This article is written by Sudhir, 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.
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The Voice of Mukesh #57
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I am sure all of us have experienced this at one time or another. It is just the words, the lyrics that simply bowl you over with their simplicity and their beauty. That is what happened when I heard this song for the first time recently. When I read the first mukhda of this song, it is half a line – “Ek Tu Ke Sar Utha Ke Chala”, well the very first impression that came to my mind was song of patriotism or a song of a soldier. But when I actually got hold of the song and heard it, my word, it turns out to be a song of romance, one of the best in the theme of ‘Chaand’ and love. As I said, the words just bowled me over, lock, stock and barrel.
ik tu ke sar utha ke chalaa
daagh dikhaane
ik wo ke chaar chaand
lagaaye hain hayaa ne
The poet is expressing to the moon, extolling its courage that despite the deformities in its face, it still comes out with glorious pride to show its face to the world. And on the other hand, talking of the beloved – well, even a glimpse of her beautiful face is restrained by screens of bashfulness. Sometimes, such a play on words just grips the heart, and it wants to somehow applaud the craft and the wizardry of such poets.
Ah but alas, in this case, we do not even know who the poet is. Getting to this song has been a very interesting episode, more so because of its partially lost pedigree. A very rare song by Mukesh, in the sense that it is from an unreleased film from the 1940s. As we scan the known records as per the Mukesh Geet Kosh, this song is the solitary instance of an unreleased Mukesh song from the 1940s, nearly lost because its film never got released, or may be never got completed.
The film is ‘Monika’. The following is the only set of information that I can gather, as per the Geet Kosh records. The production banner is Eastern Films. The music director is S Bannerjee. There are 10 songs that got recorded for this film. Well at least the details of the records is available, means that these songs can be traced. The singers of the songs are also known. This song is by Mukesh, and the remaining songs are shared between Saraswati Rane and the music director himself, some solos by both singers and two duets. Also, one duet by Lata and Geeta Roy. Beyond that, simply no information. Not even a name for the lyricist, whom the mind could applaud for this beautiful set of lyrics.
And the tracking of the song itself is an interesting tale. In the Mukesh Geet Kosh, the songs from unreleased films are listed in a section that is separate from the chronological year by year listing of songs. That is how I missed including this earlier, as I am reaching slowly, the closure of the year of 1950. Then one day, I get an email from Atul ji, telling me about this song, suggesting that I should include it in the Mukesh series. Well, so far I had not been able to track down the physical song itself, and so also it was pending. Atul ji then also sent me an audio file of this song.
The name of the music director, S Bannerjee, is not ringing a bell. I went into Geet Kosh, but could find no information other than this music director has worked for five films in the date range of 1946 to 1951. I could also locate another name in the same period – “Sushant Bannerjee’. This music director also has worked for 5 films in the same time frame, but I cannot comment whether these two are the same person. On our blog, we already have one song posted with music composed by Sushant Bannerjee. However, the name S Bannerjee makes a debut today with this song. I request other readers and contributors, to kindly add any more information that they may have,
regarding these two names.
So sit back and enjoy this thoroughly rare creation of unusual wizardry of words. Enjoy.
Song-Ik tu ke sar uthhaa ke chala (Monika)(1950)(UR) Singer-Mukesh, MD-S Bannerji
Lyrics
ik tu ke sar uthha ke chalaa. . .
ik tu ke sar uthha ke chalaa
daagh dikhaane ae
ik wo ke chaar chaand
lagaaye hain hayaa ne
ik tu ke sar uthha ke chalaa
kya dekh liya tu ne mere
chaand ko ae chaand
chaand ko ae chaand
kya dekh liya tu ne mere
chaand ko ae chaand
aanchal mein jo badli ke chalaa
munh ko chhipaane ae
ik tu ke sar uthha ke chalaa
tujh ko to kuchh khabar hi nahin
tujh ko to kuchh khabar hi nahin
tujh ko to kuchh khabar hi nahin
ae zameen ke chaa. . aa. aa. nd
taaron ki
taaron ki ee ee
taaron ki zubaan par bhi
hamaare hain fasaane ae
ik tu ke sar utha ke chalaa
tu bhi usi ko dhoondh rahaa
hai liye chiraagh
tu bhi usi ko dhoondh rahaa
hai liye chiraagh
aati hai
aati hai ae ae
aati hai jiski yaad
mere dil ko dukhaane ae
ik wo ke chaar chaand
lagaaye hain hayaa ne
ik tu ke sar uthha ke chalaa
da. .agh dikha. . aa. . ane
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Hindi script lyrics (Provided by Sudhir)
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इक तू के सर उठा के चला॰॰आs
इक तू के सर उठा के चला
दाग़ दिखाने
इक वो के चार चाँद
लगाये हैं हया ने
इक तू के सर उठा के चला
क्या देख लिया तूने मेरे
चाँद को ए चाँद
चाँद को ए चाँद
क्या देख लिया तूने मेरे
चाँद को ए चाँद
आँचल में जो बदली के चला
मुंह को छिपाने
इक तू के सर उठा के चला
तुझ को तो कुछ खबर ही नहीं
तुझ को तो कुछ खबर ही नहीं
तुझ को तो कुछ खबर ही नहीं
ए ज़मीं के चाँ॰॰॰आss द
तारों की
तारों की॰॰॰ईss
तारों की ज़ुबान पर भी
हमारे हैं फसाने
इक तू के सर उठा के चला
तू भी उसी को ढूंढ रहा
है लिए चिराग़
तू भी उसी को ढूंढ रहा
है लिए चिराग़
आती है
आती है ए ए ए
आती है जिसकी याद
मेरे दिल को दुखाने
इक वो के चार चाँद
लगाये हैं हया ने
Only a handful of people must have heard this rare song earlier. Since I too heard the song for the very first time, it was as if I was listening to Mukesh live.
Talking of unreleased songs, any clue of Sawan hanse bhadon…from maybe Basant (1942) with Parul Ghosh and Surendra ??
It’s SO difficult to choose a song out of 1,000 as one’s favourite Mukesh song, but in 75 active years, I long settled on this one!
Another purest Mukesh cadence is found in Nain-dvaar se mann meiN voh aake tann meiN aag lagaaye. Lata, too, sang it beautifully.
Dr Visho Sharma
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 
March 12, 2014 at 11:11 am
Never heard this song earlier.
The poetic expression is really very beautiful.
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