This article is written by nahm, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
“L ” song in this A-Z of Rafi songs series is a duet sad song. Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar are singing this song for Dilip Kumar and Nargis respectively. The film is “Halchul” (1951). The song is written by Khumar Barabankwi and composed by Mohammed Shafi. This movie is one of those where Sajjad Hussain is said to have walked out after composing three songs, due to his disagreements with Dilip Kumar/film makers. Those three songs and one song composed by Mohammed Shafi are posted in the blog, making this the fifth song from the movie.
In the song, Dilip Kumar is in a prison. Since I have not seen this movie, I thought to look up the story at the imdb sebsite. What I found is this interesting story :
” On the day of his wedding, the life of a jailer is saved by an inmate during a prison break. Back in his cell the prisoner, Kishore, recounts his life story. He spent his childhood amidst the family of a wealthy thakur (landowner) and was treated like a son. But when the thakur died his jealous son relegated Kishore to the status of a servant. Kishore’s romance with Asha, the young thakur’s sister, earns him a beating. Rather than besmirch the family’s honour by eloping, he agrees to leave on condition that he may return when he has become worthy of Asha’s hand. He finds a job as a carnival daredevil, diving in flames from a high platform into a tank of fire. However, the carnival’s lady owner wants thrills of a different kind and she isn’t one to be trifled with -she killed and stuffed her cat to stop it running away….. When Kishore makes it clear that his heart lies elsewhere, Madame is not amused. She arranges for Kishore to be murdered. But the plan goes
awry and Kishore ends up being wrongly convicted of her murder and thus finds himself in jail. Both the jailer and his fellow inmates sympathise with him. The jailer wants him to meet his new bride whilst his fellows work on a plan to get him released. One of these is a good idea, the other is not. “
It has the vicious vamp who has killed her cat and stuffed it to keep it as a possession. As far as I am concerned it is the stuff of fairytales. I mean normal people dont behave in this way, obsessed with possessiveness or not. It is only filmy characters. If someone is like this in real life , than they would be story of the day on all News Channals. And the story would soon be forgotten, in favour of the new
headline’s and fresh scandals.
Hindi Movies have reflected the times , as they did in those days. At least here is a clear demarcation of the good and the evil. I have not seen many fairtytale movies with the stories of ‘paristaan’ and such likes. But they always had a clear depiction of the hero/heroine and good people on one hand and Villian /vamp and goons on the other hand. And the good is always defeating the bad. Even if the good people’s camp is shown as lying/thieving and generally doing things like moving around in disquises and kidnapping the heroine etc., the bad people were totally evil characters with nothing good about them. The black was totally black with no silver lining. The white was having a shade of grey or two but never the two could merge and no confusion between the two sides.
Nowadays the lines between the good and the bad are blurred with no clear demarcation. There are no untainted heroes, only villians who have various good or heroic deeds to their credit, as role models. No I was wrong, the lines are not just blurred but totally gone. We are kept busy looking for the lesser evil among the larger than life personalities/figures onscreen and offscreen.
Coming back to the movie “Halchul”, here again Dilip Kumar seems to have ended up being loved and wanted by the heroine and the vamp/negative character. It is usual for ‘Devdas’ and Deedar, where both the females in the triangle are heroine’s and for others like “Mughl-e-Azam” “Udan Khatola” ‘Aan’ “Amar’ etc.
He is the original and natural hero, as he is not shown doing any work as such, there is no question of his doing any bad deeds(As Atul ji said in one of his write ups). The arch typical hero only had to look good, come and go as the screenplay required, sing a song or two, talk to mother/father respectfully. And lo the character of hero is done. Falling in love was the only compulsory thing in his duty list.
And we the people, have grown up on staple diet of such movies, have taken it to heart and some among us believe in doing less work, so there are less mistakes. The more work we do, the more mistake’s one is bound to make, such is the philosophy. Quotable quote is ” This is my work station as the work stops here” 🙂 .
I had no intention of thoroughly confusing the readers, but just got carried away, with thoughts. So now on to this sad song, one of the few, very few sad songs, which are part of this series. Now, now there are various degrees of sadness found in Hindi film songs. But this is a simple ‘separation’ sad song.
Song-Lagi hai aag dil mein aankh se aansoo baraste hain (Halchal)(1951) Singers-Rafi, Lata, Lyrics-Khumar Barabankwi, MD-Mohammed Shafi
Lyrics
lagi hai aag dil mein
aankh se aansoo baraste hain
tum hamse judaa ham
tum se judaa
tum hamse judaa ham
tum se judaa
duniya mein hamaara koyi nahin
duniya mein hamaara koyi nahin
ulfat ka zamaana beet gayaa
ham haar gaye
jag jeet gayaa
haay jeet gayaa
ab beeti huyi yaadon ke siwaa
ab beeti huyi yaadon ke siwaa
jeene ka sahaara koyi nahin
jeene ka sahaara koyi nahin
qismat ke sitaare doob gaye
qismat ke sitaare doob gaye
milne ka sahaara koyi nahin
milne ka sahaara koyi nahin
chhaaya hai andheraa
aa jaao tum le ke saveraa
aa jaao
haay aa jaao
raaten hain andheri ulfat ki
raaten hain andheri ulfat ki
ummeed ka taara koyi nahin
ummeed ka taara koyi nahin
qismat ke sitaare doob gaye
qismat ke sitaare doob gaye
milne ka sahaara koyi nahin
milne ka sahaara koyi nahin
Very nice to hear this song. I had a feeling I have heard songs from the movie Hulchul (1951), but looks like this is the first song I am listening to from the movie :).
Never heard this song before. Thanks for introducing this duet. Just heard the good news about Dilip Sahab’s recovery and soon will be discharged from the hospital. 🙂
So, now, 14 more songs to go….
Dilip, as his wont, started meddling in music session of Sajjad, which he did not like. Sajjad was very very strict person, one of the main reason for his downfall
After continuously enacted tragic roles for a decade he went into depression which was quite natural. He was advised by Harley Street physician to do light/comedy roles. So we have after 1960 Kohinoor, Ram Aur Shyam etc…
This blog discusses Bollywood songs of yesteryears. Every song has a brief description, followed by a video link, and complete lyrics of the song. This is a labour of love, where “new” songs are added every day, and that has been the case for over SEVENTEEN years. This blog has more than 19700 song posts by now. This blog is active and online for over 6000 days since its beginning on 19 July 2008.
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
September 18, 2013 at 6:24 am
Hello Atulji,
I want your email address as soon as possible. I want to forward you some old songs unexpected. Please..
Dadu Chicago
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September 18, 2013 at 7:44 am
You already have my email id, because I receive your emails regularly. Howevere it is
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