Meree nigaahon ne teree nigaahon se kuchh kahaa
Posted on: November 19, 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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Buddhadeb Dasgupta (11/02/1944 – 10/06/2021) has been a well-known director of many off-beat and ‘middle of the road’ Bangla films, some of which have earned him the National Film Awards and other awards. I was not aware that he had also directed 3 Hindi films, ‘Andhi Gali’ (1984), ‘Bagh Bahadur’ (1990) and ‘Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa’ (2014) until recently when I heard a song from his third Hindi film. The reason for this film’s obscurity was that it never got theatrical release though the film was certified by the Censor Board on September 8, 2014, for its India release. However, before that it was premiered on October 17, 2013, at BFI, London Film Festival. In October 2020, EROS NOW released the film on OTT platform. The cast consisted of Navazuddin Siddiqui in the main role with Makrand Brahme, Niharika Singh, Ananya Chatterjee, Pankaj Tripathi, Ekavali Khanna, Amrita Chattopadhyay, Masood Akhtar etc.
Buddhadeb Dasgupta, the director, in a TV18 interview in August 2013, had said that the story of the film was ready in 2011 but was waiting for the right actor to play the title role of Anwar. After watching Nawazuddin Siddiqui in ‘Kahaani’ (2012) and ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ (2012), he signed him for the film. A major part of the film’s shooting was done on locations in Shimultala, a hill station in Bihar which is also known as a stronghold of Maoists. During the shooting of the film, there was a bandh called by the Maoists which made unit to hastily leave the place and shift the shooting to Kolkata (Source: Hindustan Times, April 12, 2013).
Since a Labrador dog was used in the film as a companion to Nawazuddin Siddiqui, film was required to be shown to the Animal Welfare Board for their clearance before it was submitted to the Censor Board for Certification.
The film does not have a typical narrative story which can be told in a sequential fashion because there are some random scenes in the film. The audience have to interpret as to why there are random shots, and why the protagonist of the film has become a complex character. I did not understand the purpose of some random shots like three crying oldies telling their problems to Anwar who is on walk in a late night with his dog. So, rather than setting out the story of the film, I have attempted to discuss the film in its randomness.
The film is about Anwar (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a migrant of rural Bihar who works as a private detective at a small detective firm in Kolkata for about 10 years. He is not the usual detectives which have seen in Hindi films or the Byomkesh Bakshi type. His weakness is that quite often, he gets involved in the personal lives of the cases he’s investigating. In the words of Buddhadeb Dasgupta, ‘he is a detective who, strangely enough, wants to get caught’. In other words, he is a detective who rather than keeping himself discreet, wants to be get noticed. In this process, he is unknowingly investigating about himself. Each of the detective cases he handles, is the revelation of his own complex character.
Anwar is lonely man with an aging dog, Lalu as his only companion in his dingy home whose company he indulges in drinking sessions every night. He shares his personal feelings with his dog in his solo conversations which includes his failed love affair in his hometown in Bihar, the investigations he handled during the day etc. Basically, Anwar is a self-centred person devoid much of emotional feelings even in his weakest moments while handling the detective cases. The only time he becomes a bit emotional when he sells his aged dog, Lalu to a rich old person for Rs,5000/-. When the new owner was about to take his dog in a car, Anwar gives him back his Rs.5000/- requesting him to give a treat to Lalu. After few days, Anwar takes back his dog.
In one of his detective cases, Anwar is required to make a visit to his hometown to investigate the case of a missing Amol (Pankaj Tripathi) who has abandoned his wife (Ananya Chatterjee) and a son. The visit becomes nostalgic where he has spent his childhood, the adolescent and had a love affair with a girl (Niharika Singh). He does meet Amol, converses with him but Anwar loses him when Amol, in the pretext of relieving himself, vanishes. The film ends with Anwar visiting his ancestral house which is lying in ruins. A walk in the various rooms of the house takes him to his childhood memories.
The film is an off-beat one, devoid of the elements of entertainment for the general film audience. Probably, this may be the reason that the film did not get a theatrical release. This is a film solely for Nawazuddin Siddiqui in which he proves his ability to portray his complex character admirably. He is present in almost every scene. In fact, after the end of the film, I felt sympathetical towards Nawaz Siddiqui in the role of Anwar. Rest of the actors appears in the film as if they are doing cameo roles. Even Pankaj Tripathi’s role in the film is barely 5 minutes long.
Another feature of the film to be noted is that of director, Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s fondness for ‘one take’ scenes. Most of the film’s scenes are shot in ‘one take’, with a camera fixed at one place, adding some variations in terms of camera angles and zooming in and out. One of the ‘one take’ scenes is of nearly 5 minutes of duration in which Nawazuddin Siddiqui takes a long walk on the road in the night with his dog, meeting a trio of old persons and listening to their woos without any conversations. Even an entire song picturised on Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who dances in his room with his dog looking bewildered at him, is shot in one take. The ‘one take’ shots means that the editor of the film has less work!
The film has only two songs written by Rajeshwari Dasgupta-Ghosh which are set to music by Alokananda Dasgupta. Rajeshwari and Alokananda are daughters of Buddhadeb Dasgupta. I am presenting the first song, ‘meri nigaahon ne tere nigaahon se kuchh kaha’ from the film to appear on the Blog. The song is rendered by Monali Thakur. A couple of video clips are available online but they are all made from mixing video scenes from the film. I have, therefore, culled out the song as it appears in the film and uploaded on one of the video sharing platforms.
The background to the song is that Anwar on a visit to his hometown for investigating a case of a missing executive, relives his experiences of his childhood and adolescence years. He visits his ruined ancestral house. After taking a round of the house, Anwar takes a nap when a boy picks up a 78 RPM gramophone record lying on the ground and handover to Anwar which brings back his childhood memory of the days of the feudal life. He goes into his past and see a woman playing a gramophone record and dancing on the song. This song is picturised in ‘one take’ on Jaya Seal-Ghosh, a Bharatnatyam dancer-actress, in a cameo role.
The song has all the important ingredients to become popular – a good melodic composition, a sonorous voice of Monali Thakur, meaningful lyrics and good orchestration with use of only two prominent musical instruments of Mandolin and Guitar. Unfortunately, the song has remained in the backburner due to the fact that the film has become obscure.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Meree nigaahon ne teree nigaahon se kuchh kahaa (Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa)(2014) Singer-Monali Thakur, Female voice, Lyrics-Rajeshwari Dasgupta-Ghosh, MD-Alokananda Dasgupta
Lyrics:
meree nigaahon ne teree nigaahon se kuchh kaha
hmm hmm hmm hmm
tere iraadon ne mere iraadon se kuchh kaha
hmm hmm hmm hmm
muskura muskura
ae dil-e tu muskura
muskura muskura
ae dil-e tu muskura
haan
ye kya hua mil gaya hai hamen donon jahaan
aa aa aa aaaa
haan
meree nigaahon ne teree nigaahon se kuchh kaha aa
ha aa aa aaaa
chun liye hain
chun liye hain manzilen ye pyaar ki
bun liye hain
bun liye sapne ye bahaar ke ae
aa aa aa aa aaaa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aaaa
bahaar ke
muskura muskura ae dil-e tu muskura
muskura muskura ae dil-e tu muskura aa
behti fizaaon ne jhukti ghataaon se kuchh kaha..aa aa
hmm hmm hmm hmm
meree nigaahon ne teree nigaahon se kuchh kaha
aa aa aa aaa
tere iraadon ne mere iraadon se kuchh kaha…..aa aa aaaa
ha aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa aa
ha aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa aa aaaaa
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
November 19, 2023 at 3:25 pm
This song and film is a new one for me, thanks for the introduction Sadanand ji
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