Main khush hona chaahoon
Posted on: December 15, 2012
This article is written by Shekhar Gupta, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Music director Rai Chand Boral (1903-81) is credited with bringing playback to Hindi cinema with the number “Main khush hona chaahoon khush ho na sakoon”, a chorus song in the New Theatre production Dhoop Chhaaon (1935). A personna no less than the doyen of Hinsustani Cine Sangeet, the late Anil Biswas, reportedly complimented Boral, recepient of the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1978, as the Father of Indian Cinema Music.
This historic Hindi movie Dhoop Chhaon, directed by Nitin Bose, was actually a remake of the Bengali film Bhagya Chakra also released in 1935. So while Dhoop Chhaon is the first Hindi movie to use playback singing, playback singing was apparently introduced first to Indian cinema in Bhagya Chakra.
This Blog already has five numbers from Dhoop Chhaaon: Andhe ki laathhi tu hi hai, Baba man ki aankhen khol, Jeewan ka sukh aaj Prabhu mohe, Prem ki naiyya chali jal mein, and Teri gathri me laaga chor musaafir jaag zara with a fair deal of information and discussion on it.
In his interview with Pali Chandra on “100 Years of Bollywood”, Vijay Balakrishnan recounts that playback in both movies was necessitated by a longish stage scene involving four lead singers and a chorus. In his scholarly work on Hindustani Cine Sangeet entitled “Dhunon Ki Yaatra”, Pankaj Raag recounts that in fact the idea of using playback occurred to Nitin Bose, the director of both movies, when he was made to wait inordinately in his car for Pankaj Mullick to pick him up because Pankaj Babu could not hear Nitin-da’s honking as he (Pankaj Mullick) was singing along his favourite English song blaring on his gramophone! This gave Nitin Bose the idea of “sing along” or playback. He mentioned the idea to Boral who executed it well in both Bhagya Chakra and Dhoop Chaaon with the assistance of his sound-recordist Mukul Bose (Nitin Bose’s brother).
This historical first Hindi playback song has, apart from the chorus, three female singers – Suprova Sarkar (then a Shanti Niketan student), Parul Ghosh (wife of the late flutist Pannalal Ghosh) and Harimati Dua – and male singer – Krishna Chandra (“K.C.”) Dey, Manna Dey’s late uncle who, being blind, was also known as the Blind Singer. According to Vijay Balakrishnan in the aforementioned interview, Suprova Sarkar gave playback for the “leading lady” and K.C. Day sang for himself and for Ahi Sanyal – thus making these two (Suprova Sarkar and K.C. Day) the first female and male playback singers of Hindi cinema. Parul Ghosh and Harimati Dua sang for themselves.
Apart from the unmistakeably recognizable voacls of K.C. Dey, I am not sure about the identity of the three female singers/actresses and request the knowledeable readers of the Blog to shade more light on this historic number.
PS (Note by Atul)-According to HFGK, this was the song that brought about the concept of playback singing in movies. This group song was picturised as a stage performace song of a drama company. This song is mentioned as song number 3 in HFGK. Portion of song number 4 of this movie viz. “Aaj mero ghar Mohan aayo” also gets included as part of this song in the voice of Ahi Sanyal. Song number 4 was later picturised fully in the voice of K C Dey and others.
So this song is in effect a multi part song containing two songs.
Song-Main khush hona chaahoon (Dhoop Chhaaon)(1935) Singers-Suprova Sarkar, Parul Ghosh, Harimati Dua, K.C.Dey, Lyrics-Pt Sudarshan, MD-R C Boral
Chorus
Lyrics
main khush hona chaahoon khush ho na sakoon
jab tak hai tera chehra udaas
sir par sankat pade kabhi ro na sakoon
jab tak hai teri aankhon men aas
main khush hona chaahoon khush ho na sakoon
jab tak hai tera chehara udaas
mero ghar mohan aayo
mero ghar mohan aayo
janam-janam ke sankat taare
janam-janam ke sankat taare
sundar roop dikhaayo
oooo
mero ghar aayo
mero ghar aayo
aage-peechhe oopar-neeche
aage-peechhe oopar-neeche
sab jag jaadoo chhaayo
sab jag jaadoo chhaayo
mohan aayo
mohan aaaayo
aanand nagar ke baasi aanand lutaane aaye
aanand nagar ke baasii aanand lutaane aaye
duniya ke dukhiyaaron ka dukh-dard mitaane aaye
duniya ke dukhiyaaron ka dukh-dard mitaane aaye
meri aankhon men preet
mere honthon pe geet
mere mann men hai meet
mere jiivan men jeet
meri aankhon men preet
mere honthon pe geet
mere mann men hai meet
mere jiivan men jeet
muft looto sabhi dukh se chhooto sabhi
muft looto sabhi dukh se chhooto sabhi
aao aao hamaare paas
aao aao hamaare paas
main khush hona chaahoon khush ho na sakoon
jab tak hai tera chehara udaas
sar par sankat pade kabhi ro na sakoon
jab tak hai teri aankhon men aas
sar par sankat pade kabhi ro na sakoon
jab tak hai teri aankhon men aas
main khush hona chaahoon khush ho na sakoon
jab tak hai tera chehara udaas
3 Responses to "Main khush hona chaahoon"
December 16, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Interesting story how it struck Nitinda to use playback. They have well said: invention is the mother of necessity.
LikeLike
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
December 15, 2012 at 10:03 am
Gupta ji,
Thanks a ton for writing about this Historic song and letting us listen to this LandMark stage song.
Just a little point.The name is HARIMATI DUA and NOT Hiramati Dua.
-AD
LikeLike
December 15, 2012 at 4:15 pm
Glad you liked it, Arunji. And thanks for correcting my careless mistake with regard to the name of the third female singer; very much appreciated.
LikeLike