Dhanya Dhanya hai Avadhpuri
Posted by: Atul on: April 28, 2020
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusaist 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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Today’s song is from film Ram Vivah-49. This is a duet song by Manna Dey and Geeta Roy. This is the first ever duet of these singers, in their career.
Geeta, who debuted via a chorus song in 1946, won some fame with her songs in film Do Bhai-47, with music by S D Burman. However till about 1950 or so, she was still struggling to make a place in the film line. She had to compete with singers like Lata and Asha as well as Shamshad, Amirbai and Zohrabai too. Manna Dey was an occasional singer, struggling very hard to get established as either a singer or a Music Director. Good sense prevailed and he realised that singing was his forte and he concentrated on it,later. He is one of my favourite singers, who had all the merit and talent, but not a strong Luck ! He became a preferred singer for composers, whenever a Bhajan, religious song or a high pitched song was to be sung.
Film Ram Vivah-49 was was produced by Prem Adib Productions and it was the only film directed by him ever. This film came after the eminently flop film Raambaan-48, made by Prakash pictures. Actually, it was Prakash pictures who had earlier made two very successful film on Ramayan stories, namely Bharat Bhet-42 and Ramrajya-43. Enthused with the success of these two films, Prakash decided to complete Triology with one more film on Ram and Seeta. They waited for 5 years and then made Raambaan-48. The glaring mistake they made was in the film story. The first two films were largely true to the original Valmiki Ramayan. While making Raambaan, they employed their story department authors-Mohan lal Dave and Pt.Girish. They messed up with the story and made it into a poor and distorted version of Ramkatha. This caused the failure of film Raambaan-48.
Learning a lesson from this, Prem Adib stuck to the original Valmiki Ramayan. In fact the Credits show Valmiki’s name for ‘ Story ‘. Additionally, the cast consisted of almost same team with Prem Adib, Shobhana Samarth, Jeevan, Umakant, Shanta Kumari and others. Music director was Shankar rao Vyas and Lyricist was Moti, B.A. (actually he was an M.A.).
The lead pair of Prem Adib and Shobhana Samarth had become extremely popular all over the country as Ram and Seeta, after their two films Bharat Milap and Ram Rajya. These two actors came together first time in film Industrial India-1938. After this they worked in 11 more films plus one more film Ramayan-54, which was concocted by joining parts of 3 films made by Prakash Pictures on Ram and Seeta. After film Rambaan-48, Prakash films focused on social and musical films and made memorable films like Baiju Bawra-52 and Gunj Uthi Shehnai-59.
The stories of Rama and offshoots of Ramayana have always inspired film makers. Mahabharat too did the same. In Hindi language alone, films on Rama stories are around 25 ( not counting obvious other films like Ram aur Shyam, Ram Lakhan or Ram Balram etc.). Practically, in every Indian language and dialects, Nepalese and Sinhalese Ram films are made. However, the kind of fame,popularity and the Box office returns, Film Ram Rajya-43 earned is beyond imagination. Calendars from 1944 to 1950 featured Shobhana and Prem as Ram and Seeta. Wherever these stars went they were mobbed and people used to touch their feet, as Ram and Seeta.
Ramayan and Mahabharata are the two major Religious Epics for Indians. Ramayana has been popular and wide spread all over the Eastern World. There are in all 300 versions of Ramayana. These include the original Valmiki Ramayan and few other major Indian language Versions like Kamban’s Ramavataram in Tamil and Rangnathan’s Ramayana in Telugu. Then there is Ramayan Manjiri in NE and Bengal version. There is a Jain version too.Besides Ramayana in every Indian language and many dialects with scripts, there are Ramayana Versions in Burma, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Phillipines, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thialand, Malaysia, Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam and China. All these versions total upto 300 in number.
Actor Umakant played the role of Laxman even in this film. In all he played this role in 7 films. Similarly, actor Jeevan, who first time played the role of Narad in Bharat Milap-42, played Narad in almost 100 films in his career ( it was like Jagdish Raj playing role of Police Inspector or Iftekhar playing Police Commissioner or Murad playing a court Judge in Hindi films).
In my last post (on film Bharat Milap-42), I had mentioned about difficulty in getting information on practically unknown actors.This is a major problem for people ,like me, who are students of vintage films and its people. Another big problem is “same name confusion”, caused by artistes having similar sounding names . In early cinema era as we all know, most artistes came form lower strata of society as members of respectable families were not ready to join this ‘ lowly’ film line. This applied mostly for women folk. Among these families of Tawayafs and singers, there were limited names recycled. Some examples are Noorjehan, Khursheed, Zubeida, Shehzadi, Naseem etc etc. This caused problems and confusions. This problems was also among Male artistes at a lesser rate. Names like Asit Sen, N Datta, Rajkumar, Shyam etc are some examples. It was not restricted to Muslim artistes only. There are examples like Nalini, Leela, Ranjana, Rajkumari etc . I would say the ratio was 60:40 for females and Males.
At one given time, there were as many as 8 to 10 Nalinis working in films. Similarly there were several Shantas in films. Few examples are Shanta Apte, Shanta Hublikar, Shanta Mujumdar, Shanta kumari (stuntwali), Shanta kumari (Socialwali),Shanta Patel etc. Luckily, there was no Same name confusion, as these Shantas were using their surnames. Shanta Mujumdar acted only in Prabhat bilingual films. She later married writer Pt. Mukhram Sharma. Shanta kumari and Shanta Patel were stunt actresses. Socialwali Shanta kumari stopped working in 1936…before stuntwali came in. Socialwali married and became Shanta Kothari and worked in 3 films with this name.
Today, we will know more about Shanta Kothari (nee Shanta kumari), who acted as Kaushalya in 3 films after marriage. She is one of those artistes about whom information had to be culled from multiple sources, with great efforts. She was born in 1904 in a large family. Her father Motilal was Principal of a college, but mother was a Tawayef. She studied in English medium. After father’s death, her mother started teaching her dancing and singing. Soon she was singing for customers.
She was very beautiful looking. She entered film line at the age of 16 years, i.e. in 1920. She acted in Silent films made by various companies like Sharada, Great Eastern,Ranjit, kohinoor, Shri krishna film co and krishnatone etc.Some of her silent films were, Kala pahad-27, with master Vithal, Bhai ya kasai-28,Pilgrims of Love-29, Kumud Kumari-29, Prince Charming-30 with E.Billimoria and Castles in the air-30. Other films were Loves of Mughal Prince, Drums of Love, Pyari Jogan, Pardesi Sainya, Prem yatra, Rasili Radha, Maujeli Mashuqa, Shaikh Chilli etc etc. In 1930 she went to Calcutta and worked in film Shrikant also.
Due to her good looks, dancing and singing skills,she effortlessly entered Talkie film era. Her first talkie was krishn Cinetone’s Heer Ranjha-31. It was followed by Chintamani-31,Krishnavatar-32, Lanka Dahan-33, Hatim Tai-1-33, Simhasan-34, Sant Tulsidas-34, Kashmeera-34, Aaj kal-34, Bal hatya and Prem yatri-36. She sang on A.I.R. Bombay frequently. In film Sant Tulsidas, she sang equally with a stalwart like G.N.Joshi, with ease. She sang 21 songs in 8 films in her career.
She took a break from films and she got married to Sound Recordist Kothari. She became Shanta Shantaram Kothari after marriage.In 1941, when film Bharat Milap was being planned, Prakash Pictures requested and she worked in that film as well as Ramrajya-43 in the role of Kaushalya. After 5 years when Prem Adib requested, she again worked in film Ram Vivah-49. However, she stopped films after that.
I could not get further information about her after this period, but we have all information about her film career. (For information used here, I thank Isuru Udayanga Kariyavasam, V.S.Nigam’s article on http://www.medium.com, books- Beete kal ke sitare-S.Tamrakar, Early Hindustani talkies-P.Kamalakar, muVyz.com, CITWF, HFGK and my notes)
The Music Director of film Ram Vivah-49 was Shankar Rao Vyas. After the success of films ‘ Narsi Bhagat-40’ and ‘ Bharata Milap-42’, Vyas rode on the Pinnacle of his career with the popularity of Ramrajya songs. Vyas was a very hard working person. Once while recording songs of film ‘ Vikramaditya’-45, he needed Echo effect in the song ‘ Om Jai Jai Shankar’. In those days, the recording studios were not equipped with such facilities. Vyas searched and found out a Temple having a big Dome in the obscure suburb Jogeshwari in Bombay and recorded this song in that Temple at 2 am in the midnight when it was very quiet !
Ramrajya-43 was the most successful musical film of that era. When Prakash Pictures planned to produce Ramrajya again in 1967, the MD was Vasant Desai. Before recording film’s first song Desai garlanded the photo of Shankar Rao Vyas and then only started the work, seeking his Blessings. Ramrajya had also the distinction of being the only film in the world which Mahatma Gandhi saw in his life. It is said that he was pleased with its songs very much.
Prof. Shankarrao Vyas (1898-1956) was born in Kolhapur on 23-1-1898. His father Ganeshpant was a well known Keertankar and Puranik! So, he was brought up in the religious and musical environment. Unfortunately, Ganeshpant died when Shankar was seven years old. His paternal uncle brought him up for few years. His maternal uncle (Mama) noticed his inclination towards music and enrolled him in the ‘gurukul’ of Maharaj (Pandit) Vishnu Digambar Paluskar.
In those days, students had to sign a bond with the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. Training period would last 8-10 years and the student would become all-rounder in every field related to music. Thus, Shankar Rao spent nine years in this gurukul, earned ‘Sangeet Pravin’ degree and gold medal for overall development. With the suggestion of guruji, he worked in Lahore vidyalaya for few years.
In 1931, he moved to Ahmadabad for establishing branch of Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. He was an expert not only in vocal music, but could play and repair many instruments including sitar, jaltarang and mendolin. He would conduct orchestra consisting of Indian and western instruments. He was also a very good composer and wrote several bandishes. He was the key person in planning music section of national (Rashtriya) schools: an idea originated by Gandhiji in Ahmadabad.
In 1935, he left Ahmadabad and settled in Bombay. He founded school for music education at Dadar, just outside the western railway station. ‘Vyas Sangeet Vidyalaya’. It is still functioning at this place. His brother Narayanrao Vyas and brother in law Vasantrao Rajopadhye also joined him in this noble cause. Around 1930/31, HMV Company invited both Vyas brothers for recordings and they cut over 200 songs (100 discs) until about 1938. He also cut few orchestral records under ‘Vyas Brothers’ banner playing pure classical ragas. These records were best sellers and company had printed their photographs on record catalogues.
This period was also the beginning of talkie films. Shankar Rao composed music for Hindi (35), Marathi (5), and Gujrathi (3) films from 1937-1955. His first film as a composer was ‘ His Highness’ -37 and the last was ‘ Baal Ramayan’ -released in 56. He also composed background music for fifteen films. Most of his films were based on religious or mythological themes. He also taught music to non-singing actors such as Sardar Akhtar and Shirin Bano. His most famous musical films were – Narsi Bhagat (1940), Bharat Bhet (1941), Ram Rajya (1943, in Hindi and Marathi). Saraswati Rane sung ‘Beena madhur madhur kachu bol’ in raga Bhimpalas in Hindi film ‘Ram Rajya’ and this song became popular throughout India. This was the only film that Gandhji watched in cinema hall and was much impressed with the music. Songs from Marathi version of ‘Ram Rajya’ viz. ‘Sujanho parisa ramkatha’ and ‘Ladkya raanila lagale dohale’ are shown on TV even today.
He was very busy in many fields as a composer, Principal of his music school, author of articles and bandishes, President of Gandharva Mahavidyalaya and founder editor of ‘Sangeet Kala Vihar’ magazine (founded in 1947) of Vidyalaya that is published even today. He passed away at Ahmadabad on 17-12- 1956. He has sung couple of abhangs of Saint Tukaram. These are available on HMV records. Record P 13454 published in 1931 has a sweet abhang – ‘Roopi guntale lochan, charani sthiravale mana’.
Today’s song indicates that Shankarrao Vyas tried hard to be with the changing tastes of his audience. The song has a faster tune and music.
Song-Dhanya Dhanya hai Avadhpuri (Raam Vivaah)(1949) Singers-Geeta Dutt, Manna Dey, Lyricist- Moti B A, MD- Shankarrao Vyas
Both
Lyrics
Dhanya dhanya hai avadhpuri
Dhanya wahaan ki phulwaari
Jahaan Raam ne janam liya hai
Dhanya wahaan ke nar naari ee
Dhanya wahaan ke nar naari
Avadhpuri ke uttar dish
Saryu ki dhaara behti hai
Raaja Dashrath raaj karen aur
Praja chain se rehti hai ae
Praja chain se rehti hai
Ann dhan se bharpoor Ayodhya
Teen lok se hai nyaari
Jahaan Raam ne janm liya hai
Dhanya wahaan ke nar naari
Dhanya wahaan ke nar naari
Chham chham karti chali kaamini
Hai solah singaar kiye
Aankhon mein sansaar liye
Haathon mein sundar haar liye
Satvanti hain sabhi naariyaan
Sat par apne balihaari
Jahaan Raam ne janm liya hai
Dhanya wahaan ke nar naari
Dhanya wahaan ke nar naari
Raam Lakhan aur Bharat
Shatrughan
Chaar ratn hain raaja ke
Jinmein sabse bade raam hain
Pran piyaare parja ke ae
Pran piyaare parja ke
Raam liye dhanu-baan raakshason ke
Marne ki hai baari
Jahaan Raam ne janm liya hai
Dhanya wahaan ke nar naari ee
Dhanya wahaan ke nar naari
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
April 29, 2020 at 7:06 pm
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