Raam jee jo chaahen to kyaa nahin hotaa
Posted by: Atul on: December 9, 2016
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, 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.
Today’s song is from the film Dasshera-56. It is a melodious bhajan by Mohd. Rafi. In the decade of 50s, Mohd. Rafi’s name was synonymous with melodious and popular bhajans. He must have sung at least 100 to 200 such Bhajans during this period.
The decade of 1950s was a Golden Period for Mythological and Religious films. As many as 124 mythological films were released during these 10 years, averaging One Mythological film every month for 10 continuous years ! That was a period when Joint family structure was still prevalent in India and every family had at least 2 to 3 old people. These seniors and the women folk were the captive audience for such films. They came in groups to the theaters. Usually a young person or a boy accompanied them. When I was a school kid, I was the caretaker of the group of these oldies. Since I myself liked the Mythological films, I would happily take up this job.
In Hindi films, there is a branding process- means the story of the film usually decided the cast of the film. For example. if it is a tragedy, first choice was Dilip Kumar among males and Meena Kumari among females. If it was a naughty comedy, it was surely Kishore Kumar. For Police stories, Murder and Mystery stories, Ashok Kumar or Pradeep Kumar were standard names. For Historicals, only Sohrab Modi would do and for costume, stunt or action films, it was Mahipal or Ranjan. Similarly, in the 1940s, for Mythologicals it was either Prem Adeeb or Trilok Kapoor while Mahipal or Manhar Desai were the names to go to during 1950s.
Likewise for music to village background films, it was Naushad, for social films it was Ravi and for Mythologicals / Religious films it used to be S.N.Tripathi or Avinash Vyas. Sometimes a misfit used to give us a shock. For example, from the beginning, Ashok Kumar was associated with social films acting the shy lover. Later from Kismat and Sangram, he switched to crime thrillers. But when he acted in a Historical film like Humayun-45 or a Mythological film Satyawan-Savitri-38, he made a laughing stock of himself !
Same was the case with Music Directors. Usually the composers identified with Religious films were not called for crime films nor were the composers of lilting club dances invited to compose for Religious films ! S.D. Burman became famous for his melodious and popular songs in films like, Baazi,Taxi Driver,H.No.44, Munimji, Funtoosh, Paying Guest etc. Can you ever imagine S.D.Burman composing tunes for a Mythological film ? But yes, he did give music to one ( the only one in his life) Mythological film ” Radha Krishna”-54. Sahir Ludhiyanvi was usually his favourite lyricist, but for this film he settled for Narndra Sharma and S. Athaiah. Still, The only song penned by Sahir for a religious film was from this film Radha Krishna. For this film, N.Datta was Burman’s assistant.
Later on N.Datta or Datta Naik became known for club songs and songs based on western instruments. He started with Milap-55 and Marine drive-55 and did Chandrakanta, Mohini, Mr. X etc In all these films, he was known to make use of western instruments like saxophone. Accordion etc. A composer like him was called upon to compose music for a Mythological film ” Dasshera-56″. Yes, he composed soft and melodious Bhajans and songs for this film. Later on in 1965 also he did another religious film “Gopal Krishna”, but he was passing through his bad phase at that time and so he had little choice . In his last days, he had no films and for survival,he used to work as an instrument player in other composers’ orchestra. When Laxmikant-Pyarelal came to know about his plight , they made him a part of their orchestra. He would be paid at his house even if he was unable to attend the orchestra.
Film Dasshera-56 had 11 songs. Rafi sang 3 very good Bhajans in it. Asha had 5 songs, and one song each was sung by Lata, Shamshad and Kavi Pradeep respectively. Usually N.Datta preferred Sahir for his songs, but in this film he used Pradeep for 10 songs and 1 song was written by Saraswati Kumar Deepak. As usual, the Bhajan sung by Pradeep ” doosron ka dukhda door karnewale” became a hit and it was the most popular song of this film. Kavi Pradeep had a habit of providing tunes also along with his lyrics and he was always keen to sing his own songs. Most composers were averse to this habit of Pradeep and so they kept away from him. Actually Pradeep was a learned person and he had a good command over Hindi language. Still, because of this habit of thrusting his tunes on the music director and insistence on singing his songs, he only had a limited number of music directors to work with. Later on, he mostly wrote for religious and costume films and for those composers who welcomed his ready made tunes.
Pradeep was not the only lyricist to insist on his tunes. There was another Lyricist of eminence once upon a time, in the 1940s with similar inclination. He was Deenanath Madhok aka D.N.Madhok. He too provided tunes along with his lyrics. During his initial phase of career, Naushad used him to his advantage and once he acquired fame and name, Naushad discarded D.N.Madhok. Madhok too was not liked by many major self respecting composers.
For the film Dasshera-56, N.Datta’s assistant was Ramakant Paingankar, who was a long time assistant of C.Ramchandra. He is the same person who tried his hand at being a composer himself in the late 1940s. He gave music with Shyamsunder and Ramchandra Pal in Urvashi-46, with Lal Mohammed in Mitti-47 and with Karnad in Shadi se Pehle-47. It was in this film “Shaadi Se Pehle”(1947) that Rafi sang his first duet with Lata-” chalo ho gayee taiyyar-” . Ramakant gave music to film Rupiah-50 independently. Then he turned to Marathi films. In his last days, he came back to Hindi films again as assistant to many composers.
Now let us enjoy this beautiful bhajan, which I am sure, many of the readers will have remembered listening to in distant past.
Audio
Song-Raam Ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota (Dashehra)(1956) Singer-Rafi, Lyrics-Kavi Pradeep, MD-N Datta
Chorus
Rafi + Chorus
Lyrics
aao karen logon prabhu se samjhauta
hari se samjhauta
raam ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
prabhu ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
o bahti hai ganga
laga lo re gota
ho laga lo re gota
raam ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
prabhu ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
ajab hai wo daata
aa aa aa aa
ajab hai wo daata
re ghazab ka vidhaata
dukh ki ghadiyon mein
ek wahi kaam aata
arre ho o
o o o
ajab hai wo daata
re ghazab ka vidhaata
dukh ki ghadiyon mein
ek wahi kaam aata
jisko rakhe saain wo kabhi nahin rota
raam ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
prabhu ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
chaahe jale jwaala aa
chahe chale bhaala
chaahe jale jwaala
chaahe chale bhaala
kiska tumhen dar hai
jab wo bachaane wala
kiska tumhe dar hai
jab wo bachane waala
uski sharan lo re
wo kabhi na dubota
raam ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
prabhu ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
suno re duniya waalon o o o
suno re duniya waalo
hari ke gun gaa lo
aankhno pe jo parde pade
tum unhen hataa lo
arre
ho o o
o o o
suno re duniya waalon
hari ke gun gaa lo
aankhon pe jo parde pade
tum unhen hataa lo
udega re ek din ye pinjre ka tota
raam ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
prabhu ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
o
bahti hai ganga
laga lo re gota
o laga lo re gota
raam ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
prabhu ji jo chaahen to kya nahin hota
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
May 16, 2025 at 6:45 pm
Nice post Sir jee. Thanks for throwing light on the branding process in the film industry, and how the cast or the artistes were specifically type casted with specific genre of movies. When I shared the Shamshad Begam song from this movie having composed by N. Datta it was quite his type of composition (peppy numbers). But when I read your this article and listen to this bhajan, it was interesting to note what you said above. I also read in the book of Kavi Pradeep where many songs mentioned his name as ‘swarkaar’ (composer), now reading your post has cleared my doubt. Thanks for enriching us. And thanks for this bhajan by Mohd Rafi, who has sung many memorable bhajans.
Regards,
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