Dil ki baat kahin lab pe na aa jaaye
Posted on: July 3, 2012
When I was growing up in 1970s then I had propounded a theory about the actors and movie makers of Hindi movies. My thoery was that the movie makers needed to take the movie going janta for a ride by serving them fare that they liked. In cruder terms, movie going public had to be fooled into partonising their movies. And the movie makers needed to be on their toes because it was obviously not possible to keep serving them the same fare.
This fare that the movie makers served to fool the public was called “formula”. every movie would employ the same “formula” till a stage came when that “formula” would stop working. Then some new “formula” would come up and serve the purpose for some more time.
One formula typically could be used for one decade before the moviegoers got tired of it.
Likewise, actors too needed to develop certain mannerisms that would sell with the public before the public would get bored with it. The same principle applied for the music of movies as well.
Even though one applied “formulas” to take the public for a ride, the movie makers could not afford to be complacent and over confident. Those who committed this mistake often came to grief.
Top actors who managed to have their own long innings in Hindi movies taking their fans for a ride would often try to introduce his/her next generation to movies hoping to pass on their success mantle to them. There was a standard formula for such movies. These movies needed to be invariably love stories. Be it “Bobby” (1973) or “Kaho Na Pyaar Hai” (2001), movie personalities have introduced their kids in love stories. The target audience for these movies would be teenaagers who would lap up these movies. When the same teenagers would grow up in a few years and they would watch the same movie again, they would wonder what they saw in that movie that they liked. By the time the erstwhile teenage movie goers realised their folly, the movie maker had already made his bucks from that movie.
Many people, including me have wondered why Kumar Gaurav, son of Jubilee Kumar Rajendra Kumar failed to come good despite making a dream beginning with “Love Story” (1980). My above theory, which I have thought of just now 🙂 offers an explanation for Kumar Gaurav’s subsequent failures. I believe that unlike most star kids who continued to slog hard and re invent themselves in their subsequent movies, Kumar Gaurav as well as his father grew over confident and complacent. They felt that Kumar Gaurav had done enough to fool the audience and he only needed to sign up movies and turn up for the shootings to be successful. This over confidence and complacency cost Kumar Gaurav. Unlike his contemporary star kids like Sanjay Dutt, Sunny Deol, and his predecessor star kid like Rishi Kapoor, Kumar Gaurav quickly grew lazy. That way, he followed in the footsteps of Randhir Kapoor, another star son who had made a dream debut one decade ago.
Personally I had loved “Love Story” (1980) when the movie was released. I was in the right age group towards whom this movie was targetted. So one can say that I was among the millions of teenagers who helped make this movie a success and helped make Kumar Gaurav a success in his debut movie.
But success quickly went over the head of Kumar Gaurav and his camp. I do not know what my fellow teenagers thought of his subsequent movies, but when I watched the subsequent movies of Kumar Gaurav, I felt that the movie makers had taken the movie goers for granted, and they had thought that their target movie goers were fools.
“Teri Kasam” (1982) was the second and the last Kumar Gaurav movie that I ever paid to watch. While I was watching the movie, I made up my mind never to watch any more Kumar Gaurav movie even for free. I could see that his subsequent movies, viz “Star” etc had all taken moviegoers for fools.
Kumar Gaurav’s stars went southwards soon. Clearly the other movie goers too thought the same way about his movies that I did. No matter how hard and how many times he tried to make a comeback, he was snubbed every single time by the movie watchers.
Since I did not like “Teri Kasam” (1982), I did not enjoy the songs of this movie either, which was unfortunate, because the music of this movie was composed by R D Burman, the favourite music director of my generation.
R D Burman had earmarked Amit Kumar as the voice of Kumar Gaurav. It was felt at that time that Kumar Gaurav would go far and as his voice Amit Kumar too would gain a big foothold in the playback industry.
It has been suggested, and rightly so in my opinion, that Amit Kumar in fact was competing with his father, the great Kishore Kumar, for a portion of the playback singing pie. Kishore Kumar was obviously a singer in his own league, so Amit Kumar’s opportunities were limited. Subsequently, when Kishore Kumar was no longer around, a better Kishore Kumar clone in the form of Kumar Sanu arrived and cornered a big share of the male playback singing opprtunities.
Today (3 july) is the birthday of Amit Kumar. On this occasion, here is a song from “Teri Kasam”(1982). This song is sung by Amit Kumar. The song is picturised on Kumar Gaurav, who is shown in financial troubles, but then he becomes a popular singer and his financial troubles vanish in no time. The picturisation shows him singing a composition of Laxmikant, with Laxmikant looking on indulgently, in the company of Louis Banks. Paintal and Poonam Dhillon are also visible in the picturisation.
The song is written by Anand Bakshi. Music is composed not by Laxmikant Pyarelal, but by R D Burman, as mentioned above. Laxmikant Pyarelal and R D Burman, despite being competitors as music directors were very good friends and they would often figure in each others’ recordings. For instance, R D Burman had played mouth organ in a song in “Dosti”(1964) where Laxmikant Pyarelal were the music directors.
Lyrics of this song were sent to me by Prakashchandra.
Audio
Video
Song-Dil ki baat kahin lab pe na aa jaaye (Teri Kasam)(1982) Singer-Amit Kumar, Lyrics-Anand Bakshi, MD-R D Burman
Lyrics(Provided by Prakashchandra)
dil ki baat
kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste
aankh kahin na bhar aaye
o dil ki baat
kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste
aankh kahin na bhar aaye
yaad rahe ae ae
yaad rahe
kyaa
dil ki baat
kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste
aankh kahin na bhar aaye
o dil ki baat
kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste
aankh kahin na bhar aaye
chehre pe chehraa lagaa lo
apni soorat chhupaa lo o o o
chehre pe chehraa lagaa lo
apni soorat chhupaa lo
kaise deewaanon ko
koyee samjhaaye
dil ki baat
kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste
aankh kahin na bhar aaye
yaad rahe ae ae
yaad rahe
kyaa
dil ki baat
kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste
aankh kahin na bhar aaye
jab haal dil ka sunaanaa
ye baat na bhool jaanaaa aa aa aa
jab haal dil ka sunaanaa
ye baat na bhool jaanaaa
apne hain gham
log paraaye
dil ki baat
kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste
aankh kahin na bhar aaye
yaad rahe ae ae
yaad rahe
kyaa
dil ki baat
kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste
aankh kahin na bhar aaye
dil mein chubhe laakh kaante
patjhar mein bhi phool baantein
dil mein chubhe laakh kaante
patjhar mein bhi phool baantein
hamne bahaaron ke hi geet gaaye
dil ki baat kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste aankh kahin na bhar aaye
yaad rahe ae ae
yaad rahe
kyaa
dil ki baat kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste aankh kahin na bhar aaye
o dil ki baat kahin lab pe naa aa jaaye
hanste hanste aankh kahin na bhar aaye
5 Responses to "Dil ki baat kahin lab pe na aa jaaye"
2 | Ava Suri
July 3, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Excellent write up Atul. I was not much taken by Love Story, I did not even see it, but my niece, 8 years my junior, adored the movie.
Kumar Gaurav was cute looking, but I never did like too many of his movies. In fact I wonder if I saw ANY of his movie.
This song is nice though. Amit sang some good songs.
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July 3, 2012 at 11:17 pm
The story of this movie is also inspired by a kannada super hit musical movie(I don`t know kannada movie may be a remake of some tamil or telugu movie.Such cases are many down south.)”Devara Gudi” i.e.,Temple of God(1974).The story of Teri kasam was given some modern touches compared to Kannada movie(Starring Late Vishnu Vardhan,Bharathi,Rajesh,Late Manjula, Late K.S.Ashwath)
Kumar Gaurav(KG) is a budding singer.Girish Karnad`s rich,spoilt brat Sister Poonam Dhillon who loves KG`s voice wants to marry KG.Girish.K marries KG`s elder sister Ranjeeta kaur(KG refuses to marry Poonam unless his elder sister`s marriage takes place).To fulfill his “Laadli” sister Poonam`s wish,Girish K. marries Ranjeeta K. Trouble begins thereafter in KG`s married life,as Poonam ill treats her sick,ailing mother-in-law Nirupa roy, which leads to the seperation of KG & Poonam and that affects married life of KG`s sister. Movie ends with a Happi note as Poonam learns from her mistakes. Monty Nath is the villain and Paintal plays the role of KG`s friend.Jyoti Bakshi who was Dev Anand`s heroine` role in Bullet(1976)(who met tragic death I think)plays the role of Poonam`s friend.
But R.D.Burman`s music is super hit, released through Music India Company(Amit Kumar was the main playback singer of the movie, had the chance to sing all the songs for Kumar Gaurav in the wake of Love Story`s success)
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
July 3, 2012 at 8:01 pm
Atul ji,
In discussing the reasons for failure of certain star sons,you have opened up an interesting topic.
Whether a star son or just a new comer who fulfilled the basic need of looking good on the screen,realised in no time that just looking good is NOT enough to succeed.
Even earlier there were good looking,but Zero acting Heros were there.Two glaring examples were Bharat Bhushan and Rajendra kumar himself.But,and this is a big BUT,they survived sheerly on the strength of excellent music to back them up.Almost all of BB’s films had good music and the day good music ended his end too came up quickly.
Similarly,Rajendra kumar’s success as a Jubilee Kumar was NOT because he could act(which is doubtful),but almost all his films had fantastic songs.
There were some more dudes like Shekhar,Suresh and the likes of them.In their times,it was atleast the Golden period of Hindi films.
Unfortunately,when Kumar Gaurav debuted he got an excellent picture like Love story,but its songs were not extraordinary.Take the example of Raj kapoor,who fully understood the importance of good music in the Hero’s success.When Bobby was launched the songs were very famous,they are even today remembered.And this made the base of the Newcomer strong for future films.The magic of music from First film made them survive few flops afterwards.
There are many such examples.
One can not take the audience for granted nor can a star son survive on the goodwill of his parents alone.He must convince the audience of his own capabilities .Rajendrakumar and his son probably took many things for granted,thus ending kumar Gaurav’s career.
-AD
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July 4, 2012 at 9:26 am
Sir,
You are absolutely right about Rajendra Kumar’s movies. He became Jubilee star because of the music and excellent songs. Most of them were by Shankar-Jaikishan. And the heroines were all very good. And Rafi’s singing made him convincing, more than anything else.
I had seen ‘ love story ‘ but thought it must have been later than 1980. Kumar Gaurav did a few good films. Actually he had better voice and dialogue delivery than Rajendra Kumar. For theatre goers back than the voice and dialogue delivery of actors was important. I have seen Bobby Deol (when ever he spoke) being booed in Liberty Cinema when we saw “Kareeb’ (Vidhu Vinod Chopra).
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July 4, 2012 at 9:39 am
Kumar Gaurav’s lack of success is also due to the Amitabh Bachhan factor who was the “be all” of film at that time. Comedy, Romantic, Serious , action he could do all type of films and succeed.
Amit Kumar could have done a lot better than he did in the end. His voice suited Kumar Gaurav perfectly. And R. D. Burman was the choice of all those stars launching their sons in the film industry . Take “Betaab”, “Rocky” apart from ‘ Love story’.
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