Ae mere swapan ke waasi
Posted on: November 26, 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 the film Kurukshetra-45. This was a film made by Unity Productions, Calcutta. The film was directed by Rameshwar Sharma. This is an unknown name. I could only find that he had directed only 3 films…Bhakta Kabir-1942, Kurukshetra-45 and Vaasana-52. All these films were made by Unity productions, so maybe he was from Calcutta. The Lyricist was Jameel Mazhari – another new name. He seems to have written songs for only this film. The Music Director was Pandit Ganapat Rao.
I tried very hard to get some information about this MD, but to no avail. However, what I know about him is….
Pt.Ganapatrao Gurav, the Music director of this movie was basically a Classical singer and was the first batch disciple of Ustad Karim Khan, the founder of Kirana Gharana. He was a Court Musician in the state of Jamkhandi, Karnataka. He hailed from Ratnagiri dist.of Maharashtra and was a respected figure in classical circles.
However,like some other classical singers of his time,he too ventured in Film music and gave music to Kurukshetra and Bebus(1950) featuring Bharat Bhushan and Poornima.He returned to classical singing and today his Grandson Pt .Kaibalyanath is an accomplished singer awarded A grade by AIR and Doordarshan,in addition to many awards. There is an annual Pt.Ganapatrao memorial festival conducted by India Habitat Centre also.
The cast of the film was K L Saigal, Nawab Kashmiri, Shyamlo, Udwadiya, Radharani, Agha Mehmood Kashmiri, Tara, Kamal kant etc.etc. There were 14 songs in the film. Four songs-all sung by Saigal are already on the Blog. Today’s song will be the fifth song here.
The Film indicates 2 names, which are cases of ” Same Name Confusion”. Radha Rani and Kalyani – singer of today’s song. There were 2 singer actresses by the name of Radha Rani. One was from Bombay and the other was from Calcutta. Today’s Radha Rani is Calcuttewali.
This Radha Rani was born in 1903 at Jiaganj, Murshidabad in West Bengal. She was from a rich Marwadi family settled in Bengal for many generations. Her Bangla was very good. After the demise of her father, her mother established a Gopal ji Mandir at her residence.
Listening to kirtans from in house offerings and also from visitors, she developed a liking for devotional songs. She was trained by Keertania Harimakhan Das and then Manju Ustad. She was trained in Thumris and Ghazals by Ustad Dabeer Khan. She stayed in Behrampur to learn music.
She started giving performances. In one such performance, the Zamindar of Jiaganj, Surendranath Singh heard her. Impressed with her, he brought her to Calcutta and she was exposed to theatre ,Radio and films. Her first silent film was Sreekant-30. Then she acted in several silent films like in which she worked with Debki Bose, Sabita devi, Dhiren Ganguly etc etc. She cut several private records for Hindustan Records company. She sang pala Keertan songs which became very popular.
New Theatres took her in ‘ Yahudi ki Ladki ‘-33. Subsequently she also acted in film ‘ Kashinath-43’ from New Theatres. She acted in only films made in Calcutta and by Calcutta companies. She did many Bangla films.
Radha Rani also gave playback in 4 Hindi films,namely- Mukti-37, Nartaki-40, Aandhi-40 and Irada-44. She worked in Hindi films till only 1947. How long she worked in Bangla films, I do not know. This Radha Rani expired on 22-8-1997 at Calcutta, at the ripe age of 94 years.
Filmography in Hindi- Silent films like Srikant-30, Flames of Flesh-30, Panchsaar-30, After the Death-31, Money makes what not-31 etc Talkie Films- Yahudi ki ladki-33, Daku ka Ladka-35, Daksha Yagnya-35, Kadkati Bijli-36, Khudai Khidamatgar-37, karmaveer-38, Kashinath-43, Shri Ramanuj-43, Kurukshetra-45, Baap-46 and Aisa Kyun-47.
The other Same Name Confusion name is that of singer Kalyani. There were 2 singer actresses with the same name Kalyani. One was mainly active in Bombay films and the other was active in Calcutta films. Since this is the first time, I give notes on both the artistes.
Kalyani Bai (1920-2009) (real name – Zarina) was an actor-singer who was trained in classical singing. She sang khayal, thumri and ghazals for All India Radio and recorded such genre of songs for HMV. This led her to a filmy career in Calcutta in 1934 as an actor-singer. After some struggle, she was employed with New Theatres and she acted in films like ‘Anaath Ashram’ (1937), ‘Mukti’ (1937), and ‘President’ (1937) in which she also sang some songs for herself.
In 1937, Kalyani Bai left New Theatres and joined Ranjit Movietone in Bombay (Mumbai). Her first film with Ranjit Movietone was ‘Toofaani Toli’ (1937). In the 40s, she appeared to have become a free-lancer, although I find that she worked in more films directed by VM Vyas of Sunrise Films than other banners. She was one of the singers in the famous All-Women qawwali in the film Zeenat-1945. Her last film as an actor-singer was ‘Ghar’ (1945). However, she lent her voice for other actresses in films released during 1947-54. She also acted in small roles in a few films of the 1970s and probably early 80s. She later married Seth Chirauddin Bakar. She had 2 sons and a daughter from him. She retired and settled in Bombay. She died on 1-10-2009.
Kalyani Das was a playback singer who started her career in Hindi films from Calcutta with PC Barua’s ‘Jawaab’ (1942) and ended her playback singing career in Hindi films with ‘Iran Ki Ek Raat’ (1949). She also sang for a few films made in Bombay. To the best of my knowledge, she did not act in any films.
It is not so difficult to segregate ‘Kalyanis’ as both of them worked in Calcutta at different times. Kalyani Bai worked in films produced in Calcutta up to 1937 whereas Kalyani Das commenced her playback singing career from Calcutta from 1942 onward. She mostly worked for music director Kamal Dasgupta (8 out of 11 Hindi films in which she was playback singer). She sang 37 songs in 11 films….Jawab-42, meghdoot-45, Kurukshetra-45, Zameen Aasmaan-46, Prem ki Duniya-46, Bindiya-46, Manmaani-47, Giribala-47, Faisla-47, Swayamsidha-49 and Iran ki ek raat-49.
Films made with the name ” Kurukshetra ” were many, made in different languages. As per the CITWF (complete index to world films) data, such films were made in 1933, 1945, 1977, 1983, 1987, 1988, 2000 and 2008. The oldest Kurukshetra was produced by Chhatrapati Cine Co. Kolhapur , Directed by Sardar Balasaheb Yadav, Music by Bhurji khan Saheb and the cast included Balasaheb Yadav, Madhavrao, Joshi, Nandrekar, Hansa, Padma etc. It was a Mythological movie
Film Kurukshetra-45 was released on 17-5-1946 in New West End theatre, Bombay, where it ran only for 4 weeks. According to the review in magazine ‘ Film India’ of July 1946, the film was not liked by the audience. As usual the editor criticised the director and the story/dialogue writer-Kamalkant Varma. This Sharma-Varma pair spoiled the film, as per the review. It was, however, all praise for Saigal and the Music Director. Personally, I was not much impressed with any song of this film, but still, I find today’s song much better in tune, music and the rendition by Kalyani Das.
Song-Ae mere swapan ke vaasi (Kurukshetra)(1945) Singer- Kalyani Das, Lyricist-Jamil Mazhari, MD- Pt. Ganpatrao (Gurav)
Lyrics
Ae mere swapan ke vaasi
Ae mere swapan ke vaasi
aa jaa
aa jaa
aa jaa
aa jaa
aa jaa
aa jaa aa aa aa aa
ae mere swapan ke waasi
ae mere swapan ke waasi
aa jaa
aa jaa
aa jaa
bhhenee bhheenee basant ritu mein aen
bhhenee bhheenee basant ritu mein
?? ka tyohaar manaa jaa
aa aa aa
madhur madhur sangeet bhari ??
madhur madhur sangeet bhari ??
hriday patal par chhaa jaa
hriday patal par chhaa jaa
ae mere swapan ke waasi
ae mere swapan ke waasi
aa jaa
aa jaa
aa jaa
aa jaa aa aa aa aa
ae mere swapan ke waasi
ae mere swapan ke waasi
aa jaa
aa jaa
aa jaa
dukh ke saagar ka ??jaa
ankhiyaan tarse
daras dikhaa jaa
baaghon mein bhanwre goonj rahe
kaliyon ka munh choom rahe
tu bhi mukh dikhlaa jaa aa aa
ae mere swapan ke waasi
ae mere swapan ke waasi
aa jaaaa
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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