Bharee dupahree kaamini iklee duklee mat jaaye
Posted on: June 24, 2023
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, 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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Today’s song is from an 82 year old film, ” Charnon ki Dasi” (1941).
The film was made in Marathi (पायाची दासी ) and Hindi simultaneously, by Atre Pictures, Bombay.
The owner of the banner was Acharya Prahlad Keshav Atre, a famous name in Maharashtra later on as a Producer, Director, Studio owner, Writer, Lyricist, Dramatist, Novelist, a great Teacher, a journalist,a Newspaper owner, a well known public speaker and a popular leader and M.P., who successfully led the “Samyukta Maharashtra” agitation at the end of the decade of 1950’s.
The film was directed by Gajanan Jagirdar, B.A;- a famous actor and director of that time. The cast of the film was Durga Khote, Vanmala B.A., B.T., Gajanan Jagirdar, Master Avinash, Kusum Deshpande and many others. The 8 songs of this film were written by Pt. Anand Kumar and the Music Director was Annasaheb Mainkar – a well known Classical Music Teacher. In the Hindi film industry Music field, there were only three people who were called ” Anna Saheb”. One was Annasaheb Mainkar, the other was K.Datta aka Datta Korgaonkar and the third was C.Ramchandra aka Ramchandra Narhar Chitalkar.
These were the times when people from good, respectable families and highly educated persons were still a rarity and a welcome matter for films. Director Nanubhai Vakil who was really a B.A., LL.B and Dr. S.D. Narang who was B.Sc.,M.B.B.S., Ph.D were among the highly educated in the industry at one time. In those days, therefore, educated people used to flaunt their degrees and insisted on inclusion in the film credits. Like the Producer Acharya Atre, the film’s Heroine Vanmala was also B.A. B.T.
The lure of the films was so great that from the time Talkie films started, it attracted many famous and expert musicians of the Vocal and instrumental variety. In the early period, it was almost an unwritten rule to have a film’s Music Director with a classical background. Many were dragged into films and many came on their own.
Thus you had experts like Pransukh Nayak, Govindrao Tembe, Keshavrao Bhole, Ustad Zande Khan, Meer sahib, Annasaheb Mainkar, Dada Chandekar, Ustad Mushtaq Hussain, Firoze Dastoor, Suresh babu Mane, Heerabai Badodekar, Manik Verma, Saraswati Rane, Master Krishnarao, Shridhar Parsekar, Pt.Ganpat Rao, Pt.Jagannath Prasad and many others who made their contributions to film music.
During the subsequent periods, some more like Ghantasala, Pt. Amarnath (of Garam coat), Pt.Motiram, Shankarrao Vyas, Prabhakar Jog, Ustad Amir Ali, ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Bhaskar Chandavarkar, Shobha Gurtu, Kishori Amonkar, Sharang Dev, Ustad Dilawar Khan, Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan, Balmurli Krishna etc also made their presence felt in the Film music.
Not only Classical Vocalists, but also some famous Instrumentalists like Bismilla Khan, Pannalal Ghosh, Pt.Ravi Shankar,Ram Prasad, Ali Akbar Khan, Hariprasad Chaurasiya, Pt.Shivkumar Sharma, ustad Vilayat Khan etc also contributed to HFM.
Like Musicians, stage actors too were attraction towards films and many of the famous and not so famous stage artistes vied with each other to get into films. Stage dramas were very popular in Maharashtra, and Bombay being the major film centre, it was natural that many Marathi stage actors came into Marathi and Hindi films. The problem was speaking Hindi dialogues. Many Marathi artistes could not pass this test and those who did pass, had a tough time speaking long Hindi dialogues. Thus very few stage artistes remained in the film industry. Popular stage actors like Master Deenanath Mangeshkar, Nanasaheb Phatak, Master Avinash or even the famous Bal Gandharva tried their hand at films, but none could sustain their careers in the Hindi films, for whatever reasons-mainly diction problem, I guess.
One of these popular stage artistes was Master Avinash. Ganpatrao Laxmanrao Mohite aka Master Avinash was also a tall figure in Natya Sangeet. Master Avinash (1909-2009) was trained in music by Deenanath Mangeshkar and was trained in acting by Chintamanrao Kolhatkar- a great Marathi stage actor.
Avinash was one of those, who were with Balwant Sangeet Mandali, since its inception in 1918. This drama company was established by Master Deenanath Mangeshkar along with Chintamanrao Kolhatkar and Krishnarao Kolhapure. From the beginning, Avinash used to do female roles and his name was taken along with Bal Gandharva, in this respect. Due to his singing skill, he was quite a popular actor on the stage. Several of his Natya Geet records came into the market and sold very well.
Master Avinash was simply ”Ganu Mama” to the Mangeshkar family. Though the patriarch of the Mangeshkar family expired in 1942, Avinash survived almost 70 years (67 to be exact) after him. They were very close, hence a respected person for the M-family. He could, till his end, tell them his experiences with Deenanath and many others of that era. He taught some songs to baby Lata, when she was so small. Surprisingly, till he died in 2009, at the age of 101, his memory and health was very good.
He acted in most dramas written by Acharya Atre (P.K.Atre of Navyug Films and Atre Pictures) as well as all his Marathi films. However, Avinash worked only in one Hindi film-Charnon ki Dasi-41, which was a remake of Marathi film, Paayachi Daasi. By the time he appeared in this film in 1941, his singing and acting style was becoming outdated, for the Hindi audience. New styles of Music and young new actors had entered Hindi films. In any case, he was very successful on the Marathi stage, so he did not bother to work in Hindi films.
As per an article on him, in The Times of India of 16-5-2002, he was a good cricketer, a wrestler, actor, singer and Music Director. Daily exercises must have kept him going healthy till the last. He remembered many anecdotes of old times, actors and especially of Deenanath Mangeshkar. He had a good collection of old photos and cuttings to show to the TOI reporter, who took his interview. In most Marathi films, he worked as a Hero opposite Vanmala. In the film Charnon ki Dasi also they were the lead pair. Acharya Atre gave him the name Avinash for the stage. His popularity made his name a rage and many new born children were given his name in those years.
This was a social film, stressing the need for the cordial relationship between the Daughter in law and the Mother in law. In simpler words, the story was about the “Saas- Bahu” conflict. The story was……
The story of the film was a typical Marathi reform social film consisting of the age-old friction of ”Saas-Bahu“. Durga Khote was the evil mother in law, who tortures the educated daughter in law-Vidya (Vanmala), with husband Murari (Avinash) protesting meekly. After the interval and towards the last part, the husband decides to be tough with his mother and the shocked saas surrenders and makes the Bahu head of the affairs. However, true to the middle class philosophy, the good Bahu returns the honour to the Saas and requests her to continue as family head ( minus the torture part, obviously), gives a very big speech and all is well in the end. The spice was added by the widowed Nanad- Champa (Kusum Deshpande). Gajanan Jahagirdar played Anokheram, the village scoundrel flirt, who is duly punished by the bahu, in the end.
The film’s lead pair- Master Avinash and Vanmala acted in several stage dramas and Marathi films together and individually. Vanmala had a Royal connection. Vanmala was one of those actresses, who not only came from a very respectable Royal family, but was also a highly educated person. In those days, these two things were valued highly. Veteran Marathi and Hindi actress Vanamala will always be associated with her roles in the landmark films, Sikandar (1941) opposite Prithviraj Kapoor and in particular the title role in Shyamchi Aai (1953), the first film ever to win the Best Film Award when the National Awards were instituted for Indian Cinema in 1954.
Vanamala was born as Susheela Devi Pawar on 23-5- 1915. Her father Lt.Col. Rao Bahadur Bapu Rao Pawar was a Minister in Gwalior state. Vanmala grew up in the Royal palace with Princess Kamla Devi. Vanmala graduated from Agra University in 1935 and did her B.T. from Bombay University in 1937.
At 21, Vanmala Devi, was a double graduate and a teacher in the progressive Agarkar High School of Poona. She felt she had a mission in life. Did she find what she was seeking? It is anybody’s guess but teaching was her first try and then she went on to films to find expression for her irrepressible talent.
There was a wrench. Vanrnala tore herself away from the forbidding regulations of a traditional Maratha family ruled by her father and the devotional orthodoxy handed down to her by her mother along with a love for nature and literature. Vanmala sought to reconcile the irreconcilables with the firm belief that, down the ages, all expressions of art in India were developed and presented by way of a sacred duty.
That was why, when necessary, she did not hesitate to turn her back on lucrative film assignments to appear on the Marathi stage. In fact, she worked for the building fund of the Marathi Sahitya Sangh at Bombay. Her lead role in the Marathi version of Oscar Wilde’s ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’ (शोभेचा पंखा), written by Prof. V.H.Kulkarni, is memorable. That was in the early forties.
She began her career in the late 1930s following her graduation and having become a teacher in Pune’s Camp Education Society. Vanamala entered films at a time when it was considered taboo for women from respectable families to work in films though women like Devika Rani and Durga Khote had started working in films by then. It was V.Shantaram who encouraged her to come into the film industry as an actress. Her first film was a Marathi film “Lapandav”. Principal Acharya Atre became very friendly with her and brought her to Hindi films. Vanmala had unusual Brown eyes. In those days, the Hindi film industry had only two actresses with Brown eyes. One was Vanmala and the other was Ragini, who migrated to Pakistan, after partition.
Prithviraj used to call her Diana the Moon Goddess. The lyrical Pahari Sanyal used to call her “Mala”. Motilal was more down to earth and called her just plain “Bright Eyes”. In fact, it was her eyes that got her the role of Rukhsana and it put her in the front rank of Indian film stars with the success of “Sikandar”. It was one of the early successes of Minerva Movietone and it has made film history in India.
Vanamala acted in both Hindi and Marathi Cinema. Among her Hindi films, Vanamala will always be best remembered for Sohrab Modi’s historical Sikandar and Sharbati Ankhen (1945), directed by Ramchandra Thakur for Wadia Movietone. In the former she played Alexander the Great’s love interest, a Persian woman, Rukhsana, who fearing for Alexander’s life extracted a promise from Porus that he will not harm Sikandar. Vanamala made a major impact in her role, her beauty coupled with her light-coloured lively eyes taking the audience’s breath away. The film itself was a spectacle – its lavish mounting, huge sets and production values equalling the best of Hollywood then particularly its rousing and spectacular battle scenes. It was rated by a British writer as, “…well up to the standard of that old masterpiece The Birth of a Nation.”
The eyes that got Vanmala Devi the lead role of Ruksana in “Sikandar” would be “disowned” in her next picture. In “Parbat Pe Apna Dera”, Vanmala Devi played the role of a blind girl with great effect. First Ulhas was seen, stick in hand, or rather his legs and the lower part of the stick. Then came Vanmala’s dainty feet taking each cautious step. Finally, the camera turned upwards to feature her full figure. She later said that she was so involved with the role that she actually felt blinded. Once, she had to blink her eyes before she could focus them and look at V. Shantaram who was trying to draw her attention.
In Sharbati Ankhen, her Brown eyes were again used to mesmerising effect, the film so aptly titled one feels, after her! The film has some of the earliest songs sung by Mohammed Rafi in his career including “Pyaar Karna hi Padega” and “Bahut Mukhtasar Hai Humari Kahani”. The music for the film was done by Feroz Nizami who went on to compose unforgettable music in a hat-trick of films with the great Noor Jehan (Jugnu (1947) in India and Chan Wey (Punjabi) (1951) and Dopatta (1952) in Pakistan).
However, the one role that undoubtedly immortalized Vanamala forever was the title role in the National Award winning Marathi film, Shyam chi Aai-1953, directed by PK Atre. The film, regarded as a cult classic today, is based on one of the most influential Marathi novels of the 20th century (1935), a fictionalised account of the childhood years of Sane Guruji (1899 – 1950).
A nationalist influenced by Vinoba Bhave and especially Gandhiji, he was imprisoned repeatedly for his work among the peasantry and participation in the Quit India agitations. His book Shyamchi Aai, written in jail, has 45 episodes in which Shyam, a youth living in poverty in Konkan, recalls the teachings of his mother, a devoutly religious person with an earthy and practical philosophy. The hit film has remained a generic landmark in Marathi Cinema and especially so for Vanamala’s maternal prototype. Actor Madhav Vaze, who played the role of her son Shyam in Shyamchi Aai, recalls Vanamala as a woman of few words. “Her actions spoke for her. She was well-educated and a cultured woman who belonged to a noble family from Gwalior,” he said.
Some other films that Vanamala acted in include Payachi Dasi (Marathi)/ Charnon ki Dasi (Hindi) (1941), Vasantasena (1942), Dil ki Baat (1944), Hatim Tai (1947), Beete Din (1947) and Shree Ram Bharat Milap (1965). In all, she did 25 Hindi films. She sang 24 songs in 5 films in her career. For some time she was a partner in Atre pictures also. She produced the film Bramhan Kanya aka Khandani-1947.
Eventually she did build a bungalow at Khandala and rented out a flat by the sea in Bombay which she furnished with taste and equipped with a selective library. But that still didn’t make a “home”. The nearest she got to it could be when she settled down in Gwalior to look after her ailing father. Perhaps, she had almost arrived at a “home” when she bought over a studio and became the first woman to own one.
The supposedly demure Vanamala was a staunch nationalist and was deeply involved in the freedom movement along with stalwarts like Aruna Asaf Ali and Achyut Patwardhan. She was deeply involved in several social causes and was a member of the Chhatrapati Shivaji National Memorial Committee. She also ran a school to train children in traditional Indian arts and culture, The Haridas Kala Sansthan.
Vanmala Devi’s retirement from films was no surprise to her friends. She had realized that the crusading zeal and aesthetic values of the pioneering days were giving place to new norms of success. She found that filmdom could not afford her the avenue for expression which she wanted— or needed. She sublimated all her yearnings for expression in the worship of Lord Krishna at Vrindavan and later in the service of her father.
Vanamala who had been suffering from cancer, passed away in Gwalior on May 29, 2007.
( This article is based on information taken from an article in Upperstall, an article by Sumati Dhanawate- Vanmala’s sister, The Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, Beete kal ke sitare, Marathi Cinema in Retrospect and my notes. Thanks to all.)
Today’s song is the third song from this film to feature here. It is a duet sung by Master Avinash and Vanmala, in a typical stage drama style. Enjoy….
Note: It has been pointed out by Sadanand Kamath jee and confirmed by Girdharilal Vishwakarma jee that the female playback singer is Saraswati Rane, even though the record contains the name of Vanmala.
Song- Bhari dupahari kaamini ikli dukli mat jaaye (Charnon Ki Daasi)(1941) Singers- Master Avinash, Vanmala Saraswati Rane, Lyricist- Pt.Anand Kumar, MD- Annasaheb Mainkar
Both
Lyrics
Bhari dupahari kaamini
ikli dukli mat jaaye
Bhari dupahari kaamini
ikli dukli mat jaaye
ikli mat jaaye
mat jaaye
mat jaaye
ikli mat jaaye
mat jaaye
mat jaaye
baat batohi
roz ki
mohe mat tadpaaye
baat batohi roz ki mohe mat tadpaaye
peti pe matki chhabdi(?) haath
peti pe matki chhabdi (?) haath
aaya paseena gore gaat
aaya paseena gore gaat
kaachi chunariya jaamni re
rang ghul ghul ghul ghul jaaye
kaachi chunariya jaamni re
rang ghul ghul ghul ghul jaaye
chunri ka rang mera gahra chhana
aur gaadha ghana
mere rang mein paseena ro mil ke hina
aaho mil ke hina
rang anokha pyaara sa
ghul ke mil ke rang laal
rang anokha pyaara sa ghul
ke mil ke rang laal
rang kiska chadha tohpe kaamini
rang kiska chadha tohpe kaamini
tera kaun dhani
mera tu hi dhani
kaahko ghahri chhani
tohko gahri chhani
rang anokha pyaara sa
ghul ke mil ke rang laal
rang anokha pyaara sa
ghul ke mil ke rang laal
Bhari dupahari kaamini
ikli dukli mat jaaye
7 Responses to "Bharee dupahree kaamini iklee duklee mat jaaye"
June 24, 2023 at 9:53 am
Read this article almost in one go. And after a small break listened to the song. 🙂
Thanks for this article with so much information about P.K.Atre, Master Avinash, Vanmala and Sane guruji.
Thanks for enriching us with this valuable information.
Regards,
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June 24, 2023 at 8:38 pm
Arun ji and Atul ji,
A couple of hours back, I had sent an e-mail to Girdharilal Vishwakarma ji about the playback singer of the song under discussion.
He has just now confirmed that the playback singer is Saraswati Rane.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
June 24, 2023 at 9:08 am
Atul ji and Arun ji,
The female singer in the song under discussion is Saraswati Rane. Please compare her voice in the equivalent song in the Marathi version of the film, ‘Paayachi Daasi’ (1941).
Audio clip link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXeS6sIWSpQ
I strongly feel that Saraswati Rane gave playback to all the songs ascribed to Vanmala in ‘Charnon Ki Daasi’ (1941).
Incidentally, ‘Charnon Ki Daasi’/’Paayachi Daasi’ (1941) was Saraswati Rane’s first film as a playback singer.
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June 24, 2023 at 12:03 pm
Sadanand ji,
The names of singers on the record are Vanmala and Avinash.
I have sent the photo of the actual record to you on WA, as I was unable to put it here.
-AD
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June 24, 2023 at 12:11 pm
It is possible that Rane sang for Vanmala only in Marathi Films.
-AD
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June 24, 2023 at 1:19 pm
Arun ji,
Those days, the names of actors on whom the songs were picturised, used to appear on the 78 rpm record labels and not the actual playback singers. In this case, Master Avinash was a singer-actor but Vanmala was not.
Do compare the female voices on both the Marathi and Hindi versions. To me, they sounds the same.
In Parinde (1945), Parul Ghosh sang for Vanmala. I understand that on the record label, Vanmala’s name was published.
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