Saawan aaye ya na aaye
Posted on: August 22, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
In one of my earlier write-ups posted on this blog, I had mentioned that of late, my memories of childhood and younger days have become very sharp where as I tend to forget many events which had happened in recent years. Recently, I came across an article on reminiscence bump theory. It says that there are three stages of memories: (1) the period of childhood amnesia during which we do not remember the events that had happened during infancy to say up to the age of 5 years, (2) reminiscence bump is a tendency for older people to increasingly remember events that happened during 10 to 30 years of age and,(3) the period of middle age to old age, viz.over 35 years of age to the present period during which there is a tendency to forget the events. So my memory is working as per reminiscence bump theory :-). And I am not complaining because it helped me to remember and locate about half a dozen rare songs of 30s and 40s which have already been posted on this blog.
It is one thing to remember such songs but it is another thing to locate those songs. For, I had no inklings about some of those songs whether they were from films or non-films. In some cases, I only knew the tune but no wordings. In some other cases, I knew wordings but they were not the beginning of the song. So it became extremely difficult to search such rare songs on the websites. Whichever of those songs I have located and discussed were those I came across accidentally while searching for some other songs. That was what actually happened while searching for details about the film Saadhna (1958) on the Indian Film Website. Instead the website came out with details of Sadhana (1939). Being interested in Hindi film songs of 30s and 40s, I searched for the possibility of accessing some songs from this film. And to my luck, I located the only song from this film uploaded on YT ‘saawan aaye yaa naa aaye’. After listening to this song, it was a ‘eureka’ moment for me as the ‘mystery’ of one more song which my mother used to occasionally sing was finally solved.
From the first line as well as the tune of the song, one would get an impression that the song is a familiar one. Yes, it sounds familiar because the tune as well as the first line have been used by Naushad for a song in the film Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966). I would not call it plagiarisma s both the songs’ tunes are based on the raga, ‘shuddha saarang’ according to one website on raga based Hindi film songs. Incidentally, in Shakeel Badayuni’s lyrics, two lines of the earlier song viz. ‘sawaan aaye yaa na aaye’ and ‘wahi samay manbhaawan hai’ have been retained. In fact in a broader sense, the meaning of both the lyrics are the same and belong to the same genre.
The film SADHANA (1939) was produced under the banner of Sagar Movietone and directed by Virendra Desai and Mahendra Thakore. The starcast included Prem Adib, Shobhana Samarth, Harish, Bibbo, Kanhaiyalal, Kaushlaya etc. The song written by Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi is sung by Harish which is set to music by Anupam Ghatak. I have never heard all these three names. I can only make a wild guess about the lyricist Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi who could be none other than the famous character actor Kanhaiyalal. After all those days, actors had to perform multiple tasks.
Only the audio clip is available of the song. Since Harish was one of the actors in the film, it is obvious that he sang on himself in the film. What a sweet voice Harish had and a melodious composition by Anupam Ghatak.
Song-Saawan aaye yaa na aaye (Sadhana)(1939) Singer- Harish, Lyrics-Kanhaiyyalal Chaturvedi, MD-Anupam Ghatak
Lyrics
saawan aaye yaa naa aaye
piyaa ghar aaye saawan hai
saawan aaye yaa naa aaye
piyaa ghar aaye saawan hai
saawan aaye yaa naa aaye
preetam pyaari jab mil jaaye
preetam pyaari jab mil jaaye
tabhi basant suhaawan hai
tabhi basant suhaawan hai
saawan aaye yaa naa aaye
piyaa ghar aaye saawan hai
saawan aaye yaa naa aaye
pushp lataayen bhi tab jhoolen
jhoolen en en
jhoolen en en
pushp lataayen bhi tab jhoolen
jal ki tarangen bhi tab khelen
jal ki tarangen bhi tab khelen
sajni ee ee ee
sajni jab saajan sang jhoole
sajni jab saajan sang jhoole
wahi samay manbhaawan hai
wahi samay manbhaawan hai
saawan aaye yaa naa aaye
piyaa ghar aaye saawan hai
saawan aaye yaa naa aaye
preetam pyaari jab mil jaaye
preetam pyaari jab mil jaaye
tabhi basant suhaawan hai
tabhi basant suhaawan hai
saawan aaye yaa naa aaye
piyaa ghar aaye saawan hai
saawan aaye yaa naa aaye
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
August 22, 2012 at 1:31 pm
Kamath ji,
Thanks for posting a song from 1939.
Sadhana named films were made in 1939,1956,1965 and 1989.Seems to be a fav name !
The 3 names-Harish,Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi and Anupam
Ghatak,are no wonder,not heard by you.in fact very few people may be knowing about them
First HARISH. Born in Delhi on 23-10-1916,he was brought up in and graduated from Delhi.Then he came to Bombay and joined Sagar ZMovietone.Those days graduates had a great demand and value in the Cine industry,so much so,that many artists proudly used to flout their degrees e.g. Lyricist Moti,BA.the reason was not many from the earlier lot in the industry were much educated,though they had the talents and hard working attitudes.Anyway,the first film of Harish was Hum,Tum aur Voh-1938 in which he acted and sang songs with Maya Banerjee(this name too may be less heard by many,but she was a Bengal beauty,actress and singer of repute then.).Then came Postman,Sadhana,Uski tamanna,Sanskar etc about 25 films in which he acted as a Hero/side hero and sang enough song.His last film as a Hero was Amaanat-1943.Then he setablished ‘omar khayyam Films’ and produced and directed many films as Tara Harish(a single name-not a male female jodi).He died in 1970 at Delhi.
Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi,as rightly guessed(though wildly) by you is the same character actor.he was younger brother of Sankata prasad,a permanent actor with Sagar.They were Purbhaiyyas from U.P.He came to Bombay to become a Lyricist and wrote songs in Bhole Bhale-1931,comrades,Sadhana,civil marriage,Sanskar etc.Surendra,the famous singer/actor of Sagar gave him a break as actor in Gramophone singer.Then there was no lokking back.he acted in some 200 films.He did the role of Sukhilala in Aurat-1940 and after17 years in Mother India-1957 did the same role of Sukhilala again.
………contd
LikeLike
August 22, 2012 at 2:01 pm
contd…….
The third name is that of Anupam Ghatak,whose place in Bangla music is next only to R.C.Boral and Pankaj Mullick.Born in Maimansingh in East Bengal(Bangladesh now) in 1911,he was a trined musician and started singing on the Radio first.he was asst to Boral in films like Vidyapati-37.As an independent MD his first Bangla film was Payer Dhulo-35,while assisting Boral and P.Mullick.
His first Hindi film was Tarzan ki beti-1938.till his last film Banjare-48 he gave music to 17 films.Though he died in 1948,his last film Shamsheer was released in 1953.Ghatak was more keen and popular in Bangla films.
SADHANA-1939 was a Sagar MT film.
Ganesh kaka was a reknowned judge .people from his and surrounding villages used to come to solve their disputes.His widowed sister’s son Yogesh studied in a Bombay college.He loved his villave but he loved more Sadhana,the moneylender’s daughter.Ramesh the Mukhiya’s son also loved her.The moneylender is pressurised by the Mukhiya to declare the marriage of Sadhana and Ramesh.Sadhan’s mother does not like it as she too favours Yogesh.Ganesh kaka is also helpless.
Few days prior to the marriage,an unwed mother Prema comed to Ganesh kaka,with a complaint that Ramesh is the father of the child.On enquiries,it is proved that the culprit is Ramesh only.Ganesg kaka pronounces his verdict-Prema and Ramesh and Sadhana and Yogesh should get married in the same Mandap.
-AD
381
LikeLike
August 22, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Thank you for a wealth of information.
I had heard the name of Tara Harish as director but never knew that Harish was the same person as Tara Harish.
LikeLike
August 22, 2012 at 8:21 pm
Same here. I had no idea either that Tara Harish=Harish and Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi=Kanhaiyalal! Thanks Arunji for this invaluable information. Can u provide more info on Kanhaiyalal? I think I remember seeing him in movies of 81-82 and then there was no trace of him. So possibly he passed away around then.
LikeLike
August 22, 2012 at 9:14 pm
bluefire ji,
here is a link giving some different and additional info on Kanhaiyalal-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanhaiyalal_(actor)
-AD
LikeLike