Taaron se ankhiyaan milaaun main
Posted on: February 25, 2019
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 other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, 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 New Theatres Ltd.(NT) has given some outstanding and famous directors to the Hindi film industry who got fame on an all-India level. A couple of them got recognition in the international level also. I list below a few of them:
Debaki Bose was known for his films like ‘Chandidas’ (Bengali, 1932), ‘Puran Bhagat’ (1933), ‘Seeta’ (1934), ‘Vidyapati’ (1937). ‘Nartaki’ (1940) etc. Kidar Sharma called him the ‘Dronacharya of film making’. He was the first director who used background music. Probably, he was also the first Indian film director who was honoured with a Certificate of Merit for his direction of the film ‘Seeta’ (1933) at Cannes Film Festival.
Nitin Bose was known for the use of his magical camera angle in the films he directed. His camera angles spoke more than the dialogues. Some of the notable films he directed was ‘Chandidas’ (Hindi, 1934), ‘Dhoop Chhaaon’ (1935), ‘President’ (1937), ‘Dharti Mata’ (1938), ‘Milan’ (1946), ‘Deedar’ (1951), ‘Waaris’ (1954), ‘Ganga Jamuna’ (1961) etc. He was the first to experiment with playback singing in his film ‘Dhoop Chhaaon’ (1935). He got the idea when he saw Pankaj Mullick singing in tandem with a song which he was playing on his gramophone record player.
P C Barua, though not originally from NT, got name and fame when he joined NT and directed ‘Devdas’ (1935). He directed some other films like ‘Manzil’ (1936), ‘Mukti’ (1937), ‘Zindagi’ (1940), ‘Jawaab’ (1942), ‘Subah-Shaam’ (1944) etc. He was the first director who used ‘flash back’ technique in ‘Roop Lekha’ (1934).
Bimal Roy started his filmy career as Assistant to P C Barua in cinematography, editing and direction. He was the Cinematographer for films like ‘Devdas’ (1935), Mukti’ (1937), ‘Haar Jeet’ (1940), ‘Meenakshi’ (1942) etc. He got his first assignment as director in NT when he directed ‘Hamraahi’ (1945). Other well-known films which he directed include ‘Parineeta’ (1953), ‘Do Bigha Zameen’ (1953), ‘Devdas’ (1955), ‘Madhumati’ (1958), ‘Sujata’ (1959), “Bandini’ (1963). ‘Do Bigha Zameen’ (1953)’ was critically acclaimed and won a prize at Cannes Film Festival. ‘Madhumati’ (1958) got a total of 9 ‘Filmfare’ awards.
Name of a well-known director from NT is missing from the above list. I have chosen him in this article for his detailed profile. And he is Phani Majumdar.
Phani Majumdar (28/12/1911-16/05/1994) was born in Faridkot in Bengal Presidency (now in Bangla Desh). After his graduation in 1930, Phani Majumdar worked as a typist in a company. His connection with films started when he joined as Stenographer to P C Barua in Barua Studio sometime in 1932. Later he became his Assistant Director in ‘Devdas’ (1935) and ‘Mukti’ (1937). He was a script-writer for ‘Abhagin’ (1938).
Phani Majumdar got his opportunity to debut as director in ‘Street Singer’ (1938) with K L Saigal and Kanan Devi in lead roles. This film is regarded as classical musical melodrama like ‘Devdas’ (1935). His debut film was highly successful at the box office. With this film, K L Saigal and Kanan Devi reached the pinnacle of their filmy career as actor-singer.
After successfully directing ‘Kapal Kundala’ (1939) for NT, Phani Majumdar shifted his base to Bombay (Mumbai) sometime in 1941. But working as a free-lance director was not a cakewalk for him especially at a time when there was scarcity of raw films, getting actors for the films who were mostly studio attached and the studio time for shooting. But due to his fame as a director of ‘Street Singer’ (1938) and also his friendly nature, he could overcome the initial obstacles.
Luck favoured Phani Majumdar. Chimanlal Trivedi had closed down his film production company, CIRCO Productions and had set up a new banner, Laxmi Productions. He engaged Phani Majumdar for directing his first film ‘Tamanna’ (1942) under the new banner. From the cast and crew of the film, it would appear that Phani Majumdar had a free hand in selecting them. Apart from actors for the film like Leela Desai, Jagdish Sethi, K C Dey who were earlier attached to NT, he had engaged 7 technicians from Bengal for the film. This was the first film in Mumbai for Leela Desai.
‘Filmindia’, in its review of ‘Tamanna’ (1942) while lauding the performances of Jairaj, Leela Desai, Jagdish Sethi and K C Dey, was critical of the direction by Phani Majumdar. However, some of the film producers seemed to have a different views. The result was that Phani Majumdar was flooded with new assignments as director for ‘Mohabbat’ (1943), ‘Rajkumar’ (1944) and ‘Meena’ (1944). Thereafter, he produced and directed ‘Devdasi’ (1945), Insaaf’ (1946) and ‘Door Chalen’ (1946). He also directed an off-beat film ‘Hum Bhi Insaan Hain’ (1948) starring Dev Anand and Ramola.
In the early 1950s, Phani Majumdar directed ‘Andolan’ (1951) which was virtually a documentary type film depicting the history of the Indian National Congress since its inception in 1885 until 1947 and India’s freedom struggle. Thereafter, he directed Bombay Talkies’ ‘Tamasha’ (1952) and ‘Baadbaan’ (1954), the latter being actually produced by the Bombay Talkies Workers Cooperatives. Both these films were critically acclaimed though they were not successful in terms of box office receipts. Shakti Samanta assisted Phani Majumdar in both these films in direction as also in dialogues/script writing.
During 1955-59, Phani Majumdar joined Shaws’ Malay Films Productions, Singapore. During this period, he directed 11 films in Malay, Chinese and English languages. He directed the first Eastman Colour film in Malay language, ‘Hang Tuah’ (1956). The film won awards in the Asian Film Festival held in Hong Kong in 1957 and was nominated for the Golden Berlin Bear in Berlin International Film Festival, 1957. The prominent Malaysian film maker, Jamir Sulong assisted Phani Majumdar in his 6 out of 8 films he directed in Singapore.
After returning to India in 1959, he directed successful films like ‘Aarti’ (1962), ‘Oonche Log’ (1965) and ‘Aakashdeep’ (1965). In all, he directed 26 feature films in Hindi during 1938-1989. He wrote the scripts for most of his films which he directed. In addition, he also directed a few Children’s films and films in other languages like Bengali, Punjabi, Magadhi, Maithili, Malay, Chinese, English etc. Towards the end of his filmy career, he directed a few TV serials in Kolkata.
Phani Majumdar left for heavenly abode on May 16, 1994 at the age of 83. He was married to actress Monica Desai, the younger sister of actress Leela Desai.
Phani Majumdar mostly directed films which were acclaimed as creator of social consciousness. One of such films he directed was ‘‘Dhobi Doctor’ (1954). The film was produced under the banner of Ranjit Movietone. The star cast included Kishore Kumar and Usha Kiran in the lead role supported by Kanhaiyalal, Gautam, Krishnakant, Nazira Begum, Shivraj, Usha Rani, Master Jagdeep, Baby Asha Parekh etc
The gist of the story of the film based on the film’s review in January 24, 1954 issue of ‘Filmfare’ and the song book of the film is as under:
Ramu (childhood roe played by Jagdeep) is the son of a poor Dhobi, Mahadeo. Ramu is smart and intelligent. His elder sister, Lakshmi is very proud of her younger brother. Every evening, Lakshmi walks through the fields to pick him up from the school for back home.
One day, Lakshmi falls ill. Mahadeo has no money to bring doctor to the village. Having ranked top in his class in the school examination, Ramu has to attend to a prize distribution ceremony. But Lakshmi cannot accompany him as she is ill. After the prize distribution ceremony, Ramu returns home quickly to show his Didi the books he received as the prize. He finds that his Didi is dead. Choked with grief, he asks his father as to why Didi died. Mahadeo has no answer except that he was so poor that he could not afford to call a doctor. The broken-hearted Ramu vows that he would become a doctor and treat free the poor in the village.
Mahadeo works hard to earn more money for the fulfillment of Ramu’s dream. In the school, Ramu is taunted by some of his rich classmates for a dream of a poor Ramu of becoming a doctor but he is indifferent to the taunts. Ramu’s hard work and his father’s struggle bring fruits. He finishes his school with good performance and gets admitted to the medical college.
Ramu’s aptitude for medical studies attracts attention of the Vice- Principal, Professor Tripathi. He takes a greater interest in Ramu’s studies. Ramu becomes a doctor. Professor Tripathi helps him further in his practice by placing his laboratory at Ramu’s disposal. He also allows Ramu to study in his residence since his house in the village is far-off. Professor Tripathi has a young daughter, Uma (Usha Kiran) who plays pranks with Ramu. Gradually, Uma falls in love with Ramu. However, he is shy to reciprocate the love. Moreover, he is aware that he is the son of a poor Dhobi and Uma is the daughter of a rich father. There is struggle between his heart and realities of the situation. However, at the end, they unite after overcoming the stumbling block of the society.
‘Dhobi Doctor’ (1954) had 7 songs of which one song has been covered in the Blog. Interestingly, out of the 7 songs as many as 6 songs are solo songs of Asha Bhonsle. The remaining one song is sung by Kishore Kumar. All the songs were written jointly by Ali Sardar Jafri and Majrooh Sutanpuri and were composed by Khayyam.
I am presenting one of the remaining six songs from the film which is a rare one. The song is ‘taaron se akhiyaan milaaun main’ sung by Asha Bhonsle. When I first heard this song, I was surprised to note that the composition as well as the orchestrations of the song sounded like that of O P Nayyar. The fact is that when Khayyam composed the music for this song, O P Nayyar had not established himself as the music director of repute to copy his style of music. He came into prominence only after a runaway success of ‘Aar Paar’ (1954) and its songs. But the film ‘Dhobi Doctor’ (1954) was released on January 19, 1954, about 4 months before the release of ‘Aar Paar’ (1954).
Enjoy this song of Khayyam in the style of O P Nayyar.
Note: The information on Phani Majumdar is mainly from indiancine.ma, ‘Filmindia’ magazines, ‘Film Pictorial’- April 1945 issue and inputs from newspapers.
Audio Clip :
Song-Taaron se ankhiyaan milaaun main (Dhobi Doctor)(1954) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyrics-Majrooh Sultanpuri, MD-Khayyam
Lyrics
hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm
taaron se
taaron se ankhiyaan milaaun main
chanda ko sajna banaaun main
taaron se
taaron se ankhiyaan milaaun main
chanda ko sajna banaaun main
taaron se
shaam ki bahaaron mein
jhoomte nazaaron mein
naachoongi titliyaan ban ke
shaam ki bahaaron mein
jhoomte nazaaron mein
nachoongi titliyaan ban ke
chaandni ki chhaanv mein
dolti hawaaon mein
gaaungi koyaliyaa ban ke
dil na kisi se lagaaun main
chanda ko sajna banaaun main
taaron se
taaron se ankhiyaan milaaun main
chanda ko sajna banaaun main
taaron se
ankhiyon ko mal ke gaaungi machal ke
birha ke geet jhoothh moothh ke
ankhiyon ko mal ke gaaungi machal ke
birha ke geet jhoothh moothh ke
kahin bhi na jaaungi
abhi roothh jaaungi
aa ke man jaaungi roothh ke
dil na kisi se lagaaun main
chanda ko sajna banaaun main
taaron se
taaron se ankhiyaan milaaun main
chanda ko sajna banaaun main
taaron se
hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
February 26, 2019 at 12:10 am
Dear Sadsnathji
Your all articles are so interesting , I keep reading and reading so engrossed Forget important work .
God has gifted you . and all of Atul saab and his team . I believe after 50 . years this will be like Epic pile of collection . Keep going . I am in Sydney . Rarely local singers sing well . But old is tfuly fermented like wine . older it is
smooth it is …..
Regards
Shekhar Vaishnav. .
On Mon, 25 Feb 2019, 19:50 Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs Atul posted: “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 > other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web ” >
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February 26, 2019 at 7:00 am
Shekhar Vaishnav ji,
Thanks for your appreciations of our works.
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