Sakhi ree saawan bhaawat naahin
Posted on: July 23, 2021
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular 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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Hindi Songs in Bangla Films:36
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It has been almost one year when I wrote my last article under the series ‘Hindi songs from Bangla films’ on July 23, 2020 in the Blog. There are some more Hindi songs from Bangla films which are yet to be covered. But most of them are those films from which at least one song has been covered in the Blog. So, I kept the series on the back-burner.
A few days back, Partha Chanda ji, a regular visitor to our Blog, suggested me to write on a Hindi song from a Bangla film, ‘Goynar Boksho’ (Jewellery Box, 2013). The song was of my type which I immensely liked it. The synpsis of the film made an interesting reading. These two factors pushed me to write the article forthwith.
In the film, Maushumi Chatterjee has a pivotal role of a ghost who watches three generations of women brought up in a different social status as to how they attach importance to her jewellery box. I had liked Maushumi Chatterjee’s performance of a middle-aged aunt in ‘Piku’ (2015). Another interesting role of a new daughter-in-law in the film was played by Konkona Sen Sharma whose performance I have liked in ‘Wake Up Sid’ (2009). Surely, it was going to be an interesting film to watch with English sub-titles which I did so on one of the OTT platforms.
‘Goynar Boksho’ (2013, Bangla) was produced under the banner of Shree Venkatesh Films Pvt Ltd and was directed by Aparna Sen. The main cast included Maushumi Chatterjee, Konkona Sen Sharma, Saswata Chatterjee, Srabanti Chatterjee, Paran Banerjee, Pijush Ganguly, Aparajita Adhya, Manasi Sinha etc. The film’s story was adapted from the novel of the same name and a short story ‘Rashmonir Sonadana’ both written by Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay, a well-known Sahitya Akademy Award winner Bangla laureate.
In an interview with the Times of India sometime in 2012, Aparna Sen had revealed that she had read the story for the first time in 1993 and immediately decided to make a film on it. However, she could not get the right type of the film production house to finance the film. It took nearly 20 years to find the right film production house by which time, she had become a kind of celebrity film directors of art/parallel films.
The story of the film is as under:
Chandranath (Paran Banerjee) the patriarch of Mitra joint family was once landlord in East Bengal. After partition, the entire family migrates to West Bengal side. The Mitra family stays in a big 3-story house. Being from the family of landlord, none of the menfolk has worked for a living. Obviously, Chandranath’s two sons – Chandan (Saswata Chatterjee) and Chanchal (Pijush Ganguly) pass their time fishing in the pond near their house and visiting their respective courtesans in the evenings.
In the house, the 70-year old aunt, Pishima (Maushumi Chatterjee) who got married at 11 and became widow at 12 in Faridkot, has been deprived of all worldly pleasure, conjugal relationship and good food. She finds solace in her jewellery box containing 5 kgs of gold jewelleries as a part of her ‘streedhan’. Chandranath’s younger son, Chandan gets married to Somlata (Konkona Sen Sharma), a poor girl from an adjoining village. The family’s financial condition can be judged from the fact that the expenses for the wedding are paid off by selling an old Burma teak-wood double bed and an expensive carpet. All the members of Mitra family are afraid of Pishima because of her authoritative and cursing voice. Also no one in the family wants to be in the bad book of Pishima as she holds the jewellery box which the family can inherit once she dies.
One day, Somlata on a visit to Pishima’s room, finds her dead. Knowing fully well that once she dies, her gold jewellery would be sold over time for the family’s sustenance, Pishima turns ghost and entrusts the jewellery box to Somlata with a condition that she should safely keep it in a secret place without any family members knowing it including her husband. Now, the box has been handed over to the second generation. After the death of Pishima, the family members search for the jewellery box but in vain. They also call the police in case the box has been stolen but again police fail to find out the box.
None of the family members can see the hukka smoking Pishima’s ghost except Somlata to whom she bullies just to make sure that her jewellery box is not misused by her. However, due to adverse financial condition of the family, Somlata looks the gold jewelleries as a means of raising capital for her husband to set up a saree shop. For this purpose, she pledges one of the gold ornaments and convince Pishima that once the business earns profit, she would get the jewellery back in the box. Over a period of time, the fortunes of Mitra family improve enabling Somlata not only to get back the pledged ornament but also some of the antiques of the house which the family had sold for their sustenance.
Somlata gives birth to a daughter who grows up to become a college going Chaitali (Srabanti Chatterjee). One day, Somlata shows all the ornaments in the jewellery box to Chaitali who evinces no interest in the ornaments as they are all old style. Besides, she has no interest in wearing gold ornaments. Chaitali has an affair with a boy who is involved in supporting the underground movements in East Pakistan. On the advice of Pishima’s ghost, Chaitali donates all the ornaments to support the underground movements for an independent Bangla Desh. The film ends with a poem recitation-cum-song when the ghost of Pishima merges with the fog over the river.
Maushumi Chatterjee in the role of Pishima – both live and as a ghost, has given a lively performance. Generally, the role of a ghost should bring horror situations. But in this film, Maushumi Chatterjee in the role of ghost, brings comic situations in the film like her hukka smoking, her bullying tactics, the sarcastic comments on the family members, her suggestion to Somlata that like her husband, she should also have an extra-marital affair etc. Probably, the Bangla audience would enjoy more fun from her dialogues which have to be in East Bengali dialect due to her role being a native of Faridkot.
Konkona Sen Sharma as Somlata, the new daughter-in-law, has a contrasting role vis-à-vis Maushumi Chatterjee. She is so scared with the presence of Pishima in the house that she starts stammering. It is much later that a positive bonding develops between Pishima and Somlata. Both of them have a major presence in the film. The superlative performances of Konkona Sen Sharma as well as Maushumi Chatterjee in the film got them Filmfare Awards for the best actress and the best supporting actress, respectively in Bangla film category.
The coverage of the third generation in the film seems to be too rushed up. It gives an impression that the Aparna Sen was in a great hurry to finish the film. Probably, the film had become too long for a non-mainstream category and she therefore may have edited out some sequences from this part of the film.
It is interesting to note that Aparna Sen’s ‘Goynar Baksho’ (2013) was released, on April 12, 2013. After a week, Vishal Bhardwaj’s ‘Ek Thhi Daayan’ (2013) was released. In both these ‘ghost’ films, Konkona Sen Sharma acted. The story of ‘Ek Thhi Daayan’ (2013) was written by Mukul Sharma, the father of Konkona Sen Sharma and the ex-husband of Aparna Sen.
‘Goynar Boksho’ (2013) has 8 songs of which one song is in Hindi. It is interesting to watch a short Bengali rap song which is sung when some distant relatives of Chandranath visits Chandan’s saree shop to buy sarees for their daughter’s baby shower. The lyrics of the rap song mostly use various names of the sarees. The rap song was rendered by all the actors involved in the scene. All the songs were set to music by Debijyoti Mishra who was the chief assistant to Salil Chowdhury for 14 years and for Ilaiyaraja for 2 years.
I am presenting the Hindi song ‘sakhi ri saawan bhaawat naahi’ which is a ‘biraha’ song rendered by Shubha Mudgal in a Dadra format. The lyricist of the song is not mentioned. As with most of the songs in the film which is played in the background in driblets interspersed with dialogues, this ‘biraha’ song also follows the same pattern in the film. So, it is better to listen to the song on the audio clip for getting its seamless rendering.
This is a sublime song using the minimum musical instruments to give prominence to the singer’s voice. In the film, the song plays in the background when Somlata, on the instigation from the ghost of Pishima, is about to get involved with an extra-marital affair when her husband is away on a long tour.
Audio Clip:
Song-Sakhi ree saawan bhaawat naahin (Goynor Boksho)(Bangla)(2013) Singer-Shubha Mudgal, MD-Debijyoti Mishra
Chorus
Shubha Mudgal + chorus
Lyrics
sakhi ri…eeeee
saawan bhaawat naahi..eeeee ee
sakhi ri…eeeee ee eee
haan saawan bhaawat naahi..eeee
bijuri chamkat dar laagat hai
soona..aaaaa aa aa
soona
soona ghar laagat hai
kaun oar gaye peerahwa
kauno bataawat naahi.eee
bataawat naa..hi
saawan bhaawat naahi..ee
saawan bhaawat naahi
saawan bhaawat naahi..ee
saawan bhaawat naahi..ee
aaaaaaaaaaaa aaa
boondiya barsat aangan aangan
mann su….khaa
aa aa aaa
mann soo….kha bin tere saajan
saawan jaihyen baar phir aihyen….en en
gaile joban phir aawat naahin
sakhi ri..ee
saawan jaihen baar phir aihen….en
aa aa aaa
saawan jaihen baar phir aihen….en
gaile joban phir aawat naahi..ee ee
sakhi ri ..eeee
saawan bhaawat naahin
sakhi ri…eeee ee ee
saawan bhaawat naahi…eeeee
saawan bhaawat naahin
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
July 23, 2021 at 10:07 pm
Sadanand Ji,
Thanks for introducing fil ‘Goynar Boksho’. Have put it in my ‘to watch’ list.
The song is certainly highly appealing. It reminded me of ‘Mathura nagarpati’ also by Shubha Mudgal from ‘Rain coat’
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July 24, 2021 at 8:15 am
Satish ji,
Thank you.
I had heard the songs from ‘Raincoat’ many years back, This song as well as a couple of more songs in this film were melodious but remained under-rated.
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