Koi kaise unhen ye samjhaaye
Posted on: March 31, 2023
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.
|
Blog Day : |
5369 | Post No. : | 17607 | Movie Count : |
4734 |
For more than a month, I have been coming across short videos (mostly of less than 30 seconds) of a song ‘jaane balma ghode pe kyun sawaar hai’ with young boys lip syncing the song. In some tik tok videos, I have also seen some girls and boys enacting scenes with the song in their own ways. I was attracted to the song as it gave retro vibes of Hindi film music. So, I checked on video sharing platforms as to whether it is filmy or non-filmy song. The song turned out to be from the film ‘Qala’ (2022) which was released on Netflix on December 01, 2022. I also heard the remaining songs from the film which also gave me the same retro feeling.
I read an interesting article on the film which mentioned the similarities in the life of the ghazal singer and a child prodigy, Master Madan and that of the character of Jagan (Babil Khan) in the film. This prompted me to watch the film. Obviously, the film was not available for viewing on the video sharing platforms. So, I watched the film on Netflix..
‘Qala’ (2022) was produced by Karnesh Sharma and was directed by Anvita Dutt. The main actors in the film were Tripti Dimri, Swastika Mukherjee, Babil Khan (son of the late Irrfan Khan) with the supporting cast of Amit Sial, Sameer Kochhar, Girija Oak, Varun Grover, Tasveer Kamil, Anushka Sharma (in a cameo role) and many more. The film is a period family drama with psychological elements.
The film’s story is narrated in many layers of flashbacks. So, I have given the gist of the story as they appear in the film in sequential order.
Qala (Tripti Dimri) wins the Golden Vinyl award for her most popular song. This is followed by a press conference in Kolkata where she is based. One of the journalists asked Qala what happened to her brother who was to be launched by her mother. After some agitation, Qala says that she has no brother as she was the only child. (Actually, journalist was referring to Jagan (Babil Khan) whom Qala’s mother had adopted him to groom as a classical singer).
In a flashback, her mother Urmila (Swastika Mukherjee), a thumri singer, delivers twin, a boy, and a girl at her home in Shimla. However, the boy dies. Urmila is very sad that the boy did not survive but the girl survived. Qala grows up and Urmila decides to teach her Hindustani classical music as a boy to carry forward the family tradition. Ultimately, it is Urmila’s desire to make Qala a great classical singer to get the honour of becoming a ‘Pandit’ rather than a ‘Bai’.
Again, the story goes in the present mode where Qala in Kolkata gets up in the morning to see her photograph with Golden Vinyl award in a newspaper. But it would have pleased Qala more if her mother telephoned her to get the appreciation. But this does not happen, and she gets depressed. Qala goes for a photoshoot during which she suffers from hallucination and sees Jagan who tells her that whatever fame she has got belongs to him. Her secretary, Sudha (Girija Oak) gets worried, and she calls a doctor. He sees no medical problem with Qala and suggests her to take a break and relax.
The story goes again in flashback mode where Urmila is scolding Qala for her poor riyaaz as she has her maiden vocal performance in front of a Ustad after 3 days. The day comes and both mother and daughter go to Solon where the concert is arranged. In the concert, there is one more boy who is also getting opportunity to sing. His name is Jagan. Both Qala and Jagan give their solo vocal recitals during which Urmila is impressed by Jagan’s performance. Qala becomes sad as she did not get such appreciation from her mother. After the performance, Urmila calls Jagan when she comes to know that he is staying in an orphanage in Solon. Judging his potential as a singer, Urmila offers him to teach Hindustani classical music and ask him to shift to her place. This is not liked by Qala as she thinks that her mother is sidelining her.
Jagan tries to be friendly with Qala and suggests that both do the riyaaz together, which she rejects. All the actions of Urmila give Qala a feeling that her mother is promoting Jagan over her own daughter. Slowly, jealousy is born in the mind of Qala towards Jagan. During the same period, Urmila is trying to fix the marriage of Qala with an Air Force Officer so that after her marriage, Urmila can fully concentrate on Jagan in promoting him as a singer.
Urmila hosts a party and invites several influential people including Chandan Lal Sanyal (Sameer Kochhar), an influential and popular film singer. Urmila has instructed Qala to play tanpura for Jagan who is to sing in the party. This is not liked by Qala as she herself is a singer. Just before the party, Qala gives a glass of milk to Jagan which he drinks. During the singing, Jagan falls sick due to bouts of coughing which prompts Urmila to take him to a room. To fill the gap, Qala sings which impresses the guests.
Jagan continues to be sick, and he has almost lost his voice. His fever is not receding. Urmila takes care of him and Qala feels neglected by her mother. Sumant Kumar, a music director, visits Urmila’s house to fix the time for recording the debut song of Jagan. Finding him sick, Sumant Kumar promises Urmila that he would wait till Jagan is fit as he wants his first song to be recorded under his music direction. Qala hears this conversation and feels jealous. She decides to get a chance to record the song under Sumant Kumar by seducing him and she succeeds. In the same night, a depressed Jagan commits suicide by hanging on a tree branch in the vicinity of Urmila’s house. Urmila is devastated as her dream of making Jagan as ‘Pandit’ is shattered.
The next day, Qala informs her mother that she has to leave for Kolkata to record a film song. There is a heated arguments between the two as her mother feels that she would become ’Bai’. She forbids Qala from coming back to their house if she goes ahead with the recording in Kolkata.
Qala leaves for Kolkata to record the film song. Her mental state and the nervousness affect her recording. It is only when she could not sing properly even on the 11th takes, Sumant Kumar decides to cancel the recording. Qala asks for a last chance which she gets after she provides sexual favour to Sumant Kumar. This time her recording is successful as she is reminded of Jagan’s philosophy that a singer should sing for his own pleasure.
This song gives Qala the immense popularity and she becomes one of the most sought after singers. In one of her interviews, while journalists are asking her questions, she suffers from hallucination and sees Jagan in her vision and starts conversations with him. This conversation gets recorded by journalist which was heard by Urmila on the radio. This gives Urmila a doubt whether Qala is responsible for the death of Jagan.
Qala’s mental health deteriorates. While recording a song, she suffers from hallucination forcing the cancellation of recording. Qala attempts suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She is saved. The doctor calls her mother and informs her of Qala’s suicide attempt. Urmila comes to Kolkata and finds that she has committed suicide by hanging in her bedroom. The film ends with Urmila taking Qala’s dead body on her lap with ‘amma puchh di sun dhiye meriye’, a folk song of Himachal Pradesh, playing in the background.
The two most important thing to learn from this film are (i) never breaks communication with near and dear ones, especially with those having mental health issues, and (ii) parents/teachers should give the equal treatment their wards irrespective of their gender.
The honour for the top performance in the film goes to Tripti Dimri for her difficult role of a singer with psychometric problems. She effectively depicts the emotions with her body movements and the facial expression. Next in honour is Swatika Mukherjee in the role of a dominating mother with bias towards patriarchy. Babil Khan has done well in his debut film. His one scene which caught my attention is the facial expression of his helplessness and disappointment when he is holding tanpura for riyaaz but he has lost his voice. In some camera angles, he has the look of his father, Irrfan Khan. In addition, credit must go to the Art Director and the Costume Designer to create a rich and ‘true to the life’ ambivalence of retro period.
Director, Anvita Dutt’s visualization of the story has some streak of the parallel cinema. She has used symbolism very effectively. For instance, when Qala finds Jagan’s dead body hanging on a tree, she hug him tightly with her face showing deep regret. Probably, she did not expect that her jealousy would result in his death. In the same scene, Urmila is seen holding the dead body of Jagan in her lap symbolising that she has once again lost a son.
‘Qala’ (2022) has six songs which are in sync with the golden period of Hindi film music as the film’s story is set in that period. Songs are written by Sant Kabir (2), Amitabh Bhattacharya (1), Varun Grover (1), Kausar Munir (1) and Swanand Kirkire (1). The songs are set to music by Amit Trivedi except for one Kabir song by Sagar Desai. In keeping with the story setting of 1940s, music director, Amit Trivedi has avoided electronic musical instruments and mostly used Accordion, Dholak, Tabla, Violin, Sitar, Rabab etc. All the six songs are inseparable part of the film.
I am presenting the first song from the film, ‘Qala’ (2022) which has become viral on social media. The song is ‘jaane balma ghode pe kyun sawaar hai’ sung by Sireesha Bhagavatula. The song is written by Amitabh Bhattacharya and is set to music by Amit Trivedi. Lyrics of the song give an impression of a teasing cum preaching song. But the song has a deep meaning that falling in love is not a T-20 cricket match but a Test Match where patient is required.
With this song, Sireesha Bhagavatula has become the internet sensation. She hails from Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, born to a musically inclined parents. She is a gold medalist in her engineering graduation and worked in an IT company before she took playback singing as her professional career. She participated in Indian Idol Season 12 which gave her opportunity to meet eminent music directors. A R Rahman gave her the first break as a playback singer in a Tamil film in 2019. Later, she did playback singing for some more Tamil and Telugu films. ‘Qala’ (2022) is her debut Hindi film as a playback singer in which she renders 3 songs.
The song under discussion appears in the film on two different frames. The first, at the time of the recording of the song during which only the mukhda is played. The background to this scene is that due to her mental condition and nervousness, Qala (Tripti Dimri) gets the song okayed only after 11 retakes. The song appears in the film for the second time as a part of the song picturization on Devika (Anushka Sharma) of a film produced by Rai. (The hint is that Rai could be Himanshu Rai and Devika could be Devika Rani, both of Bombay Talkies). Unfortunately, the video clip of the song does not contain this part. It is interesting to note that Majrooh (Varun Grover) is the name of the character doing the role of a song writer for this song.
In a TV interview on the eve of the release of audio album of the film, Amit Trivedi revealed that this song was recorded along with musicians playing simultaneously as was being done in 1940s. So, any one of the musicians or the singer doing wrong would have resulted in retake of the full song afresh.
The overwhelming responses for this song before and after the release of the film proves that the Hindi film music of the golden period is still popular among the current generation of the 21st century.
Audio Clip (Full Song):
Video Clip (Partial Song):
Song-Koi kaise unhen ye samjhaaye (Qala)(2022) Singer-Sireesha Bhagavatula, Lyrics-Amitabh Bhattacharya, MD-Amit Trivedi
Lyrics (Based on Audio Clip)
koyi kaise unhen ye samjhaaye
sajaniya ke mann mein abhi inkaar hai
jaane balma ghode pe kyun sawaar hai ae
jaane balma ghode pe kyun sawaar hai
dheere dheere jatan karne se
dulhaniya ke khulte hriday ke dwaar hai
jaane balma ghode pe kyun sawaar hai ae
jaane balma ghode pe kyun sawaar hai
ho o o
ho o o
ho o o
baalon mein badh ke gajra lagaana
nazdeek aane kaa hai bahaana
sab jaan ke bhi chhaliya ke chhal se
mushkil hai bach paana
ho..o..o ankhiyon se thhag ke
bharna woh jaane
batiyon se zurmana
haan jo main tokoon
kaha na mera maane
bhavon ko aise taane
bahas bekaar hai
jaane balma ghode pe kyun sawaar hai
jaane balma ghode pe kyun sawaar hai
koyi kaise unhen ye samjhaaye
sajaniya ke mann mein abhi inkaar hai
jaane balma ghode pe kyun sawaar hai
jaane balma ghode pe kyun sawaar hai
ha aa aa aaa
ha aa aa aaa
ha aa aa aa aa
ha aa aa aa aa
la la la la ra la ra laa
la ra laa
ha aa aa aa aaaaaaaaa
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
March 31, 2023 at 1:48 pm
Waah !!!
That is what was my first reaction in the morning when I saw the title of the post.
Many many thanks for bringing this song here. I am more than Happy to see this post here today. I wished to see this song on the blog.
I have yet to watch this movie. So, I read the post except it’s story 🙂 I will comeback to it again after watching this movie.
Thanks for the other details and information.
Regards,
LikeLike
March 31, 2023 at 6:30 pm
Avinash ji,
Thanks for your feed back.
LikeLike