Ghadee ghadee hoye man mein mere aash au niraashaa
Posted on: October 24, 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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‘Current’ (1992) was produced by National Film Development Corporation (NDFC) and was directed by K Hariharan, his first Hindi film as a director. The film is based on a short story written by Ki. Rajanarayanan, the Sahitya Akademi Award winner. Om Puri and Deepti Naval were in lead roles, supported by Anjan Shrivastava, Dr Shriram Lagoo, Savita Prabhune, Achyut Potdar, Deepak Qazir etc.
The film deals with the ordeal of a small farmer of sugarcane field facing the indifferent establishment in the payment of the electricity bills for a farm pump, delayed by few days. He expected the condonation of delay in payment of bill as he has faith in establishment. But to his shock, the Electricity Board cuts his connection putting his sugarcane crop in jeopardy. His friends cannot do much to help him except giving suggestions for the restoration of his power connection. By this time, the small farmer has lost patient with the establishment and faith in human values. Finally, one of his neighbouring women, hated by most of the villagers, helps him to restore the power as well as in restoring his faith in human values. The film’s story in details is given below:
Velu (Om Puri), his wife, Seeta (Deepti Naval) with his minor son lives in a village owning a small agricultural field growing sugarcane crop. He has installed a farm pump with much fanfare for the irrigation of sugarcane crop in his field. One day, he suddenly realises that he had not paid the electricity bill and it has become overdue. For payment of electricity bill, he has to visit a nearby town by bus. Almost a whole day is lost in visiting, standing in the queue for payment and return to his village.
Velu’s first visit to the town to pay the electricity bill is wasted as the Electricity Board has changed the day of receiving the payment of the bill from his block of villages to Mondays only which he was unaware. His second visit results in reaching the electricity office late as his bus breaks down. He writes an application to Junior Engineer (JE) requesting the condonation of his delay in payment of electricity bill and not to cut his power supply. The JE promises him that he would look into the matter.
His friends console Velu by telling him that he need not worry about his power supply being stopped as there is a nexus between sugar mill companies and the political parties which required uninterrupted supply of sugarcane to sugar mills so that they earn more to pay the donation to the political parties. The general election is shortly due during which Electricity Board will not do anything to disrupt the supply of sugarcane to sugar mills. A grocery shop owner suggests Velu to seek the blessings of Pahadi Baba who has solved problems of some villagers.
Still concerned about the impending stoppage of power supply to his farm pump, Velu meets Tahsildar (Shriram Lagoo) and tells his problem of the overdue electricity bill. Tahsildar points out that like his father, he is also incapable of managing his agricultural field. He advises Velu that he should sell his agricultural field to the sugar mill company of which he is a director. He would take care of Velu’s interest and he can continue to work in the sugarcane field. Velu leaves Tahsildar’s house disappointed (This is one way of making the small farm owner the ‘bonded labourer’ of the sugar mill company).
Every day in the morning, Velu starts his farm pump and is happy that the electricity is still intact, and water is flowing in the field. He tells his wife who is working side by side with him in the field that the JE is a good person who has kept his promise. He has immense faith in him because a person who is a god-fearing will always think of good to the others. His wife, however, feels that the JE must have forgotten to cut the electricity supply and it can go off any time.
As Seeta has expected, very next morning, the farm pump does not start. Velu has so much faith in JE that instead of thinking that power supply was cut, first he thought that there is some problem with electric supply (load shedding). Then he thought that one of the fuses must have blown or the pump may have gone out of order. At last, it dawned on him that the power supply has been severed for non-payment of electricity bill. He resorts to manual irrigation of his field by bringing water from a well in buckets for which he has to take several rounds. With this work, Velu health deteriorates. He is unable to even get up from his bed.
Radha (Savita Prabhune), a neighbour of Velu meets Seeta and enquired about the restoration the electricity of farm pump. Seeta does not react to her since Radha has been castigated by villagers as a woman of ill-repute as she has driven her husband from her house. Radha leaves by telling Seeta that she can get their electricity restored within a day through the good offices of an owner of a Bidi factory. But Seeta is mum on her offer as she does not want to take her help.
Concerned with the impending drying of sugarcane crops and Velu not yet recovered from his illness, Seeta seeks water from the village’s water suppliers who says that he supplies his entire stock of water to Tahsildar. Seeta requests Tahsildar for the supply of water to her farm against which she would give equivalent amount of sugarcane. Tahsildar repeats his suggestion which he had already made to Velu that he should sell his agricultural field to him. A disappointed Seeta returns home.
After recovering from illness, Velu once again visits the Electricity office in the town on Monday only to read a notice that the counter is kept close for the day to enable the officials to attend to the visiting Minister (Deepak Qazir) who is on an election campaign. Again, his faith in the establishment is so strong that he writes a representation for restoring his electricity to be submitted to the Minister which he feels the Minister will immediately agree.
After watching all the jugglery of collecting the paid crowd and the fake representations made by pre-selected persons from the crowd to the Minister, Velu is disillusioned. He returns home in the night without submitting his representation to the Minister. He finds Seeta with the son sitting in the field. She tells him that Radha had met her and offer her to restore the electricity. Seeta feels that Radha is a good woman and she had wrong impression about Radha on the basis of canard spread by the villagers. Velu also says that he had also placed a blind faith in the impotent establishment. Soon, both of them hear the noise of the farm pump discharging the water for their sugarcane field with Radha standing near the switch board. For three weeks, Velu ran from pillar to post to make payment of his overdue bill and the restoration of poser connection. But Radha got the power restored in one day, that too without paying the bill.
The film brings out the contrast between Velu’s faith in the establishment and his hate for Radha, both based on the hearsays. In the end, Velu’s faith in establishment is shattered as it is not helpful even in accepting his delayed payment. On the contrary, Velu has no faith in Radha because of his perceived impression of her as a woman of ill repute. But it is Radha who helps Velu in restoring the electricity supply to his farm pump even without his asking because she is concerned about their well-being.
This film moved me a lot despite the fact that there is no melodramatic scenes. I felt as if I am in the midst of the cute family of a small farmer watching their struggle but helpless. Kudos to K Hariharan for taking up an off-beat story for his first directorial Hindi film and presenting it in a manner to touch the heart. Both Om Puri and Deepti Naval have performed very well to depict the flight of a small farmer’s family. Finally, the folk-based instrumental background music of L Vaidyanathan gives a feel of a rural atmosphere.
The film has only one song which is a lullaby sung by Chhaya Ganguli. The song is ‘ghadi ghadi hoye mann mein mere aas au niraasha’. The song is written by the screenplay writer, Onkarnath Mishra which is set to music by L Vaidyanathan. It is a background song which is played when Om Puri, Deepti Naval and the son returns from their field in the evening and are taking dinner.
As far as I know, for the first time in a Hindi film song, the word ‘pratyaasha’ (expectation, hope) has been used. This is a Sanskrit word.
The tune of the song made me nostalgic as during the early 1960s, I had often listened to a Marathi bhajan in the same tune, ‘ghadi ghadi ghadi charan tujhe aathavati Raama’ sung by Manik Varma on the radio broadcasted in the early morning on Bombay (Mumbai) ‘B’ station of AIR. This Marathi bhajan was set to music by Ram Phatak. This song was released in 1954. Hence the credit for the song under discussion should also go to Ram Phatak as music director. I have also given the link of the audio clip of the Marathi song for comparison purpose.
Mumbai born Chhaya Ganguli is a well-known ghazal singer whose output as a playback singer as well as of her non-film songs is not high due to her full-time job as a Programmer in All India Radio and Doordarshan at various places. She completed her M. Sc (Botany) from Bombay (Mumbai) University, but her inclination to music led her to join AIR. She learnt ghazal singing under the tutelage of eminent ghazal singer, Madhurani. She won the National Film Award for the Best Female Playback Singer for her ghazal, aap ki yaad aati rahi raat din in ‘Gaman’ (1978). After serving for about 36 years, she retired on July 31, 2012, as Head of Transcription and Programme Exchange Service of All India Radio. Since then, she has been occasionally participating in the vocal concerts and have recorded many non-film ghazals.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Audio Clip: (Marathi bhajan recorded in 1954)
Song-Ghadi ghadi hoye man mein mere aash au niraashaa (Current)(1992) Singer-Chhaaya Ganguli, Lyrics-Onkarnath Mishra, MD-L Vaidhyanathan
Lyrics
ghadi ghadi hoye mann mein mere
aash au niraasha
ghadi ghadi hoye mann mein mere
aash au niraasha
laal mere jeewan ho neeras nirang
bin koi pratyaasha
laal mere jeewan ho neeras nirang
bin koi pratyaasha
ghadi ghadi hoye mann mein mere
aash au niraasha
hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm
so ja so ja kal tujhe
uthh ke phir hai chalna
jalke hai bujhna tujhe
bujh bujh ke hai jalna
so ja so ja kal tujhe
uthh ke phir hai chalna
jalke hai bujhna tujhe
bujh bujh ke hai jalna
nindiya teri chheene na koi
jaag tu ab lagataar(?)
nindiya teri chheene na koi
jaag tu ab lagataar(?)
ghadi ghadi hoye mann mein mere
aaj to niraasha
hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm
hmm
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
October 29, 2023 at 8:52 am
Sadanand ji,
Thanks for introducing a hardly discussed ( in my readings) film and a nice song. Even Manik Varma song is new to me. I liked the story of the film.
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October 30, 2023 at 9:43 am
Satish ji,
I am happy that you liked both the songs.
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