Chal dheerey dheerey dheerey
Posted on: August 16, 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 the film Aap ki Marzi aka As you please-(1939).
The Talkie era started with the beginning of the 1930s decade, i.e. in 1931. By 1939, it entered the last year of that decade. Within the first 9 years, the film industry had shed its skin several times before beginning a new phase in the 40’s. Most artistes of the early Talkie era were those who came over from the Silent films. Many such artistes ended their careers while the remaining ones began ending their careers. While all this happened there were new entrants with their own new styles of acting.
The system of Playback singing was getting settled. This had given a respite to the singing artistes from singing while shooting the scenes, which restricted their movements. This also saved a terrible balancing act for the Music instrument players who had to perform during shootings, taking care they did not show up in the camera range. Most importantly, now songs could be shot on the Non singing artistes too and songs could be shot on different locations as the artistes had to only lip synch and not actually sing the songs. This also opened up a new category of playback singers who were not acting in the films, paving way to singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Mohd. Rafi etc.
While all this was happening in the film industry, the world had plunged into the II World War from September 1939. It not only affected the entire world but also the Hindi film industry, as the Raw film used for shootings was imported. In due course restrictions were imposed on the quota allotments to studios under certain conditions. let us take a look at the film scene of the year 1939….
The year was 1939 and the British Government had declared war against Germany and Japan, as soon as the WW II began. All countries ruled by Britain were – willingly or unwillingly, drawn into the war efforts and its effects. The war began in the month of September and soon various restrictions came into operation – like rationing, blackouts, shortages etc. The film industry which was still under its development stage suffered. It also realised the importance of remaining united as one industry. However, all that came after 1 or 2 years. In 1939 there was not much effect seen on the film industry.
The industry had its own problems. In spite of the playback system in operation, their problem was that because there was no technique of recording from the film negative yet, the singers had to sing twice. Once for the actual film shooting of the song, and later, with the same set of orchestra, for commercial records. Sometimes, the original singer was not available due to any reason, some other singer had to sing for commercial records. Thus we have many such examples, where the singer in the film song and the record is different. However, this problem continued only till mid 50’s when the Tape and the required technique became available. With just one time recording, the film and commercial recording were taken care of.
Khemchand Prakash. K.Datta (Datta Koregaonkar), Rafiq Ghaznavi and Anupam Ghatak made their Debut as Music Directors. Kavi Pradeep wrote his first film song for film Kangan. In 1939, 2 most Unusual songs were presented, for the first time . One was a Multi-Lingual song from film Aadmi-39, a film by Prabhat….Kis liye kal ki baat. This song was in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bangla, Tamil and Telugu. ( In its Marathi film version-” माणूस “, this song was only in one language-Marathi.) Different Lyricists and MDs were used for each language. The song became very popular.
Second unusual song was from film ‘ Ghareeb ka Laal’-1939. The song lyrics had the names of 32 artistes, operating in Hindi films that time. Top Heroes and Heroines were mentioned in this song. The beginning of the song was ” Tuze Bibbo kahoon ya Sulochana, Uma shashi kahoon ki Jamuna “. This song was sung by the comedian Mirza Musharraf. In later years many songs with film artistes’ names came but none had so many names. Thus this record is still unbroken, in case of this song.
Besides these songs, let us quickly take a look at some films of 1939….
Aadmi – Prabhat’s hit film, a remake of the Marathi film ” माणूस “. It had some good songs by Shanta Hublikar, Sundarabai Jadhav and Ram Marathe.
Adhuri Kahani – a trend of Tragedy films set by the effect of film ‘Devdas’. All the 3 main characters of this film commit suicide in the end.
Badi Didi – A New Theatres film.
Brandy ki Botal – Master Vinayak’s comedy remake of Marathi film ‘ ब्रॅंडीची बाटली ‘.
Dil hi to hai – Debut of Kidar Sharma as a Director and Ramola as a Heroine in a Hindi film.
Dushman – New Theatres’ film of Saigal, with only his 4 songs.
Ek hi Raasta – Sagar presents first film with 3 Heroes in one film.
Ghazi Salauddin – Debut of Khemchand Prakash as M.D.
Hukum ka Ikka – First film with a Triple role by Umakant Desai ( who later specialised as Lakshman in 7 films, including Ramrajya-43).
Imaandaar – Debut of actress Shamim Akhtar.
India in Africa – This was the First Hindi film to be shot abroad (in Africa). The Hero B. Nandrekar had also gone to Africa for its shooting. Naaz-54 was not the first such film, though HFGK mentions it so.( Ref – pp 69, Maharashtra-The Birthplace of Indian cinema by Isak Mujawar)
Kangan – First of the 4 Hit films of Ashok kumar and Leela Chitnis, made by Bombay Talkies. Kavi Pradeep’s Debut as a Lyricist in this film.
Kapal kundala – New Theatres. Pankaj mullick’s hit song ‘ Piya milan ko jaana ‘.
Leather Face – Debut of Meena kumari as a child artiste.
Navjeevan – Debut of Hansa Wadkar as a Heroine- Bombay Talkies film.
Pukar – Hit film from Minerva Movietone. Naseem Bano sings ” Zindagi ka saaz bhi kya saaz hai….”
The film Aap ki marzi was made by Sudama Productions, Bombay and was directed by its owner Sarvottam Badami. MD was Gyan Dutt. The cast consisted of Sabita Devi, Motilal, Vasanti, Mazhar, Khurshid, Sunalini Devi, K.N.Singh, Jagdisha Sethi and others. The director was Sarvottam Badami-a well known name in those days to direct funny, comedy and hilarious movies. In his days, he was one of the most sought after directors.
The music was by the grand old man of HFM, Gyan Dutt. The lyricists were P L Santoshi, well known for light and comedy songs and S P Kalla.
The cast included Motilal as Sumant, Sabita Devi as Shashi, Majhar as Sir Bansilal and Govind lal, Khursheed as Manjiri, K.N.Singh, Sethi,Sunalini devi etc.
The story takes place in Bombay’s rich area Nepian Sea Road, where Seth Sir Bansilal stays with his wife-Susheela (sunalini devi) and niece Shashi .Bansilal is very fond of solving crossword puzzles and Shashi helps him. In one such contest, where he contested as an ordinary man Govindlal,he gets the second prize.The first prize is won by a handsome youngbut jobless man Sumant. The prize is a trip to Kashmir.
Bansilal’s wife sends Shashi with him to keep an eye on him and take his care. As Bansilal is going there as a common man Govindlal, they decide that Shashi and Govindlal will act as strangers in the hotel. Unknown to them, his wife has made arrangements for Bansilal in his real name in Shalimar Hotel, Kashmir.
All 3 persons arrive on the same day, First comes Sumant, who is mistaken as Sir Bansilal and given the best room and due respect etc. He gets confused but enjoys all this. Govindlal is given an ordinary room and Shashi takes a good room.
In the hotel, Shashi accidentally breaks some valuable pots Sumant is carrying and they start fighting. The hotel manager comes, pacifies them and tells Shashi not to trouble Sir Bansilal. Shashi is shocked. She goes to his room and says if you are Bansilal, I am your niece. They start fighting again. Govindlal comes and pacifies them .Sumant learns that he is the second winner and calls him for dinner. Shashi also forces herself on the dinner. Shashi and Sumant fall in love.
The film falls on usual song, dance understanding, misunderstanding and interference by the Hotel girl Manjiri sequences. Manjiri tries to blackmail Sumant to extract some money, but finally,Sir Bansilal discloses his identity and all is well at the end.
It was a very entertaining film. When I saw this film, the print was in terrible state and songs were not heard properly. I do not know if this film copy is still available.
The film had 11 songs by Gyan Dutt, Sabita Devi, Vasanti, and Khursheed.
There are two interesting names in the cast – Vasanti and Sunalini Devi. Vasanti Vinayakrao Ghorpade,was born on 23-3-1925 in Kolhapur. Her father’s sister Tanibai was a famous classical singer. Married to Bapusaheb Kagalkar,Tanibai was active in films till 1931 in Kolhapur.
Vasanti was trained by Pt. Vamanrao Sadolikar and Ustad Bamman Khan. V.Shantaram was her neighbour. He saw her and offered a role in films. She first acted in Dharmatma-35 as a child artist. Then came Amarjyoti-36 and Duniya na maane-37. Her songs in these films were popular. She left Prabhat in 1939 and joined Ranjit. She was so popular that she was called Shirley Temple of Hindi films.
She did Sant Tulsidas-(1939), Aapki Marzi-(1939), Musafir-(1940), Diwali-(1940), Achoot-(1940), Beti-(1941), Sukh Dukh-(1942), Bhaktaraj-(1943), Kurbani-(1943), Meena-(1944), Bhagya laxmi-(1944) and Bachhon ka Khel-(1946) also. She sang 56 songs in 14 films. She did not sing in BhagyaLaxmi-(1944) and Meena-(1944), but sang in Holi-(1940). Her last film was Bachhon ka khel-(1946),which was the first film of Meena Kumari, as an adult.
In 1944, during the shooting of film Bhagya Laxmi-(1944), she married the already married Indubhai Patel and settled in Bangalore. After husband’s death, she shifted to Hyderabad and lived there happily, with her 3 sons and a daughter. She died somewhere in the year 2005.
Our senior readers will know Sarojini Naidu’s name who was well known in the pre-independence era, but not many will know that her elder sister was Sunalini Devi-an actress and younger brother Harindranath Chatopadhyaya, an actor. Sunalini Devi, the actress, was born on 1-1-1896 in Hyderabad Deccan. Her father, Aghornath Chatopadhyay-a Bengali settled in Hyderabad – was a Sanskrit scholar, was proficient in 27 languages and was the first Indian to get the D.Sc. honour. Sunalini was the elder sister of Sarojini, who became Sarojini Naidu after her marriage, and Harindranath Chattopadhyay-renowned poet.
Sunalini learnt Music and Dance from her third year of age itself. Due to her sweet voice, she was called ‘ Kokila ‘. It is to be noted that her younger sister Saojini Naidu was called ‘ Nightingale of India’ ! It is unfortunate that the film industry did not use Sunalini’s music skill in her films and she sang just one song in her career in the film ‘ Raja Rani-(1942)’.Sunalini started acting in stage dramas from 1918.
Her first movie was “Light of Asia”-released initially in Germany and Poland in 1925 ( its restored version was released on 5th July 2001, in India. ) This film was made by Himanshu Rai. The film was shot in Lahore. It was a silent film on Gautama the Buddha. Her first Talkie film was ‘ veer Kunal-(1932)’. She acted in 56 films. Mostly she was known for motherly roles only. She had, like her more eminent sister, married a south Indian- Mr.A.S.Rajan, a writer from Madras. Some of her more known films are Aurat,Lalaji, Inkaar, Nai Roshni, Talaash, Bairam khan, Tamasha, Dilruba, Malhar etc etc. Her last film was Chingari-(1955). She retired from films in 1956.
Today’s song is sung by Vasanti.
Song- Chal Dheere dheere dheere (Aap Ki Marzi)(1939) Singer-Vasanti, Lyrics-P L Santoshi, MD-Gyan Dutt
Lyrics
Chal Dheere ae
dheere ae ae ae
Dheere ae
Chal Dheere dheere dheere
teree jeewan gathhree bhaaree re
Chal Dheere
chal dheere ae ae
teree jeewan gathhree bhaaree re
Chal Dheere
baandhh rakha kitna dukh toone
baandhh rakhee kitnee aahen (?)
baandhh rakha kitna dukh toone
baandhh rakhee kitnee aahen (?)
baandh rakhaa aa aa aa
kitna aa aa dukh a a tooone
baandhh rakhee kitnee aahen
baandhh rakhee kitnee aahen
baandhh rakhee kitnee aahen
man ke chhote tukde mein
man ke chhote tukde mein
saaree duniya baandhee re
Chal Dheere
chal dheere ae ae
teree jeewan gathhree bhaaree re
Chal Dheere dheere dheere
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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