Dil ko tumhaari yaad ne aa kar hila diya
Posted on: November 11, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
The year was 1935 and New Theatres’ ‘Devdas’ (1935) was making waves across Indian sub-continent with K L Saigal’s mesmerising songs. One of Bomaby’s film production companies, Sagar Movietone felt that it should also have an actor-singer of the caliber of K L Saigal to counter the ‘Saigal effect’. A film distributor brought a young and tall handsome lawyer to Bombay and arranged his meeting with Mehboob Khan, the director associated with Sagar Movietone. Mehboob Khan found qualities in this man which he felt could be an answer to K L Saigal. The name of that handsome lawyer was Surendra Nath Sharma better known in Hindi film industry as Surendra or Surendranath.
In his debut film ‘Deccan Queen’ (1936), he sang birah ki aag lagi morey man mein which was a parody song based on K L Saigal’s popular song baalam aaye baso mere man mein from ‘Devdas’ (1935). This parody song also become popular and with this a star actor-singer was born. The popularity of this parody song made people to address him as ‘Bombay Saigal’.
Surendranath was born on November 11, 1909 in Batala, Punjab. He did his education from Ambala and completed graduation in Arts and Law (B.A., LL.B). In the initial period of his filmy career, Surendranath was associated with Sagar Movietone where Mehboob Khan had started directing the films produced under their banner. Surendra-Mehboob Khan combination did 8 films together- Deccan Queen (1936), Manmohan (1936), Jagirdar (1937), Ali Baba (1940), Aurat (1940), Anmol Ghadi (1946), Elan (1947) and Anokhi Ada (1948), all of which turned out to be the box office successes. Surendranath had an active and a successful stint in Bombay film industry as an actor-singer during 1936-48. His overall acting career spanned over three decades in about 60 films. During his filmy career, Surendranath sang around 125 songs.
It is of no consequences whether Surendranath was successful in reigning in ‘Saigal effect’ on Bombay film industry. The fact remains that K L Saigal continued to be numero uno until his death in 1947. The popularity of K L Saigal made Ranjit Movietone to take K L Saigal on loan basis from New Theatres for the film ‘Tansen’ (1943). The film became the second highest in gross collections at the box office in 1943. But Surendranath was not far behind. In the following year, his film ‘Bharthari’ (1944) of the same genre as ‘Tansen’ (1943) stood 5th in box office collections in 1944.
And what a co-incidence! After Saigal’s death in 1947, Surendranath’s career as an actor-singer went on a slide. Between 1948 and 1954, he did only 8 films. As a singer-actor, his last film was ‘Gawaiyaa’ (1954). After a gap of nearly 10 years, he resumed his acting career by doing character roles in about 15 films. By mid-1970s, he retired from the film industry and devoted his full time for his film advertising firm which he had set up in mid 1960s. He breathed his last on September 11, 1987 leaving behind the legacy of his songs and a successful venture which is still run by his two sons.
On the birth anniversary of Surendranath on November 11th, here is one of his solo song ‘dil ko tumhaari yaad ne aa kar hilaa diyaa’ from the film MERI KAHAANI (1948). The song was written by Zia Sarhadi and set to music by K Datta. The film was produced under the banner of S.T.F. Productions and directed by Keki Mistry, the ex-cinematographer of Sagar Movietone. The star cast included Surendranath, Munawwar Sultana, Pratima Devi, Bhudo Advani, Ramesh Sinha, Santosh Kumar, Leela Kumari, Murad etc.
Even though Surendranath, in his initial career, sang in a style somewhat similar to K L Saigal, in my view, his singing style in the later years was quite different from that of K L Saigal. Probably his association with Anil Biswas during the formative stage of his career may have influenced him to develop his own style of singing. The song under discussion is one of such songs.
Only the audio clip of this song is available but it is clear that Surendra sang on himself in the film.
Song-Dil ko tumhaari yaad ne aa kar hila diya(Meri Kahaani)(1948) Singer- Surendra, Lyrics-Zia Sarhadi, MD-K Datta
Lyrics
dil ko tumhaari yaad ne aa kar hilaa diyaa
aa kar hilaa diyaa
armaan jo so chuke thhe
unhen phir jagaa diyaa
armaan jo so chuke thhe
unhen phir jagaa diyaa
unhen phir jagaa diyaa aa
dil ko tumhaari yaad ne aa kar hilaa diyaa
aa kar hilaa diyaa
hamdard jab bane thhe tumhin dil ke dard ke
bedard ban ke kyun mere dil ko dukhaa diyaa
dil ko dukhaa diyaa
dil ko tumhaari yaad ne aa kar hilaa diyaa
aa kar hilaa diyaa
meri zaraa si bhool ki itni badi sazaa
aansoo banaa ke dil ko nazar se giraa diyaa
nazar se giraa diyaa
aankhon se door ho ke bhi rahte ho dil ke paas
rahte ho dil ke pass
tumne to zindagi ko tamaashaa banaa diyaa
tamaashaa banaa diyaa aa
dil ko tumhaari yaad ne aa kar hilaa diyaa
2 Responses to "Dil ko tumhaari yaad ne aa kar hila diya"
November 11, 2013 at 8:39 am
Sir,many thanks for this informative article about Surendra ji. though i get to watch Anmol Ghadi in the early seventies when i was a growing, Surendra ji as a singer and actor had his own special charisma which always attracted me. and then his various character roles in later films.
Our tributes to Surendra ji on his birth anniversary…
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
November 11, 2013 at 8:26 am
Dear Atul,
Please change the word ‘rulaa’ in the first and last line of the first stanza to ‘hilaa’. I had deciphered the lyrics with ‘rulaa’ but ‘hilaa’ sounds appropriate.
Thanks.
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