This article is written by our dear Atul ji. You must be wondering, why this change in presentation style today. Well, this post is a very, very, very special occasion, or rather a momentous occasion, for our blog and for Atul ji. It is appropriate that this introduction and announcement be made on his behalf. 

THIS  IS  ATUL  JI’s  10,000^th  POST  ON  THIS  BLOG.

This is a milestone, in comparison to which all our earlier milestones and celebrations pale in significance. A single-handed dedicated effort relentlessly in progress for the past almost nine years. I am sure it will take some time for all of us, for the significance and eminence of this event to sink in.
More special posts by the members of our bandwagon are in planning, starting tomorrow. So please keep connected and be a witness to this remarkable celebration.

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.

As regulars are aware, I am based at Izatnagar, Bareilly at present which happens to be located between Delhi and Lucknow. In fact, this place is equidistant from both these cities. This fact had been commented upon by several regulars. Our Lucknow based regular namely Mr Avadh Lal even commented that I needed to visit Lucknow and meet the Lucknow based music lovers.

Here is what he mentioned in his comments to a post wherein I have discussed my transfer to Izatnagar:

I am in Lucknow, which is just 250 Kms. away and once in a while I do go to Bareilly. Of course, should you chance to come down to Lucknow for some work, it will be a heaven-sent opportunity for me as well as some other ASAD followers to chat with you in person.

During my current tenure, I have been visiting Lucknow quite often, en route to Gorakhpur, which is my HQ. I would typically reach Lucknow at 10 PM and then I would board a Gorakhpur bound train at 11 PM. So, my stay at Lucknow would just be for one hour or so and I would not have sufficient time to try and meet Lucknow based music lovers. My stay at Gorakhpur would be for one day and then I would catch a direct train to Bareilly in the evening without getting down at Lucknow.

During the last week of march 2017, I had two meetings at Gorakhpur, one on 28^th and another at 30^th. There was no point going back to Bareilly after the meeting of 28^th, only to travel back again a few hours later. So I decided that this offered me a perfect opportunity to spend one full day at Lucknow on 29^th march 2017. I would catch a night train from Gorakhpur on 28th that would bring me to Lucknow in the morning of 29^th march. I would have the whole day available to me and then I would catch the night train back to Gorakhpur in the evening.

The main idea behind spending one full day at Lucknow was to finally meet Lucknow based regulars, an exercise that was long overdue, seeing that I had been staying so close to Lucknow for the last 18 months.

There are two Lucknow based blog regulars, to the best of my knowledge – namely Mr Avadh Lal (mentioned above) and Mr Pratap. Before leaving Bareilly, I emailed them both, informing them that I would be there at Lucknow on 29^th march 2017 and I would like to meet them if possible.

A few hours later, Mr Pratap replied to my email, where he readily agreed to the meeting and informed me that he would get Mr Avadh Lal too to attend the meeting. He gave me his mobile number as well as the address of his residence.

Next morning, Mr Avadh Lal too responded to the email and he too mentioned that he was looking forward to the meeting.

While at Lucknow, I had fixed up a meeting with one of my Lucknow based Railway colleague, Mr Binod as well. He was looking forward to meet me as well.

It was at 10 AM on 29^th march 2017 that I arrived at the work place of my colleague Mr Binod. Our acquaintance goes back more than three decades as we are from the same Railway Alma Mater. Subsequently, both of us were posted at the same place, viz Maligaon, Assam. On one occasion in 2001, I, along with my family had visited his residence as well.

While discussing official as well as other matters, I informed Mr Binod about the song blog. “Arre, you should tell people about this site. Most others would indulge in self promotion among the colleagues if they had anything like this to talk about”, he exclaimed. He then proceeded on to share the link of the blog in his whatsapp friends’ circle groups.

I informed him that there were people who knew about the blog, but they were mostly from other walks of life and not from Railways. I informed him that I wanted to meet two such Lucknow based regulars in the evening.

I had a feeling that Mr Pratap, the Lucknow based regular was an ex Railway man. I in fact felt that he was from the same Alma Mater as the two of us. I asked Mr Binod whether he knew Mr Pratap. He asked me about the phone number of Mr Pratap and compared the number with phone numbers of his acquaintances. Then he informed me that yes, the number available with him is that of Mr Pratap and he indeed is our senior from our Alma Mater.

So I rang up Mr Pratap, introduced myself as Atul of atulsongaday and also added that I was his junior from the same Alma Mater. It was decided that I would ring him up again at 5 PM, by which time he would have arrived at his residence. In the meanwhile he would also inform Mr Avadh lal.

I rang up Mr Pratap at 5 PM. He had arrived at his residence. So I informed him that I was arriving to meet him at his residence. My Lucknow based colleague had very thoughtfully provided me with a vehicle. He invited me to dinner at his residence after I had my meeting with my blog regulars.

I arrived at the residence of My Pratap at about 5:45 PM and met him. The fact that I was a Railway man struck him only after I mentioned in the blog that I was based at Izatnagar. Izatnagar was predominantly a Railway town, so it was then that he came to know about my Railways connection.

He, quite like me, would not talk much about his Railway connection, preferring to talk about music and other matters. We discussed some mutual names that we both were familiar with, and he enquired where those people were.

It was possible to get information about Mr Pratap’s postings from colleagues, without needing to ask him. He retired ten years ago at the very senior position of Additional Member in Rail Bhawan. Regulars may recall that Mr KL Pandey (covered in the blog by Sudhir Ji) another Railway Man, had also retired from the same rank. So it was a case of us HFM lovers belonging to a small world. 🙂 The world being small was also realised by me when I got the chance to meet AK ji in New Delhi in 2012. Mr Pratap was a few years senior to AK ji at the same Alma Mater to which all of us belong.

Mr Avadh Lal too joined a few minutes later. Both of them had retired in the same year. Mr Avadh Lal had retired from Post and Telegraphs department.

We began to discuss music related matters and we covered lots and lots of music related topics. Both were senior to me in age so they have seen much more of the golden era of HFM than I have. I got some interesting information from them that in olden days, there would be lots of record selling shops where there would be listening booths. One could sample the songs in the listening booth before buying them.

I was told that preserving records by keeping them in recommended position was quite an art, though people would often manage by just stacking them in their boxes in the non recommended way.

Mr Pratap is one regular who can fill in the blanks and suggest corrections in the lyrics when I get stuck. He informed me that he had inherited love of music and literature from his parents, especially his mother. In any case, he lived in an era (and lived in places) where literature was very much in the air. He has attached good quality speakers to his laptop and that is how he is able to get the lyrics of a song right with certainty. Of course, one needs to have a good grasp over the language, its dialects etc and Mr Pratap is an expert in this field.

Mr Pratap has two sons. One of them lives in US, while another lives in Gurugram or Noida (I forget which one specifically).

His India based son believes that the best quality of music comes out of a record, rather than CD and other such music storage devices. Now it is a fact that even Bakshish Singh ji of Delhi swears by. So I informed Mr Pratap that yes, his son’s views are well supported by knowledgeable music lovers.

We discussed the blog, its contents, its regulars etc. Though they had not met any other blog regulars so far, they had formed some good and accurate idea about the regulars from the discussions in the blog. We ended up discussing a good number of regulars.

They were interested in knowing how we get hold of rare songs that are discussed in the blog. I informed them that some of us have rare songs in our collections which we upload when we find that the song we intend to discuss are not available online. I mentioned that Sudhir Ji is the main man to go to for rare songs. He not only has a huge collection of songs in all formats, he also keeps getting “fresh” supply from his contacts. And for a man of such contacts and networking, he is neither on facebook nor on whatsapp. A modern wonder of the world indeed. 🙂

I informed them about two of my pet projects which were going on in the blog. One was introducing one “debutant” movie every day and another was YIPPying of one movie every day. How do I know which movies have not made their debuts and which movies are close to being YIPPEED ? I informed them that HFGK (all five volumes)- so kindly gifted to me by M/S Arunkumar Deshmukh and Sudhir Ji on the occasion of 10,000^th song post in the blog, is the source. I have made a list of movies by year, in alphabetical order on an excel sheet and I can see at a glance which movie has how many songs and how many of these songs are already covered. Movies with zero songs in the blog are the movies that are candidates for making their debuts. Movies that have one song in the blog less than the number of songs contained in them are the candidates for being YIPPEED.

I informed them that the songs that are needed for debut of the movie and / or YIPPYing the movie are often rare songs and sometimes we have to upload them ourselves. That way we are at the “cutting” edge of YT. Unlike most music lovers who think that YT contains all the songs, we regularly find that YT does not contain songs we are searching for and then we have to upload them ourselves.

Here I launched myself on one of my pet peeves. I informed them that rare songs, 70 plus years old songs that we upload and whose details are not known to majority of public often find us landing in “trouble”. As soon as we upload these songs, some dubious people start claiming copyright on these songs and YT sends us copyright infringement notices, though such old songs are very much on public domain and there can be no copyrights on them. Instead of breaking my head over such issues, I have decided not to upload any more on YT and I now a days upload my songs elsewhere on Dailymotion etc.

They had not heard of Dailymotion, and they resolved to find out about it. I told them that there are a few less known alternatives to YT like Dailymotion etc.

I hope that these copyright claimers have not heard of such sites either. Such unscrupulous people have made YT terminate the accounts of some great ‘uploaders’ of songs. Some of these uploaders again come back with new IDs. Personally I do not have such thick skin, and so I would rather avoid YT instead of facing such ignominy. I do not know how Sudhir Ji deals with such issues. I will not be surprised if he got copyright infringement notice for 10k^th song which no one was even aware of till it was uploaded.

Though both live at Lucknow and have been going to common gatherings, the two Lucknowites became familiar with each other only through the blog. Both would comment in the blog. On 28 august 2013, Mr Avadh Lal commented that they were both in the same city so they should keep in touch. On the same day they talked to each other on phone and they have kept meeting each other in get togethers etc. But interestingly, it was the first time that the two of them were meeting each other at their residence.

Mr Avadh Lal, a man of many interests (music, mathematics, riddles, history etc) has met Mr Harmandir Singh Hamraz and he is all praises for his Herculean task.

Interestingly, Mr Avadh Lal had spent his childhood in Bareilly, and it was there in 1955 that he was first exposed to Talat Mehmood when he had visited that place for a live performance. Though only 8 years old at that time, Talat Mehmood became his most favourite singer from that tender age itself. In fact, the very first comment that Mr Avadh Lal made in the blog in august 2013 was to describe the above fact.

If Talat Mehmood is his favourite singer then Dev Anand is his favourite actor. Here is how effusive Mr Avadh Lal gets when discussing Dev Anand in his comment to a post on Dev Anand:

As a ten-year-old boy I saw “Baarish” and loved the film because the hero being a carefree loafer appealed to my impressionistic young mind. As I was a child (and because my father was a respected person in the city), I was allowed a free entry in the cinema hall and so I watched the film countless times. Naturally, all the scenes were memorized and at home I enacted those with my younger brother (obviously, I was always the hero Dev Anand while he played the villain).

Do I still need to say that the one and only Dev Anand remains my favourite hero of all time?

Well, I had not cared to remember that today was the date Dev Saab had left us last year perhaps to entertain those in the Other World. So thank you very much Arunji for making my day. As the inimitable Gope says in the film, “क़सम Dodge गाड़ी के इंजन की”.

Regulars of the blog may recall that once we reached 10,000 mark in the blog, we came across some “special” numbers and each of them were celebrated with special posts. Thus we had special posts for song number 11111 and 12345.

We thought that the next special number after post number 12345 was far away, but then it was Mr Avadh Lal who posted a riddle like comment that went:-

I observe that you have a head for figures. I too am fascinated by the fun provided by the world of numbers. it occurs to me that there is a magical number which perhaps could meet your consideration in this respect and, if it passes muster, it would be a much much nearer milestone.

When we failed to solve the riddle, he gave another clue:

Have you ever noticed that if you start by train from Kolkata to see the holy Golden Temple, historic Jalianwala Bagh and the famous Durgiana temple in Amritsar, you pass through all odd stations including my city – Lucknow?

When we all failed to get the hint, then he explained in a direct mail to Sudhir Ji that there is a train called “Durguiana express” which runs between Kolkata and Amritsar via Lucknow, and its number is 12357. This number, consisting of prime numbers in ascending order, was the next “special” number that was available for us to discuss with a special post.

So, one can say that the special post number 12357 in the blog came up because of Mr Avadh lal.

After music, our discussion veered around to other topics like the UP elections, whose results were out a few days earlier, and its effect on people. While I was bullish about the developments, the two seniors were more cautious in their reactions.

We kept discussing items of mutual interest for well over two hours. It was after 8 PM that I took their leave. It was a very fruitful and enjoyable evening that I spend with two fellow music lovers. It was our own mini gangout, I informed them. We took some selfies and I posted one of them in our whatsapp group.

I then went to the residence of Mr Binod, who was waiting for me. I too was eager to meet him and his family. The last time I had visited his residence was in 2001 in Maligaon, Guwahati with my family. Mr Binod and his wife were no different from what they were all those years ago, but when I saw their daughter, I exclaimed-“Arre, itni badi ho gayi !” Like in the story of “Kabuliwala”, I was expecting their daughter to be the same two years old that she was 16 years ago, but of course she had grown up, to be 18 years old !

They also have a son who at that time was 10 years old and now he is 26. He is already settled in his life and lives abroad.

They have a dog at their home. Are you comfortable with him, I was asked. Am I comfortable, I have two dogs at home, and I love the company of dogs, I responded. So that dog was brought up to me. The dog, a huge 45 KG golden retriever named UV looked at me and barked. He may have been huge, but I was used to the bark of Bhhole. Compared to Bhhole’s bark, UVs bark was nothing special for me. Unable to frighten me with his bark, UV soon got reconciled to my presence and lied down stretched on the carpet close to my feet and stayed there for most of the time that I was there.

I informed my hosts that I had two dogs, and in the past I had a cat too. I recounted them a few tales of my pets. I tried to show them some photos of my pets but I was unable to locate them on my mobile. Next day, I was able to locate them and I sent a couple of photographs of my pets to Mr Binod on his whatsapp number.

After dinner, I took leave of my hosts and reached Lucknow station to catch my train. And thus ended a very fruitful and memorable day and evening (29 march 2017) when I was able to meet some dear acquaintances and was able to spend some quality time with them.

And now, a brief about today’s song. I am accustomed to posting my own articles, but today Sudhir ji has somehow persuaded me that he will post my article, for a change. The song I present in this post is in the voice of Shamshad Begum. Tomorrow, i.e. 23^rd April, it is the anniversary of her passing away (2013). So I selected this song to mark this anniversary. The film is ‘Mera Salaam’ from 1957. The film has 12 songs listed, as per the Geet Kosh. This is the fourth song from the film to be posted on our blog.

All songs are written by Shewan Rizvi and the music is by Hafiz Khan. It important to reiterate the this Hafiz Khan is different person from Khan Matana (whose name is also Hafiz Khan ‘Mastana’). The lead pair in this period costume drama is Beena Rai and Bharat Bhushan, supported by Durga Khote, Veena, Gope, KN Singh, Al Nasir, Randhir etc.

The song tells of the difficulties and pitfalls in the path of love, a sentiment that is so aptly expressed in the lines

shamma pe parwaana gira
poochh na anjam-e-wafa
ye bhi jali wo bhi jala

The lyrics present the poignancy and the pain in the matter of love. An expressive and also an impressive song.

Song – Aag Lagi Shola Uttha Shamma Pe Parwaana Gira (Mera Salaam) (1957) Singer – Shamshad Begam, Lyrics – Shewan Rizvi, MD – Hafiz Khan

Lyrics

aag lagi ee
aag lagi
aag lagi shola uthha
shamma pe parwaana gira aa aa aa
shamma pe parwaana gira aa
poochh na anjam-e-wafa
ye bhi jali wo bhi jala
haaye
aag lagi ee
aag lagi

kaat ke saiyyaad ne par
saunp diya dard e jigar r
kaat ke saiyyaad ne par
saunp diya dard e jigar r
uspe ye taaqeed magar
aah na bhar naale na kar
ishq hai kya dekh liya aa
ishq hai kya dekh liya
ye bhi jali wo bhi jala
haaye
aag lagi ee
aag lagi

dil ki tadap dil mein rahe
sabki sune kuchh na kahe ae
dil ki tadap dil mein rahe
sabki sune kuchh na kahe ae
dard sahe zulm sahe ae
ashq na aankhon se bahe ae ae ae
ye hai mohabbat ka maza aa
ye hai mohabbat ka maza
ye bhi jali wo bhi jala
haaye
aag lagi ee
aag lagi

bijliyaan gulshan pe giri
phool kahin bhanwra kahin
bijliyaan gulshan pe giri
phool kahin bhanwra kahin
khawaab thha ye kitna haseen
aaj hua humko yaqeen een
pyaar ka anjaam bura
pyaar ka anjaam bura
ye bhi jali
wo bhi jala
haaye
aag lagi ee
aag lagi
aag lagi shola uthha
shamma pe parwaana gira aa aa aa
shamma pe parwaana gira aa
poochh na anjaam-e-wafa
ye bhi jali wo bhi jala
haaye
aag lagi ee
aag lagi

———————————-
Hindi script lyrics (Provided by Sudhir)
———————————–

आग लगी॰॰ई
आग लगी
आग लगी शोला उठा
शम्मा पे परवाना गिरा॰॰आ ॰॰आ ॰॰आ
शम्मा पे परवाना गिरा॰॰आ
पूछ ना अंजाम ए वफा
ये भी जली वो भी जला
हाए आग लगी॰॰ई
आग लगी

काट के सैय्याद ने पर
सौंप दिया दर्द ए जिगर
काट के सैय्याद ने पर
सौंप दिया दर्द ए जिगर
उस पे ये ताकीद मगर
आह ना भर नाले ना कर
इश्क़ है क्या देख लिया
इश्क़ है क्या देख लिया
ये भी जली वो भी जला
हाए आग लगी॰॰ई
आग लगी

दिल की तड़प दिल में रहे
सबकी सुने कुछ ना कहे॰॰ए
दिल की तड़प दिल में रहे
सबकी सुने कुछ ना कहे॰॰ए
दर्द सहे ज़ुल्म सहे
अश्क ना आँखों से बहे
ये है है मोहब्बत का मज़ा॰॰आ
ये है है मोहब्बत का मज़ा
ये भी जली वो भी जला
हाए आग लगी॰॰ई
आग लगी

बिजलियाँ गुलशन पे गिरीं
फूल कहीं भँवरा कहीं
बिजलियाँ गुलशन पे गिरीं
फूल कहीं भँवरा कहीं
ख्वाब था ये कितना हसीं
आज हुआ हमको यकीं
प्यार का अंजाम बुरा
प्यार का अंजाम बुरा
ये भी जली वो भी जला
हाए आग लगी॰॰ई

आग लगी
आग लगी शोला उठा
शम्मा पे परवाना गिरा॰॰आ ॰॰आ ॰॰आ
शम्मा पे परवाना गिरा॰॰आ
पूछ ना अंजाम ए वफा
ये भी जली वो भी जला
हाए आग लगी॰॰ई
आग लगी