Barse ghan saaree raat sang so jaao
Posted on: August 21, 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.
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Kumar Shahani, an alumni of the Film and Television Institute of India who was trained under Ritwik Ghatak, became one of the internationally well-known filmmakers from India. His debut film, ‘Maaya Darpan’ (1972), financed by NDFC was critically acclaimed worldwide. He had to wait for 12 years to make his second film, Tarang’ (1984) with the assistance of NDFC.
‘Tarang’ (1984) was produced and directed by Kumar Shahani who also wrote the story and screenplay along with Roshan Shahani. The film’s cast included who’s who of parallel cinemas such as Amol Palekar, Smita Patil, Girish Karnad, Om Puri, Dr Shriram Lagoo, Rohini Hattangadi, Kawal Gandhi-Oak, M K Raina, Pinchu Kapoor, Arvind Deshpande, Sulabha Deshpande, T P Jain, Jalal Agha, Jayant Patel etc. Kundan Shah made a special appearance in the film. I was led to this film only recently when I heard for the first time a solo song from the film with its unusual composition and rendition.
The film is a melodrama, centered around the power struggle, first, within an industrialist family, second, within the workers’ union and, third the struggle between the management and the union which in reality is the struggle between the rich and the poor. What binds the story is the emotional turmoil of all the major characters in the film irrespective of their economic status. The gist of the film’s story is as under:
Sethji (Shriram Lagoo), an aging and widowed industrialist who has accumulated a lot of wealth by profiteering during the war time, is having a troubled time. His son-in-law, Rahul (Amol Palekar) is actively running the company. However, there are differences of opinion between him and Dinesh (Girish Karnad), Sethji’s foreign-based nephew. Rahul is nationalist in his approach and committed to what is, in today’s parlance, called ‘make in India’ technology. He is also committed to the welfare measures for his company’s workers. However, he is manipulative in furtherance of his own interest of how he can inherit the wealth of his father-in-law. Dinesh on the other hand is a committed capitalist whose main interest is earning profit by any means. He has also eyed on the wealth of his uncle. Sethji has to maintain a delicate balance between Rahul and Dinesh whenever any company’s decisions have to be taken.
There are also conflicting factions within the company workers’ union. Patel (Jayant Patel) is a management-sponsored trade union leader, close to Dinesh whose actions undermine the workers’ interest. Another trade union leader, Kalyan (Arvind Deshpande) is equally opportunist. A third union leader Abdul (M K Raina) believes in extremism and is aligned to a leftist party. Namdev (Om Puri) though not a union leader, is close to Abdul and is aware how Sethji and Rahul exploit the factional conflict within the union to the Company’s advantage by ‘divide and rule’ policy.
On the personal level, there are other complications, Rahul’s wife and Sethji’s only daughter, Hansa (Kawal Gandhi-Oak) is mentally unstable and prone to mood-swings. Their young son is in the care of a housemaid, Janaki (Smita Patil) who happens to be a widow of a union leader who gets killed in the inter-union rivalry. Janaki is determined to support the working-class movement. She is friendly with all the factions of the union but gets manipulated and exploited by the different factions of the union. In the midst of union rivalry, Janaki is thrown out of her hutment, and she is homeless. Rahul rehabilitates her by offering the job of a maid servant in their house. Hansa, Rahul’s sexually frigid wife, entices her to become Rahul’s mistress and unintentionally, she gets monetary benefit. She distributes her monetary gain among the workers.
On the business front, Dinesh is bent upon arranging foreign collaborations for upgrading the company’s machinery which Rahul is opposed to as his own staff (Jalal Agha) is capable of arranging locally made machinery. This creates a rift between him and Sethji who is inclined to support Dinesh. Caught between son-in-law and nephew, Sethji’s health deteriorates. Hansa puts blame on Rahul and Dinesh for her father’s illness. Rahul, sensing Dinesh having an upper hand in persuading Sethji for foreign collaboration and taking advantage of his illness, decides to get rid of Sethji by manipulating Janaki. She has to keep the nurse, looking after Sethji, in her room for a couple of drinks during which Sethji dies in neglect. Hansa blames her husband, Rahul, for this. Having close to her father, she mentally becomes unstable and commits suicide in her bath tub. Dinesh thinks that the death of Sethji and Hansa is shrouded with suspicion with finger pointing to Rahul to get the control of the Company. However, Rahul wards off his threat by telling him that he has all the evidences to show as to how his London-based company is doing business in India in contravention of Indian laws for which he can get him arrested if he ever visits India.
The family conflicts soon percolate into a virtual gang war within the union factions. Police are investigating the death of trade union leader, Patel, a henchman of Dinesh, along with the death of Sethji and Hansa for which Janaki is made the scapegoat. Rahul advises her to flee from the city. She accuses Rahul of manipulating her which she did not understand his purpose then. She returns to Namdev’s hutment to chalk out her further actions. One day, Rahul sees Janaki on a bridge. He pleads with her to return to his house to look after his son who is longing for her. Janaki who has now turned into a mythical person but in the imagination of Rahul she is Janaki, the maid. The mythical Janaki advises him to return to his own destiny as she is no more Janaki. The film ends with Janaki’s response to him that ‘hum usha ki pahali kirane hain. Hamen paana behati hawa ko haath mein bharana hai’. I think what she said has some leftist connotation to mean that forces of changes can be faster than fleeting wind and Janaki represents the labour forces.
I watched the film last week and honestly for me, it was a very ‘slow’ film. On top of it, it was long, nearly 3 hours, which is unusual for a parallel cinema film. The screenplay is very complex like an abstract painting which only the experts can decodify. I think this film was made mainly for the audience of international film festivals where each viewer may apply his mind depending upon his expertise in various aspects of the film making. The sum and substance of the film, in my view, is that capitalists manipulate and exploit labour forces as means of furthering their wealth creation capacity. I feel that the end of the film broadly conforms to Sahir Ludhinvi’s song, wo subah kabhi to aayegi.
The film won the Certificate of Merit at the 31st National Film Awards, 1983.
‘Tarang’ (1984) has two songs, one each written by Raghuvir Sahay and Gulzar which are set to music by Vanraj Bhatia. I am presenting the first song from the film, ‘barse ghan saari raat, sang so jaao’ to appear on the Blog. The song is written by Raghuvir Sahay and rendered by Lata Mangeshkar. Raghuvir Sahay is a Hindi poet and writer of repute and is the winner of Sahitya Academy award in 1984. He was the editor of weekly Hindi magazine ‘Dinaman’ published by The Times of India. I used to occasionally read ‘Dinaman’ in my college library.
This is a unique song of a lovelorn, picturised on Kawal Gandhi-Oak in the role of the mentally unstable wife of Rahul (Amol Palekar). It is not written in metre which means that Raghuvir Sahay may have written the song first and Vanraj Bhatia set the tune to the song afterward. And how difficult it would have been for Vanraj Bhartia to set the tune. This is evident that the song does not follow any set pattern of tune. Even within antaras, there are different tunes. The orchestration is also unusual. I find musical interludes in between the lines also. Even Lata Mangeshkar would have found it difficult to render the song.
Video Clip:
Song-Barse ghan saaree raat sang so jaao(Tarang)(1984) Singer-Lata Mangeshkar, Lyrics-Raghuveer Sahay, MD-Vanraj Bhatia
Lyrics
barse ghan
saari raat
saari raat
sang so jaao
aao re….
sang so jaao
aao re….
priytam aao
priye aao re…
sang so jaao..o
sang so jaao
nahalaao…
saanson se tan mera
sheetal paani yaad aaye
saagar nadiyaa
sagar nadiyaa
yaad aaye
shabnam dhula savera
shabnam dhula
honthon se tapan bujhaao
bujhaao
priyatam aao
aao re…
sang so jaao
kumhalaaya ujiyaara
mere mann mein
mann mein andhiyaara
ghir aaya darpan mein
kyun tan sihre
chhaaya dole
kya tum aaye
baahen khole
neend aayi
madhur samarpan mein
madhur samarpan mein
neend aayi
antim siski
antim siski
chumban se chup kar jaao
kar jaao
priyatam aao
aao re…
priyatam aao
sang so jaao
sang so jaao
barse ghan
saaree raat
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
August 27, 2023 at 9:19 am
Sadanand Sir,
Heard this song for the first time and loved it. Yes, the song does not follow any set pattern of tune & orchestration is also unusual.
Hats off to Vanraj Bhatia and Lata for creating such a beautiful song. Your post has helped this song to reach us. Thanks once again.
Gandhi Vadlapatla
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August 27, 2023 at 11:40 am
Gandhi ji,
Thanks for your comments. I am happy that you loved the song.
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