Jab ek qazaa se guzro to
Posted on: June 10, 2013
This article is written by Raja, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
A few weeks ago I got a request from Avinash Scrapwalaji to do a write-up for a certain song. He sent me, by e-mail, the concerned lyrics and the videos (audio only) but, for some reason, wanted me to do the write-up.
There were a couple of aspects of the request that piqued my interest.
Firstly, it was a request for a song from the movie Devata (1978). Now this is a movie that I remember seeing many years ago. It was a fairly well-known film in its time and starred Sanjeev Kumar and Shabana Azmi and features the fairly popular “chand chura ke laaya hoon” and “gulmohar gar tumhara naam hota”. Yet I had absolutely no recollection of this particular song he was talking about, so it was almost like I was listening to the song for the first time.
Secondly, Devata is a Gulzar-RD Burman combo movie – yet this was a song by Rafi saab. As Avinashji himself noted, this is a somewhat rare combination since the Gulzar-RD combo is best known for using Kishore Kumar’s voice. The only other songs that I can remember that Rafi saab has sung for the Gulzar-RD combo are “salaam keejiye” (Aandhi-1975) and “botal se ek baat chali hai” (Ghar-1978). And, with due respect, neither of these songs can be considered, even by one’s wildest stretch of imagination, to be close to the far more popular and soulful songs of these two movies. I can only conclude that the Gulzar-RD combo flourished at a time when Kishore was at his peak in the 70s, so he was a natural first-choice, and voice, for the soulful melodies that this combo came up with. So the only songs that did come Rafi saab’s way were the less melodious songs of the pair. Nobody’s fault as such – this is how things sometimes turn out. RD did use Rafi saab for some other tunes but just not for the ones penned by Gulzar.
Anyway, I promised Avinashji I’d do a write-up but I was constrained by my bandwidth speed, which was terrible. Only very recently this has been sorted out (at least for now) and I am in a position to honour this request.
The first thing I decided to do, before starting on the write-up, was to see the film. Luckily I found it on youtube and have just finished watching it. So it is fresh in my mind – and, most importantly, for the purpose of this write-up, I can put the song in its proper context.
The song is “Jab ek qazaa se guzro to”.
This song appears at different times in the movie – three stanzas at three different times, to be precise. It reflects different points in time in the life of the protagonist (Sanjeev Kumar) – and is played in the background as a sad song, reflecting his troubled state of time at each point in time.
The first time it plays is when he is a young man and his wife (Shabana Azmi) has just passed away during childbirth. That is the first stanza (with a reference to Jesus and Mary, since in the film Sanjeev Kumar plays a devout Catholic). (At 24:30:00 into the film).
The second time it plays is when he is in jail and hears that his grown-up daughter (Shabana in a double role) has committed suicide. This is the second stanza. (At 1:05:30 into the film).
The third and last time it plays is when he escapes from jail, returns to his town as a rich businessman many years later and happens to run into this daughter (who had not actually died – she had tried to kill herself but had been saved). She is now herself a mother of a grown-up daughter (Sarika). He is very keen to meet his daughter but the police are hot on his trail, so meeting her is difficult. (At 1:35:45 into the film).
Finally of course it all ends well (as with most Hindi movies). I must admit that I winced a bit at the first 20-odd minutes of the film – the talent of a young Sanjeev Kumar and Shabana Azmi looks completely wasted during this period. But after that, the story picks up a bit and develops rather nicely.
As mentioned above, the lyrics have been provided by Avinash SCrapwalaji. The attached video has only the first two stanzas. I noted down the third stanza while watching the film.
Audio
Video
Song-Jab ek qazaa se guzro to (Devata)(1978) Singer-Rafi, Lyrics-Gulzar, MD-R D Burman
Lyrics(Provided by Avinash Scrapwala)
Jab ek qazaa se guzro to
ik aur qazaa mil jaatee hai
marne ki ghadi miltee hai agar
jeene ki sazaa mil jaati hai
aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
is dard ke behte dariyaa mein
har gham hai marham koyee nahin
har dard kaa Iisaa miltaa hai
Iisaa ki Mariyam koyee nahin
saanson ki ijaazat milatee nahin
jeene ki razaa mil jaati hai
aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
main waqt kaa mujrim hoon lekin
is waqt ne kya insaaf kiyaa
jab tak jeete ho jalte raho
jal jaao to kehna maaf kiya
jal jaaye zaraa si chingaari
to aur hawaa mil jaati hai
jab ek qazaa se guzro to
aa aa aa
ik aur qazaa mil jaati hai
aa aa aa
marne kii ghadii miltee hai agar
aa aa aa
jeene ki sazaa mil jaati hai
aa aa aa
kuchh aise kismat waale hain
ki jinki kismat hoti nahin
hansna bhi manaa hota hai unhen
rone ki ijaazat hoti nahin
benaam ka mausam jeete hain
berang fizaa mil jaati hai
jab ek kazaa se guzaro to
aa aa aa
ik aur qazaa mil jaati hai
aa aa aa
marne ki ghadi miltee hai agar
aa aa aa
jeene ki sazaa mil jaati hai
aa aa aa
12 Responses to "Jab ek qazaa se guzro to"
June 11, 2013 at 12:35 am
It’s a very important news for us as we are the one of best hindustan songs listeners in the Asia.
Thanking you dear Chairman Mr. Samarasinghe.
I remember at my childhood about 40 years before the way I tried to catch this short wave channel.
Thanks with best regarding
Sunil Gunarathne
LikeLike
June 11, 2013 at 9:05 am
Arunji, can you please give the frequency of transmission and also whether we will be able to receive it in Bangalore? Thank you very much.
LikeLike
June 11, 2013 at 10:31 am
Aparna ji,
Please log on to http://www.slbc.lk
for online radio at these hours or the site will provide Frequency ,band etc info.
I am sure it will be received well in Benguluru too.
-AD
LikeLike
June 11, 2013 at 10:48 am
Yah lekh padhkar main atyanta bhaavuk ho gaya hoon. Hamare sabke pyaare param mitra Shri.Raja ji ne meri vinati ko maan diya, ye mere liye samman ki baat hain. Aur mere liye ye ek ‘puraskar’ ke samaan hain.
Main bhagyashaali hoon ke mujhe yah ‘puraskar’ doosri baar mil raha hai.
Thanks for this great post Raja ji !!
aur aapke post ka faayda dekhiye, ki hame is gaane ka ek ‘bonus’ antaraa bhi saath mein mila, jo Gulzar saab ki shaayri ka ek aur behtar namoona hain – … “benaam ka mausam jeete hain berang fizaa mil jaati hai” !!
and thanks for reminding me of the two Rafi-Gulzar-RDB numbers from Aandhi and Ghar (From both the films only the Kishore numbers came to mind first).
thanks for specially going through the film and the research and for this BEAUTIFUL article once again.
LikeLike
June 12, 2013 at 9:09 pm
Lovely write up Raja. It is true. You can do justice to a song only if you watch it in the film so you know the context in which it appeared.
I love the other two songs that you mentioned, “Chand chura ke laya hoon” and “Gulmohar gar tumhara naam hota”.
Sanjeev and Shabana (and many other good actors as well) had to work in some terrible films during that period. I suppose they had to keep home fires burning. Some films they had to agree to because of their friendship with the producer/director. One has to sift through many films to get to watch a few good ones.
LikeLike
August 16, 2014 at 11:02 am
video links for 2 versions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00O2flcuEwU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPbFzfnkJBw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LLwCVxk8dg
LikeLike
August 19, 2014 at 11:40 am
video link to another version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq5dbC4Jx8o
LikeLike
December 28, 2014 at 7:36 pm
@ Prakash ji – many thanks for all the video versions of this song.
LikeLike
September 25, 2016 at 5:36 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN_n1JAKvL0
LikeLike
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
June 10, 2013 at 9:55 pm
GOOD NEWS FOR RADIO CEYLON LOVERS.
Here is a message from the Radio Ceylon Global Listeners’ group-
” just received phone call from one of our admin Shri Yogesh Joshi ji, he informed me that SLBC Hindi service as again going to be started from 7.00 to 9.00 M and one more transmission from 3.45 to 5.45 PM from tomorrow as he received phone from Honarable Chairmen Shri Hudson Summersinghe ji, just before few minutes. “
LikeLike