Badhaayi hai

Posted by: Atul on: July 19, 2013

In: Asha Bhonsle songs | Celebration Song | Guest posts | History of the blog | Lord Ram related songs | Lyrics by Ava Suri | Lyrics contributed by readers | Post by Raja | Songs of 1950s (1951 to 1960) | Songs of 1954 | Yearwise breakup of songs
24 Comments

This article is written by Raja, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

As I sit at my computer to write up this post for this blog, I am filled with a sense of joy and fulfilment.

I still have my writer’s block (see post about this yesterday) but no writer’s block, nothing, is going to come in the way of my writing this post. I feel I will somehow get the strength to overcome all these blocks because there is an inner power driving this post.

For this post marks a very special anniversary for this blog.

Now anniversaries are nothing new here. To the extent possible, this blog recognizes and honours every day all those artistes whose birth or death anniversaries fall on that date. It is just a token of appreciation from our side to the artiste involved, to let him or her know that he or she is in our thoughts on that day. To help us with this, we have an anniversaries section that we try to keep as updated as possible.

That’s all very well – but there is another type of anniversary that comes only once a year for this blog.

And that is this blog’s birthday itself.

And that day is today, the 19th of July.

And what’s more, this time it is even more special because it is this blog’s 5th anniversary!!!

Yes, this blog was started exactly 5 years ago – on 19th July 2008.

I know it is a cliché but I cannot help saying that it feels like yesterday. Because it really does.

It feels like just yesterday that Atul and I were sharing songs on our cricket forum and Atul decided to start a blog of his own to post songs of his liking. Maybe he just wanted to dump his thoughts in cyberspace in a manner that he could control and manage. A cricket forum, for all its value, is not exactly a personal space.

As with many things in life, the blog’s early days were modest. I think Atul himself was happy to start with just one song a day – and to talk about it. Seemed a logical thing to do. Everyday talk about a song you like.

There was only one glitch. One of numbers. If one were to just post one song a day, we would have 365/366 songs a year (assuming a post every single day). And in 20 years, we would have a little over 7300 songs. Somehow, the pace felt like Gavaskar opening the bowling attack in the 1970s.

This realization was no doubt further brought home by the flurry of “farmaishes” Atul began getting. It was initially meant to be songs of HIS choice. But then when visitors began landing on his blog to check out the latest post, invariably they would leave requests for other songs. So much so, that Atul created a separate farmaishes page after a while, separate from the general comments page of the blog.

Talking of farmaishes, I have to plead mea culpa here – I was one of the most demanding guys in the early days, bombarding Atul with lists of 10 songs (sometimes more) that I wanted to see posted. The poor guy soon began satisfying farmaishes coming to him instead of posting songs of his choice.

Before the separate farmaishes page came along, there was already another major improvement Atul made on the site. One fine day in 2009, I was pleasantly surprised to see an extra tab on the site with lists of songs covered, sorted by film.

I remember once, when a few artistes had started hitting centuries, I discussed with Atul that it would be really nice if we could have statistics on the blog. Just to see the blog’s coverage. And also, as excitement to see which artistes were close to their centuries. In a few days, Atul came up with the statistics page. This is still a page I often frequent because I love seeing how various artistes are doing and who is close to what milestone.

A rather recent addition to the blog is the “movies covered” page. As the blog kept growing in terms of songs, we began having several cases where all the songs of a film had got posted. So, with the help of Arunji (our inhouse encyclopaedia, as Atul calls him), Atul began preparing this list of movies covered. Everytime a movie would get fully covered, this became a small cause for celebration for us. The movie title on the movies list became red.

Another recent addition to the blog is the anniversary list. This blog is not just a song blog, it is also a tribute to those who were part of the creation of the song, in whatever capacity. We thought it was only logical that we honour an artiste on his birth or death anniversary by posting at least one song on that day in his memory. Since there was all sorts of information out there on the net (and a fair amount not exactly reliable), Atul decided to compile his own anniversary dates list. Together with the active help of many members, this list is being constantly updated. Rarely does an artiste get missed out – this is the least we can do for the artiste.

The reason for mentioning all this is just to explain how the blog has evolved over the last 5 years in terms of its features. It is not a static blog by any standards, it is constantly being improved with new ideas, many of them coming from the blog’s visitors.

A word about the blog’s visitors.

It is fair to say that the visitors to a blog are often a big source of encouragement to the blog creator. Taking the liberty to speak on Atul’s behalf, I would say it is no different for him. From the first day of this blog (when there must have been just a few) to today (when the numbers are in many thousands), this blog has been buzzing with visitors. As of the time of writing, there have been a staggering 4.6 million visits to this blog! This is testimony to the blog’s popularity – often this blog is the first result to show up when a person searches for a song on google.

Over this 5-year period, the blog has not just attracted so many visitors, it has also retained a fair number of them as loyal followers. There are many who visit every day to check out the latest posts. They may or may not comment but they certainly want to know what’s the latest update.

Then there are those who do comment. The comments on this blog are themselves often a treasure in their own right. Not only are many of the commenters extremely appreciative and supportive, they are also often very knowledgeable in their own right. This often means that we have interesting discussions about a song or a movie or an artiste – in the comments section.

Then there are the other contributors. Without doubt, Atul is the owner and prime driver behind the blog. But over the years, some of us (myself included) have joined Atul on this fun journey as co-travellers. We try to contribute in our own ways towards the blog. Some of us write posts, some of us help with preparing lyrics of the songs (that is a lot of work too), some give fresh anniversary information, there are different ways to help. We do this with a lot of love because this blog now belongs to all of us in a way, though its creator and owner is still very much Atul.

Now a bit about the content.

I’ve said this many times before – but I never tire of saying this – it is just amazing how the content on this blog is built up every single day by Atul.

It takes tremendous dedication, discipline and passion to be able to put in so much time every day to build this blog. What started as one song a day has now grown to about 6-7 songs a day. Each of these songs has to be written up, its lyrics have to be written down as accurately as possible (Atul is particular about a quality job) and other tagging details have to be provided, alongwith the video/audio. It is a fair amount of effort that goes into every song. There are no short cuts – it is more quantity, but without compromising on quality.

It is only this dedication that has seen this blog notch milestone after milestone. Blog centuries nowadays come at a fairly brisk clip in about 16-20 days, occasionally a bit slower. Many artistes have hit centuries here – it is one of the most satisfying moments for me to see a less-known (relatively at least) artiste being honoured here, whether on the occasion of a century or on his anniversary.

Very importantly (and I think this is THE most important thing about this blog), this blog is now a much-valued repository for Hindi songs, where you get all information about the song in one place. Many of the songs here were lost in the sands of time – now, thanks to this blog, they are being rediscovered and have their own secure place in cyberspace. At this point, I must also acknowledge and thank all those music lovers who have uploaded songs to youtube and other similar shared resources. Without their help, many of these songs wouldn’t have been on the internet at all, so we need to thank them too.

So, did Atul imagine this 5 years ago? I don’t think so. But, I’m sure I speak for every one of this blog’s fans that we are SO glad he started on this journey. Atul can proudly quote this famous couplet “Hum to akele hi chale the safar-e-manzil ki taraf, raah mein log milte gaye aur caravan badhta gayaa”.

I can go on and on – but I think it is time to now move on to the song for today.

I will confess I was initially at a loss to find a suitable song for today. I wanted something that was birthday-related, so I started searching on janamdin, saalgira type terms. Didn’t get very far, so I then switched to searching on “congratulations” – in other words “badhai”.

And I found a lovely song that I’d never heard before but I fell in love with, the first time I heard it. I then took the help of Ava to write down the lyrics for this song, while I would prepare the write-up. So the lyrics are courtesy Ava.

Ok, to be honest, this is not exactly a blog congratulatory song but then I challenge somebody to find me a song for this specific purpose. So we are happy that we got a congratutory song, even it is one on the occasion of, what seems to me, to be a coronation. But the words are quite suitable for this blog also, as we are celebrating it on its 5th birthday.

It is a lovely song from the film, Waaris (1954).

As many as 7 songs of this film have already been posted here on the blog. The film itself stars Talat Mahmood, Suraiya and Nadira. I haven’t seen the film (though I have heard of it), so I’m afraid I cannot talk about the storyline. But I am sure there are plenty of knowledgeable readers here who will be happy to tell us more about this film. One of the joys for me while preparing a blogpost is to bring a song or a film to the limelight and have others comment on it.

The lyrics are by Majrooh Sultanpuri, the lovely composition is by Anil Biswas. Everytime I discover an Anil Biswas composition, I can only marvel at it.

I must say I found this qawwali-cum-dance song delightful. The choreography is also very pleasing to the eye.

Importantly, it is a gem – and that makes it extremely worthy of finding its place here, on this 5th birthday of the blog.

Congratulations to Atul and to all others here on this blog. Let’s enjoy this song.

Song-Badhaai hai (Waaris)(1954) Singers-Bande Hasan, Asha Bhonsle, Lyrics-Majrooh Sultanpuri, MD-Anil Biswas
Chorus

Lyrics(Provided by Ava Suri)

Badhaai hai

gaao badhaaiyya le lo
le lo ballaiya
Gaao badhaiyya le lo
Le lo ballaiya
ae ri sakhi tohe jiyara nihaal re
Dasrath ka lal
jiye jug jug Ramji hamaar
O jiye jug jug Ramji hamaar
aaaa
O jiye jug jug Ramji hamaar
gaao badhaaiyya le lo
le lo ballaiya
gaao badhaiyya le lo
le lo ballaiya

aa aaan aaa aaa
gul khile harsims
Mausam par nikhaar aa hi gaya aa aa
aakhir ish wo din tha jiska
intezaar aa hi gyaa
aakhir ish wo din tha jiska
intezaar aa hi gayaa
aaaaa
aakhir ish wo din tha jiska
Intezaar aa hi gyaa
Aaheba aaheba
Aakhir ish wo din tha jiska
Intezaar aa hi gayaa

Aa aaan aaa aaa
tum ko dekha jab se dil par ikhtiyaar aa hi gaya
aa aa aa aa
Umr bhar ki beqaraari
ko qaraar aa hi gaya
Umr bhar ki beqaraari ko qaraar aa hi gaya
Aaaaaa
Umr bhar ki beqarari ko qaraar aa hi gaya
Aaheba aaheba aaheba
Umr bhar ki beqaraari ko qaraar aa hi gaya

dekhen do naina yehi rang raliyan
Ye rang raliyan ho
phoolon base more raja ki galiyaan
raja ki galiyaan ho
O more raja ki galiyaan ho
badhaai hai

Ae ri sakhi tohe jiyara nihaal re
Dasrath ka lal re
O jiye jug jug Ramji hamaar
O jiye jug jug Ramji hamaar
aaa aaa aaa
O jiye jug jug Ramji hamaar
aa aa aa aa

Aa aa aaa aaa
aa aa aa aa
Tum raho zinda aa aa
khuda rakhe tumhaari zindagi ee ee ee
Ham basar karden inhi kadmo mein saari zindagi
Ham basar karden inhi kadmon mein saari zindagi
ham basar karden inhi kadmo mein saari zindagi
Aheba aheba
Ham basar karden inhi kadmon mein saari zindagi

aa aa aa aa aaa
Tum hamaare hosakab hain
tumse pyari zindagi
Arzoo hai tumko mil jaaye hamaari zindagi
Aarzoo hai tumko mil jaaye hamaari zindagi
Aarzoo hai tumko mil jaaye hamaari zindagi
Aheba aheba aheba
Aarzoo hai tumko mil jaaye hamaari zindagi

Jiye raja mera jiwaan bhi laike
jiwan bhi laike ho
Chaina ki raina ho
Din hon mazey ke
Din hon mazey ke ho
Raja ke din ho mazey ke

Ae ri sakhi tohe jiyara nihaal re
Dasrath ka lal
jiye jug jug Ramji hamaar
O jiye jug jug Ramji hamaar
O jiye jug jug Ramji hamaar

Tags: 1954, Anil Biswas, Asha Bhonsle, Bande Hasan, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Waaris

24 Responses to "Badhaayi hai"

1 | Prakashchandra
July 19, 2013 at 11:00 am

Congratulations to Everybody, on OUR blog`s 5th Anniversary.

Atul ji
Love you.

Raja Sir
Enjoyed every bit of your post. Thank you for that.

Regards
Prakash

Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs

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