Aankhon mein chitchor samaaye
Posted on: November 1, 2016
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a 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.
I am writing this article only because I felt that the song which I listened to today after a gap of over 45 years deserves to be represented in the Blog. In fact, I am wondering how this song escaped my attention for this long. I am equally surprised at the fact that this song has managed to stay un discussed in the Blog till now.
The singer of the song is none other than Lata Mangeshkar and the composer is the ‘Bhishm Pitamah of Hindi film music, Anil Biswas. The first line of the mukhda of the song took me back to sometime in the late 1960s when I had heard this song in my friend’s house for the first time. Those were the days when my friend who was also my office colleague used to invite me along with some other like-minded persons to his house on Saturdays to listen to some rare songs in his collections of 78 rpm records. In one such Saturday, he had made us to listen to the then rare songs of Anil Biswas.
That was the time when I was more familiar with the popular songs of music directors like Shankar-Jaikishan, C Ramchandra, S D Burman, Madan Mohan, Roshan etc. I did not have much idea about the songs of Anil Biswas other than that the fact that I had heard his name. In those days, I had almost the same apathy towards the then old songs that the present generation has for old songs. But frequent visit to his house with exposures to those ‘old songs’ made me a convert and I began to admire such types of songs which, over a time, began to sound pleasingly different from the usual popular songs of those times.
On one such Saturday, my friend selected 78 rpm records of 8-10 songs composed by Anil Biswas and placed them on his Gerrard record changer. I do not now recall all those songs but a few songs impressed me so much that I continued to remember those songs viz.- yaad rakhnaa chaand taaron ki suhaani raat hai, seene mein sulagte hain armaan, tumhaare bulaane ko jee chaahtaa hai etc. Later, I bought 78 rpm records of these songs. But there was one song in that pack which I had completely forgotten about. I got my memory recall only because of the first line of the mukhda of the song which seems to have been ‘stored’ in my mind but was not ‘retrieved’ until I heard the song today.
The song I am referring to is ‘aankhon mein chitchor samaaye’ from the film MEHMAAN (1953). As I have mentioned earlier, the song is sung by Lata Mangeshkar on the words of P N Rangeen which is set to music by Anil Biswas. The film had 8 songs written by Udhav Kumar (4), P N Rangeen (3) and Raja Mehdi Ali Khan (1). One song from the movie has been covered in the Blog in the past.
MEHMAAN (1953) was produced by Ashalata Biswas and was directed by Ramanand Sagar, his first directorial assignment. The star cast included Premnath, Nimmi, Sajjan, Purnima, Bikram Kapoor, Harish, Radhakishan etc.
Coming back to the song under discussion, it has some unusual features. The song has only one antara. The composition of tune for antara with accompanying musical instruments gives a feeling of a kirtan song, more like Baul, a Bengali folk music. This impression is further strengthened by the use of khol, a kind of percussion widely used in Bengal, Tripura and Manipur.
The highlight of the song is the beautiful flute recital played during prelude and interlude music. According to Surender Bhutani, a close friend of Anil Biswas, the flute was played by Panna Lal Ghosh, the brother-in-law of Anil Biswas.
This is a difficult composition and is equally difficult to render with the emotion that goes with the Baul tradition of Bengali folk music. P N Rangeen’s lyrics goes well with the divine love that is the hallmark of Baul music.
I like this song because of its unusual composition and orchestration.
Song-Aankhon mein chitchor samaaye (Mehmaan)(1953) Singer-Lata, Lyrics-P N Rangeen, MD-Anil Biswas
Lyrics
aankhon mein
chitchor samaa…ye
aankhon ko ??
daras dikhaa…ye
kiye anek anek upaay
kiye anek anek upaay
na aaye na dil pe jaaye
aankhon mein chitchor samaaye
aankhon ko ?? daras dikhaaye
aankhon mein chitchor samaaye
aankhon mein
mann mein baithha aise wo
jo dil (?) ki taar hilaaye ae ae
mann mein baithha aise wo..oooo
jaise bhheegi raat mein koi
chhupkar been bajaaye
jaise bhheegi raat mein koi
jaise bheegi raat mein koi
chhupkar been bajaaye
?? chhupkar been bajaaye
sakhi ee ee ee ee ee
sakhiee ee
mann ko tadpaaye
tarsaaye ae
phir bhi..ee ee ee
mann kaa meet kahaaye
aankhon mein chitchor samaaye
aankhon mein chitchor samaaye
aankhon ko ye daras dikhaaye
aankhon mein chitchor samaaye
aankhon mein aen
7 Responses to "Aankhon mein chitchor samaaye"
November 1, 2016 at 11:23 am
P N Rangeen Madan Mohan Nirmohi (1952)
Ab Gham Ko Bana Lenge Jeene Ka Sahara Lata Mangeshkar
Ye Kahe Chandani Raat, Suna Do Apne Dil Ki Baat Lata Mangeshkar
Kaha Bhi Na Jaaye Piya, Kaha Bhi Na Jaaye Lata Mangeshkar
Aisi Chot Jiya Ne Khaai Lalit Mohan
Mehmaan (1953) Anil Biswas
Aas Ne Kitne Diye Jalaaye Manna Dey
Lut Liya Mera Sapnon Ka Sansar Kisi Ne Lata Mangeshkar
Badi Bahoo (1951) Anil Biswas
Pyar Ki Raah Par Kya Bhatakne Ka Dar
Lata Mangeshkar, Mukesh
Bhedi Lutera (1955) Zafar Khursheed, Payami
La De Kyu Du
Any more?
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November 1, 2016 at 11:28 am
Karela, methi ki bhaaji, beer, whiskey, old songs, Saigal songs, NFS etc bachpan se nahi bhaata. Over the years we develop taste for them. Kadvi cheeze khaane se zindagi ke kadve gunth seh sakte hai!!!
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November 1, 2016 at 6:22 pm
I was lucky, due to exposure of old film songs and NFS, in my family, I was very much attached to them from my early childhood. So I was blissfully saved from the so called general opinion of dislike of older music.
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November 1, 2016 at 12:30 pm
3rd and 9th line and 3rd last line
I can hear aankhon ko “nayi” daras dikhaaye
13th line
Instead of jo dil (?) …should it be “jeevan” ?
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November 1, 2016 at 6:33 pm
Please correct the wordings in the Lyrics as:
1. ‘Aankhon ko NAHI daras dikhaaye’
2. ‘JEEVAN KE taar hilaaye’
3. ‘SAKHI chhupkar been bajaaye’
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
November 1, 2016 at 9:45 am
One of my favorites. You are right, It is very difficult to sing this one as the original lines are supported by interlude music which vocally can not be duplicated easily. This song remains in a folder of my unfinished songs, (tried by me but not completed.)
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