Do sadiyon ke sangam par milne aaye hain
Posted on: September 29, 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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Maqbool Fida Husain (17/09/1915 – 09/06/2011), better known as M F Husain, has been a celebrated painter not only of India but for world over. He has been also called as ‘Picasso of India’. He was the highest paid painter of India. It is said that the great artists have their own muse which motivate them to excel in their chosen form of arts. Madhuri Dixit was Husain’s first among his other Bollywood muses when he got hooked to her film, ‘Ham Aapke Hain Kaun’ (1994). He painted her umpteen times. In ‘Mohabbat’ (1997) in which Madhuri Dixit played the role of an artist, her paintings in the film were actually done by M F Husain.
M F Husain’s association with Hindi films was as old as mid 1930s when he undertook the work of painting cinema posters while he was studying at Sir J J School of Arts in Mumbai. In 1967, he made his first short film, ‘Through the Eyes of a Painter’ for Film Division. The film was screened at the Berlin International Film Festival and won a Golden Bear. In the fag-end of his career, Husain got interested in making feature films in Hindi with his first muse. At the age of 85, M F Husain directed his first feature film, ‘Gaja Gamini’ (2000) which I am discussing in this article.
The film was produced by M F Husain and Rakesh Nath (Madhuri Dixit’s secretary). Madhuri Dixit played the title role of Gaja Gamini supported by Shah Rukh Khan, Inder Kumar, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Shilpa Shirodkar, Raisa Husain (M F Husain’s daughter), Mohan Agashe, Ashish Vidyarthi, Farida Jalal, Tej Sapru, Kalpana Pandit etc. The film was a disaster at the box office.
I had watched this film for the first time in 2014. I could not understand as to what the film intended to convey to the audience. It is interesting to note that Naseeruddin Shah, who had done the role of Leonardo Da Vinci in the film, had said that he could not comprehend the film and felt bewildered while doing it. He said he would not recommend watching the film. It was also reported in the newspapers that when the film was shown during the Mumbai International Film Festival before its release, most of the audience left the hall halfway. Most probably, the rest of the audience sat till last, out of respect for M F Husain.
Recently, I watched the film once more mainly for comparison purpose when I was working on an article on M F Hussain’s second film, ‘Meenaxi’ (2004). The article is already posted on the Blog. Now, I have broadly understood that M F Husain was trying to convey through the film that Gaja Gamini was a mysterious woman in her various avatars through centuries. But still I have not fully understood the film. Most of the symbolism used in the film appears abstract to me, barring a few like when Madhuri Dixit sings a song carrying on her head a heavy ‘gathri’ (load), symbolising the burden on the womanhood. I have a doubt whether the film was shot with any formal script/ screenplay.
It is interesting to note that Satyajit Ray was also a painter and graphic designer. I remember to have seen on the internet the manuscript of a ‘red book’ (Kheror Katha) of a film which is not the script or screenplay of the film but a complete document of a film in the making, encompassing screenplay, dialogues, scenes and costumes in sketches, music notations etc. Satyajit Ray’s writing of scenes for the films will have some perspectives of a painter and the graphic designer apart from cinematic requirements. Probably, M F Husain as a painter has visualised his scenes more from a painter’s perspective then the cinematic requirements. Just as a common man cannot interpret his painting, so is his film ‘Gaja Gamini’ (2000). This is the crux of the problem for the common cine audience to understand his film. To some extent, M F Husain had rectified this issue in ‘Meenaxi’ (2002).
Coming back to the film, ‘Gaja Gamini’ (2000), is the film for the adornment of womanhood. Madhuri Dixit as Gaja Gamini (English meaning: walking majestically like an elephant) is a mysterious woman who appears in the film in four main characters. She is Gaja Gamini/Sangita to Kamdev (Inder Kumar), Shakuntala to Kalidas (Mohan Agashe), Mona Lisa to Leonardo Da Vinci (Naseeruddin Shah) and Monica to a photojournalist (Shah Rukh Khan). She is a woman of different moods and intellects to man through different periods, the Monica being the characters of the current century. In the view of M F Husain, just as Shakespeare’s plays of 14th centuries are still staged in 21st century with different actors for the same characters, he has also taken liberty to show Kamdev, Leonardo Da Vinci and Kalidas meeting together at Banaras ghat crossing over from one century to another, discussing their common mystery woman, the muse, Gaja Gamini who is unseen.
The idea of M F Husain in making ‘Gaja Gamini’ (2000) is nicely set out in an article by Professor Preeti Oza which may be of interest to the readers of the Blog. Whether his idea has been properly conveyed through the cinematic form is a different issue. Some had called it after its release as a senseless film.
In the film, there are some more woman characters as counterparts of the of Gaja Gamini. They are Nirmala (Shabana Azmi), from Munshi Premchand’s novel, who is struck in tragedies, Phulvania (Raisa Husain), the flower girl whose husband has been murdered, Sindhu (Shilpa Shirodkar) and Noorbibi (Farida Jalal).
There is a couple of scenes of Kalidas (Mohan Agashe) with a Scientist (Ashish Vidyarthi) arguing on literature versus science. I like one dialogue which Kalidas says that scientist talks from brain while a laureate talks from brain as well as from the heart.
All the sets used in the film look like the colour paintings, the most predominant set being that of Banaras ghat. I will call ‘Gaja Gamini’ (2000) a film in which M F Husain plays a ‘lead actor’ through his paintings and paintings-like sets and Madhuri Dixit, the lead actress shuffles through these paintings-like sets. The actors in the film remind the viewers that it is a film and not a montage of painting.
The film has six songs written by Maya Govind (4), Javed Akhtar (1) and M F Husain (1) which are set to music by Bhupen Hazarika. In addition, there are two Sanskrit chants of Mahakavi Kalidas. I am presenting the first song, ‘do sadiyon ke sangam par milne aaye hain’ from the film to appear on the Blog. The song is written by Javed Akhtar and is rendered by Udit Narayan and Kavita Krishnamurthy.
The picturisation and the situation in the film appears like a typical song from the mainstream Hindi film. The reason is that Monica (Madhuri Dixit) is in her avatar of the current century who is in love with a photojournalist (Shah Rukh Khan). But there is a difference in shooting. The entire song of about 4 minutes is picturised on the same set which looks like a replica of M F Husain’s painting. There is a brick wall in the middle of the set, symbolising the division between two centuries. On the one side of the wall is the old cycle and in the other side of the wall is a vintage car symbolising the old and the new centuries.
Video Clip:
[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2etssc]
dailymotion id=x2etssc
Audio Clip:
Song-Do sadiyon ke sangam par milne aaye hain (Gaj Gamini)(2000) Singers-Udit Narayan, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Lyrics-Javed Akhtar, MD-Bhupen Hazarika
Both
Lyrics (based on audio clip)
do sadiyon ke sangam par
milne aaye hain
do sadiyon ke sangam par milne aaye hain
do sadiyon ke sangam par milne aaye hain
ek sadi kee shaam jahaan par
ek sadi ka wahin savera
samay na daale kahin bhi dera aa
ek samay lekin
do sadiyaan
do sadiyaan
ek samay lekin
do sadiyaan
do sadiyaan
do sadiyon ke beech uthhi…
do sadiyon ke beech uthhi
ehsaas kee ik deewaar
ehsaas kee ik deewaar
iss deewaar ke peechhe jaa ke ae
iss deewaar ke peechhe jaa ke
bhes badalta ye samay
bhes badalta ye samay
yaad karta hai shringaar
do sadiyon ke sangam par milne aaye hain
do sadiyon ke sangam par milne aaye hain
ek sadi kee shaam jahaan par
ek sadi ka wahin savera
samay na daale kahin bhi dera aa
ek samay lekin
do sadiyaan
do sadiyaan
ek samay lekin
do sadiyaan
do sadiyaan
neele rang ke iss daaman mein
kitne sukoon bhare lamhe hain
neele neele rang mein aen
rooh ke saare geet ghule hain
surkhi jaise garam lahu hai
chhalak sharaab hai surkhi
surkhi taaza zakhm jaise
khilta gulaab hai surkhi
ho jism mein behtee saari surkhi
rooh ke saare neele naghme ae
do sadiyon ke sangam par milne aaye hain
do sadiyon ke sangam par milne aaye hain
ek sadi kee shaam jahaan par
ek sadi ka wahin savera
samay na daale kahin bhi dera aa
ek samay lekin
do sadiyaan
do sadiyaan
ek samay lekin
do sadiyaan
do sadiyaan
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
September 29, 2023 at 8:58 pm
working video link:
above link provided with post does not working for me???!!!
Thanks Sadanandji for the post and the song
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