Balaayen loon main us dil ki
Posted by: Atul on: December 16, 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.
Recently, I read the biography of P C Barua, a multi-faceted personality and one of the architects of the Indian cinema. The biography is written by Shoma A Chatterji under a series ‘The Legends of Indian Cinema’ (2008). The 116 pages book is in an unusual size – a square pocket book covering mainly his association with cinema. After reading the biography, the first thought that came to my mind was whether Guru Dutt was influenced by P C Barua’s personality as well as his style of film making. Both had moody behaviour and melancholic bent of mind. Both excelled in melodramatic films. Incidentally, Guru Dutt was staying in Calcutta (Kolkatta) when P C Barua was creating waves with his films like ‘Devdas (1935), Manzil (1936) , ‘Mukti’ (1937), ‘Zindagi’ (1940), ‘Jawaab’ (1942) etc and their Bengali versions.
Pramathesh Chandra Barua (popularly known as P C Barua) was born in a ‘royal’ family of Gauripur, Assam in October 1903. He was the eldest among five siblings of Raja Prabhat Chandra Barua and Sarojbala Devi. The Barua family was in fact a wealthy landlord controlling almost entire Gauripur and the surrounding areas. Hence they were treated like a raja family. Gauripur being the border town of then Bengal (now the border town of both West Bengal and Bangla Desh), the Barua family was proficient in both Bangla and Assamese languages.
During his childhood, as happens with royal family, Barua received his basic education at home by tutors. He also received training in Hindustani classical music from Gopeshwar Bandopadhyay and learnt devotional singing from Ashutosh Bandopadhyay. As a teenager, he participated in activities like horse riding, hunting, sports etc. Later, he was sent to Calcutta’s Hare School. It was during this period that he got interested in photography which in turn, led to his interest in cinematography and films. When his father came to know about his extra-curricular activities, he called him back to home. He passed his matriculation examination from Guwahati after which he was once again sent to Calcutta to join Presidency College. This time, he got attracted to theatres. He acted and directed many plays in Calcutta as well as in his native town Gauripur. He completed his graduation in Physics with honours.
P C Barua’s tryst with films started with a meeting with Dhirendranath Ganguly in Shantiniketan, who had floated British Dominion Company for film production. Later he became one of the Directors of the company when he invested money in it. During 1931-32, he acted in some of the silent films produced under this banner. But he was keen to become an independent film producer. So he visited Europe to study film making in the film studios of London and Paris. On return to India, he set up his own studio in the compound of his ancestral property in Calcutta with his film production company Barua Films which later changed to Barua Pictures Ltd. After producing a couple of films, the company ran into financial difficulties forcing him to close it down.
During his period of financial distress, B N Sircar called P C Barua to join his New Theatres which he accepted. His first directorial venture there was ‘Rooplekha’ (1934). The film failed at the box office but the innovative techniques used by Barua were much appreciated by B N Sircar who reposed faith in him and gave him the diection of both Hindi and Bangla versions of his next film viz. ‘Devdas’ (1935). The role of Devdas was performed by Barua and K L Saigal in Bengali and Hindi versions respectively. Both the versions became super hits. Both K L Saigal and P C Barua became cult figures who continued to be identified with the character of Devdas. Afterwards, he directed hit films for New theatres such as ‘ Manzil’ (1936), ‘Mukti’ (1937), ‘Adhikar’ (1938), ‘Zindagi’ (1940) etc. His seven years in New Theatres were the most fruitful years of his career. But for some unknown reasons, he left New Theatres in 1940 and decided to work as a freelancer in the film industry.
In the same year, he set up M P Productions with Murlidhar Chatterjee. The first film under this banner was a Bengali film ‘Mayyar Pran’. But it got delayed and was released only in 1946. The second Bengali film under this banner was ‘Uttarayan’ (1941) followed by ‘Rani’ (1941) in Hindi. The films got very bad reviews from the press predicting a downfall of Barua as a filmmaker. But very next year, he silenced his critics by producing ‘Shesh Uttar’ (1942) in Bengali (‘Jawaab’ in Hindi). Both these films were super hits. However there were a spate of box office failures – some from his own banner and some from other banners after the runway success of ‘Jawaab’ (1942). ‘Maya Kanan’ (1953) in Bengali was his last film which was released after his death.
Apart from the financial problems resulting from the failure of his films, Barua had problems at his personal level too. He was a pampered child, being born after 7 years of marriage of his parents. He was very close to his mother. He got married to a girl chosen by his parents. But after his mother’s death in 1925, he felt insecure as if he had lost an important support. So he was always looking at women who could give him that kind of support. During this period, he got involved with another woman from his own town whom he eventually married after leaving his home town. After the birth of a son by this second marriage, she left him without assigning any reason, leaving the infant behind. Later, he came to know that she left him because she had tuberculosis and she did not want her husband to get infected by that. She eventually died within a few months. The infant was looked after by his first wife.
On the set of ‘Devdas’ (1935), Barua fell in love with Jamuna who was acting in the film in the role of Paro (Parvati). He married her as his third wife during the making of the film. But he never got the love and support from his wives in the same manner as his mother would have showered on him. All these factors put him in emotional stress and made him more melancholic in nature. He sought solace in alcohol and women. Over a period of time, his liver got permanently damaged. Added to his misery, he got infected by tuberculosis in 1948. He knew that his end was near. He passed away in a Calcutta Hospital on November 29, 1951 at the age of 48. What a coincidence! He acted in Devdas’ (1935, Bengali version) in the role of Devdas and died like Devdas.
As narrated by B N Sircar’s son, Barua had wished that after his death, his mortal remains should be carried in front of B N Sircar’s house. He knew that Sircar was bedridden at that time. The body arrived in front of B N Sircar’s house. B N Sircar somehow made it to the window trying to stand in his balance by holding the window bars to pay his last respect to one of his favourite directors. This shows that even though Barua had left New Theatres in 1940, their respect for each other never diminished.
P C Barua has been credited with introducing innovative techniques in Indian cinema like use of artificial lighting in ‘Apraadhi’ (1932), flash back techniques in ‘Rooplekha’ (1934), use of Rabindra Sangeet for the first time in ‘Mukti’ (1937), use of various shades of lighting effects like back lighting in ‘Zindagi’ (1940) and use of songs without any prelude music to carry forward the story through the song in ‘Jawaab’ (1942).
I find that some of his innovative techniques like back lighting was used by Guru Dutt for ye duniyaa agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai in ‘Pyaasa’ (1957) and waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam in ‘ Kaagaz Ke Phool’ (1959). Guru Dutt also experimented with P C Barua’s style of songs being used as the continuation of dialogues without musical prelude in films like ‘Aar Paar’ (1954), ‘Mr & Mrs 1955’ (1955), ‘Pyaasa’ (1957) etc. There was similarities in the genre of P C Barua’s films like ‘Devdas’ (1935) and ‘Mukti’ (1937) with Guru Dutt’s films like ‘Pyaasa’ (1955) and ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’ (1959) in that all these films had doomed heroes. And both acted in their respective films (in case of ‘Devdas’ (1935), the Bengali version) as doomed heroes.
P C Barua handled almost all the main parts of film making at some time or the other – producer, director, actor, screen play writer, editor, cinematographer, sets and costumes, lighting etc. He was also a good singer but rarely sang for Hindi films. I am presenting a rare song ‘balaayen loon main uss dil ki jo duniyaa ke liye ro de’ sung by P C Barua on himself in the film JAWAAB (1942). The song is written by Bekal and set to music by Kamal Dasgupta. The film’s Bengali version was ‘Shesh Uttar’ (1942). The film was produced under the banner of M P Productions in which P C Barua was a part owner. He also directed both the versions of the film. The star cast included P C Barua and Kanan Devi in lead roles with Jamuna Barua, Ahindra Chaudhary, Dev Bala, Ranjit Ray, Bikram Kapoor etc in supporting roles.
Fortunately, the video clip of the song is available and that too in fairly good condition. One can observe in this song as to how P C Barua sings this song in continuation of his dialogues with Kanan Devi without any prelude of music so that the story flows in a smooth way with the song. One comment on the video clip says that Asit Baran sang the record version of this song. But I could not locate it on YT.
I heard P C Barua singing for the first time through this video clip and in a duet with Menaka in Mukti’ (1937).
Song-Balaayen loon main us dil ki (Jawaab)(1942) Singer-P C Barua, Lyrics-Bekal, MD-Kamal Dasgupta
Lyrics
balaayen loon main uss dil ki ee ee ee
balaayen loon main uss dil ki ee
jo duniyaa aa aaa aa
ke liye ro de
jahaan waalon ke ranz-o-gham ko
apne khoon se dho de
jahaan waalon ke ranz-o-gham ko
apne khoon se dho de
jalaa ke aashiyaan apnaa
basaa ke gair ki mehfil
jalaa ke aashiyaan apnaa
basaa ke gair ki mehfil
kisi ke soz-e-gham mein
apne saaz-e-dil ko bhi kho de
kisi ke soz-e-gham mein
apne saaz-e-dil ko bhi kho de
meri aankhon mein uski ee ee
aankh hi ee ee ee ee ee
izzat ke qaabil hai
meri aankhon mein uski
aankh hi izzat ke qaabil hai
haan haan
izzat ke qaabil hai
jo aansoo ban ke bah jaaye
jo aansoo ban ke bah jaaye
khudi ko khud mein hi kho de
jo aansoo ban ke bah jaaye
khudi ko khud mein hi kho de ae ae
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
December 17, 2013 at 10:20 am
Some people are borne to be melancholic and lead life as such. People like Barua and Gurudutt may be found in other walks of life as well.
Be the case as it may, however, I have enjoyed reading your blog. Thanks.
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