santosh.
And, while I could not stand MKS, this is one movie I really liked. Nobody did “angry young man” quite like Amitabh.
Trishul is one of my fav Amitabh movies. I remember that “jisne pachis saal se” dialogue very well even now. Have not forgotten it after (almost) pachis saal. 😉
This song is lovely and was my fav song of the movie at that time. Later on, even that Shashi-Hema song (I call it the “tennis” song 🙂 ) grew on me. “Kehtey darti ho”, it is called. Both Shashi and Hema are really cute in the movie, complementing the serious Amitabh very well. Raakhee is not bad either.
And Sanjeev is always a bonus in any movie. Brilliant actor!
Thanks for a lovely post. Brought back memories!
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August 30, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Thanks, Raja!
Trishul was indeed a great movie, I am glad we agree on that! As different from our views on MKS. 🙂
Talking about songs, I wonder how Sahir/ Khayyam combo could do one “gapuchi gapuchi, gam, gam” for this movie!!
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August 30, 2010 at 3:09 pm
o! wow!!! what a write up!!!!!
and what a description of the small town scenario. i envy u who cud see a movie F D F S.un fortunately i had to wait for my dad to take me to the movies when this movie released since i was still a kid then. HMMM!
but all other things aside this was one nice song though it doesn’t fall in the masterpiece category.
incidentally Yesudas also sang for Amitabh in ‘Alaap” do we have them on our blog?
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August 30, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Thanks Peevesie’s mom. Visiting a cinema in the small town India was one masala movie of its own!!
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August 31, 2010 at 1:14 am
Wah! You are a great storyteller Santoshji 🙂 I lived in a small town during that time with one cinema shaped like a bowling alley (long and narrow) so if you didn’t get there early enough you ended up way far back from the screen 😀 (and of course we had no Amitabh Bachchan!)
I love the first song in this film (Sanjeev and Waheeda’s love song), but all of them are great. Now I want to watch this again.
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August 31, 2010 at 3:00 am
Shukriya, Memsaabji! I shall covet it as a cherished honour, that comment of yours!
Those were the times (and place) I grew up in! And talking about bowling alleys, I, and most of my friends, were knocked down like those proverbial nine-pins bowled over by AB’s dialogues in his movies; we were all floored!
And, as one can readily make out, I am one helluva an Amitabh fan!!
Do enjoy the movie again.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
August 30, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Fantastic ! On going through it, I felt like I too was savouring the ambience of a first day first show movie in a crowded and noisy small time movie hall. Nothing can beat this experience.
In Ranchi, there were more movie halls than Jamshedpur-12 in all. And I felt quite proud of this fact for my city.
The new movie halls constructed in 1970s had AC unlike the older movie halls and there were four such new movie halls with AC. And interestingly , two of them were “multiplexes” in the sense that they had a regular size movie hall plus one mini size movie hall. They were indeed the fore runner of multiplexes as we know today.
Your town seein all India premiere of an Amitabh Bachchan movie ! Nothing can beat this experience, In this respect, Jamshedpur was definitely ahead of Ranchi. Jamshedpur had clout because of its Tata connections, I always felt that way.
Coming to the writeup, I thoroughly enjoyed going throught it. It brought back fond memories of 1970s.
By the way, how did you manage the tickets for the first day first show- though the wel known Bihari strong arms tactics, I guess. 😀
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August 30, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Thank you, Atul. Writing the piece was a pleasure for me!
Yes, we were envious of the Ranchi denizens, you guys did have more cinema halls. And I know those precursors to multiplexes: Sujata and Mini-Sujata?
The first day first show tickets were managed with some well-planned and well-executed “jugaad”. There was no way we could miss the FDFS (as Peevesie’s mom puts it neatly) of an AB movie!
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August 30, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Yes, Sujata/ Mini Sujata was one. Uphaar/ Mini Uphaar was another.
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