Yaad mein teri jahaan ko bhoolta jaata hoon main
Posted on: April 3, 2014
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.
Before the advent of cinemas in India, Parsi theatres played the role of a catalyst for transmitting social, historical, political and religious messages to the people at large. The owners of theatres were rich and educated Parsis. Alfred Theatrical Company of Bombay (Mumbai) and Madan Theatres Ltd. in Calcutta (Kolkata) were two of the prominent theatre companies. With the successful staging of some of the plays by these two theatre companies, the audience from all the strata of the society and of different religious background started patronising the plays. The themes of the plays were diversified to cater the needs of the audience. With this, the theatre companies were always looking for play writers and stage actors.
One of the prominent playwrights of the early 1900s was Agha Hashar Kashmiri. He was the most successful playwright of his time in terms of box office successes of his plays. Like Sohrab Modi, Agha Hashar Kashmiri was one of the few theatre personalities who transited smoothly from theatres to silent films and ultimately to talkies. Unfortunately his life was cut short by his early demise in April 1935. Hence, most of the stage and cinema lovers of today, his name may not sound familiar. I became aware of his name from Hindi films like ‘Yahudi Ki Ladki’ (1933) and ‘Chandidas’ (1934) where he was dialogue writer and lyricist. His songs in these two films and a couple of ghazals I have listened, created an interest in me to know more about him and to write an article. It was only when I came to know that April 3rd was his 135th birth anniversary that I started making an effort to gather information on him. Fortunately, I could get at least some reasonable material from http://www.kashmirsenitel.com and a few other websites.
From what I gathered from the websites, Hashar was a multi-faceted personality – playwright, poet, stage actor, director, story and dialogue writer and a linguistic. From the list of plays he wrote, one can visualise that his plays had a wide canvas – from Firdhausi’s Shahnama (Rostam-Sohrab, 1920) to stories from Ramayan (Seeta Banwaas, 1927), Mahabharat ( Bisham Pratigya, 1928) and to Shakespeare’s many plays. Probably for his adaptation and translation of many Shakespeare’s plays in Urdu, he was called ‘Shakespeare of Urdu’.
Agha Hashar (or Hashr) Kashmiri ( 03/04/1879 – 28/04/1935, real name Syed Agha Hasan Mahmood) was born in Banaras (Varanasi) to a family of Kashmiri muslims who had migrated from the Kashmir Valley in the 18th Century in connection with their shawl business. That was a time when under the patronage of Nawabs in United Provinces (UP) many Kashmiri shawl merchants shifted to places like Lucknow, Allahabad and Banaras for doing business in Kashmiri shawls. After his initial education in Banaras, his father wanted him to complete his higher education. But the young Hashar had no interest in text books nor did he take any interest in his father’s shawl business. Those days, Parsi theatre companies were staging plays at various places across the country. Hashar developed a taste for poetry, play writing and acting after watching a few plays. Knowing that his father would not allow him to pursue his interest, he left Banaras for Bombay (Mumbai) and started his career as a play writer in Alfred Theatrical Company at a monthly salary of Rs.15/-. His first play was ‘Murid e Shak’(1899) which was based on Shakespeare’s ‘The Winter Tale’. The play became successful and the proprietor of the theatre company raised his salary to Rs.40/- per month.
During his employment with Alfred Theatrical Company, he wrote about 5-6 plays, all of which became successful, making him popular in the theatre circle. He also wrote plays for Parsi Theatrical Company and later Bombay Natak Mandali where his salary was raised to Rs.250/- per month. Again, all his plays became very popular thus making him a well known playwright all over India. However, with the advent of silent films, some of the theatre companies shifted their focus to film making. Around early 1920s, he shifted to Calcutta and joined Madan Theatres Ltd. Some of his very popular plays were adapted into Hindi silent films and later in talkies like ‘Shirin-Farhad’, ‘Rostam-Sohrab’, ‘Kaarwan e Hayat’ ‘Chandidas’ ‘Aurat Ka Pyar’ ‘Aankh Ka Nasha’, ‘Anarkali’ etc. He continued to work in Calcutta during which time he wrote screen play for about 12 Hindi films, both silent and talkies. He also directed a few talkies during 1931-33. He lent his services to New Theatres for films ‘Yahudi Ki Ladki’ (1933) and ‘Chandidas’ (1934) as a dialogue writer and lyricist.
Agha Hashar Kashmiri was not highly educated. Despite this, he could adapt/translate many plays of Shakespeare for his plays in Urdu and also the stories from Ramayan and Mahabharat for his plays in Hindi. He was also well versed in Persian, Arabic and Gujarati langauges. It is claimed that Hashar introduced innovation in dialogues, punctuating with Urdu she’rs and short poems which the audience appreciated. His style of dialogue writing in his stage plays became the hallmark of Hindi films dialogues in the initial period of talkies. He is the first muslim playwright to get a Gold Medal from Banaras Hindu University for his contributions to Indian theatre.
Sadat Hasan Manto, the well known Urdu short story writer ( also associated with Hindi films in Bombay as screen play writer before partition) has mentioned an interesting trivia while writing a sketch on Agha Hashar Kashmiri. After the success of Hashar’s plays in Hindi, his detracters started spreading a rumour that he did not write his Hindi plays as he did not know Hindi. Just to make things clear, before the start of one of the plays, Hashar went on the stage and addressed the audience that certain persons were spreading a rumour that he hired a Pandit to write his Hindi plays. He said that he would now deliver a speech in pure Hindi. He delivered the speech for two hours without uttering a single Persian or Urdu word.
There is no mention about Hashar’ married life in his early years. Manto has mentioned that Hashar never fell in love with any woman but towards his fag end of his life, he fell in love with Mukhtar Begum, a courtesan from Amritsar who had acted in Hashar’ plays and later in silent films and talkies films as actor-singer. They got married in 1930. In 1935, they shifted to Lahore to set up his own film production company. However, before he could complete the process, he died on April 28. 1935.
Mukhtar Begum (1902-1982) was born in Amritsar. She was trained under Ustad Ashiq Ali Khan of Patiala Gharana ( the same ustad who also trained Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan). Although trained in the different genres of Hindustani classical music, she excelled in Thumri, Dadra and Ghazal. She was also a trained dancer. Soon she was invited by the elite strata of the society to perform dance and vocals in their havelis and also by Nawabs and Maharajas all over India in their courts.
Sometime in late 20s, she shifted to Calcutta. Here, she came into contact with Agha Hashar Kashmiri in whose plays she acted. Later she also acted in silent films and a few talkies like ‘Indra Sabha’ (1932), ‘Aurat Ka Pyaar’ (1933), ‘Aankh Ka Nasha’ (1933), etc. Her last film as an actor was ‘Matwali Meera’ (1947). She was also the music director of a couple of Hindi films. In most of these films released prior to 1935, Agha Hashar Kashmiri was connected as a writer or director. In 1930, both got married but continued to work in the films. After partition, she migrated to Pakistan and settled in Lahore. While she did not work in films, she continued to sing in concerts and on radio. Her disciples included her younger sister and a well known Pakistani ghazal singer, Farida Khanum and playback singer in Pakistani films, Naseem Begum. She had adopted her driver’s daughter and named as Rani Mukhtar. She became the lead actress in Pakistani films. Mukhtar Begum passed away on 25th February 1982 in Karachi.
On the occasion of the 135th birth anniversary of Agha Hashar Kashmiri on April 3rd, I am presenting one of his popular ghazals ‘ yaad mein teri jahaan ko bhoolta jaata hoon main’ sung by Mukhtar Begum in the film ‘Jawaani Ka Nasha’ (1935) produced under the banner of Madan Theatres. From the star cast which included Khalil, Akhtaribai Faizabadi (Begum Akhtar) and Patient Cooper, I am intrigued as to how Mukhtar Begum rendered this ghazal who, to my knowledge, had not given playback during her pre-partition films. As per Kamlakar Pasupuleti’s blog, only one song ‘ koyaliya mat kar pukar’ sung by Akhtaribai (Begum Akhtar) from the film “Jawwani Ka Nasha’ was recorded on the disc. One of the uploaders of the audio clip has mentioned that ghazal was recorded in Mukhtar Begum’s voice and disc issued much later.
There is also some confusion about the music composer of this ghazal. A couple of websites have mentioned the name of Chaila as music director of the film. However, one of the uploaders of audio clip has indicated Prof. Ramzan Khan as music director of this ghazal. I have never heard the name of Chaila. However, I came across the name Bhai Chaila, the Punjabi folk singer and musician from Amritsar while reading an article on Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Interestingly, the same ghazal has also been used in the film ‘Mr. 420’ (1937) for which name of music director was mentioned as Bhai Chaila. For the time being, I am inclined to go with Prof. Ramzan Khan as music director based on Kamalakar Pasupuleti’s observation that Akhtaribai’s song ‘koyaliya mat kar pukar’ from the film was composed by Prof. Ramzan Khan.
The rendition of this ghazal by Mukhtar Begum is unique when I compare with that of her contemporary ghazal singers like Begum Akhtar, Kamla Jharia, Jaddanbai etc. Compare Mukhtar Begum’s rendition of this ghazal with that of K L Saigal’s hairat e naazaaraa aakhir ban gayi raanaayiyaan in ‘Kaarwaan e Hayat’ (1935). Being a trained singer in Hindustani classical music, Mukhtar Begum uses taan when she sings words like ‘jahaan’ ‘aashna’ ‘zubaan’ etc. Both the films were released in 1935. The tunes of both the ghazals are more or less same. Both the singers have sung the ghazals in high range. The underlying themes of both the ghazals too are more or less the same – the intense feelings.
Song- Yaad mein teri jahaan ko bhoolta jaata hoon main (Jawaani Ka Nasha)(1935) Singer-Mukhtaar Begam, Lyrics-Agha Hashr Kashmiri, MD-Ramzan Khan
Lyrics
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aaaa
aa aa aa aaa
aa aa aa aaa
yaad mein ae teri jahaaaan ko
bhoolta jaata hoon main aen aen aen
bhoolne ae ae waale ae ae kabhi ae ae
tujh ko bhi yaad aata hoon main aen aen aen aen
o wafa na aaa aaa aaa aashna aa aa
kab tak sunoon tera aa aa aa gilaa aa aa
arre bewafa aa aa
kehte hain tujh aa aa ko
aur sharmaata hoon main aen aen
bewafa kehte hain tujh ko
aur sharm
aa aa aa
ek dhundhla sa aa aa tasawwur
hai ke dil bhi thha yahaan aan aan
ab to seene mein hain faqat aa aa
ek tees si paata hoon main aen aen aen
Hashr meri she…..r goyi
aa aa aaa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
Hashr meri sher goyi
hai faqat fariyaad e shokh
apna gham dil ki zabaan aan aan aan mein
dil ko samjhaata hoon main aen aen
bewafa kehte hain tujh ko
aur sharm
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
April 3, 2014 at 10:03 am
Thanks a lot for your nice write-up and introducing some eight decades old song which is unique experience in itself.
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