Mero to Giridhar Gopal doosro na koi
Posted by: Atul on: November 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.
|
Blog Day : |
5612 | Post No. : | 18090 |
Kaun kambakht hai jo bardaasht karne ke liye peeta hai… main to peeta hoon ke bas saans le sakoon.
This famous dialogue in the film, ‘Devdas’ (1955) was written by Rajinder Singh Bedi, the Urdu short stories writer, playwright and the novelist. In the aftermath of the partition, he had landed in Hindi film industry mainly for the betterment of his financial conditions apart from creative contributions to the extent possible. But once he knew the realities that the film writers have no much freedom, Rajendra Singh Bedi turned producer-director in Hindi films to fulfil his creative desire.
Rajinder Singh Bedi (01/09/1915 – 11/11/1984), one of the greatest Urdu fiction writers, was born in Sialkot (now in Pakistan) to a Khatri Sikh father and a Brahmin Hindu mother. His father was Postmaster in one of the post offices in Lahore. During his childhood, his mother used to tell him stories from Ramayan and Geeta while his father would apprise him of the nuances from Guru Granth Sahib. His father was also an avid reader. All these inputs from his parents created interest in Rajinder Singh Bedi in story writing and readings. He started writing short stories in his teens and got published in local magazines.
Rajinder Singh Bedi completed his matriculation from Lahore in Urdu and joined the college. However, when he had completed intermediate, his mother died of T.B. So, Rajinder had to discontinue his college studies. After couple of years, his father also passed away. To take care of the family, he joined the post office as a clerk. Side by side, he worked part time in AIR, Lahore as a script writer and contributed his short stories in Urdu magazine, ‘Adabi Duniya’. One of his radio plays staged on AIR, Lahore was ‘Naql-e-Makaani’ (1944) which he later made a film, ‘Dastak’ (1970).
On the eve of the partition, Rajinder Singh Bedi migrated to India along with his wife and two children. After spending few days in Shimla and Delhi, he got a job as a director of the newly set up Radio Kashmir’s Jammu station in in the later part of 1947. During that period, Radio Pakistan used to broadcast anti-India propaganda. To counter the propaganda, Rajinder Singh Bedi started a radio programme called ‘Sirf 5 minutes’ in which he broadcasted the rebuttals to the Pakistani propaganda written by him. Due to political changes that had taken place in Jammu & Kashmir, he resigned from his job sometime in 1948.
Leaving his family in Jammu, Rajinder Singh Bedi moved to Bombay (Mumbai) where his contemporaries in Lahore – Upendra Nath Ashq, Krishna Chander, Sahir Ludhianvi etc had already moved to Mumbai for better opportunity. Initially, he stayed with his brother-in-law in Mumbai for few days. A common friend introduced him to D D Kashyap, the producer-director who was aware of his writing capability. He employed him in his production company as a screenplay-dialogue writer at a monthly salary of Rs,1000/- with a flexibility of working outside the banner in spare time. He took a rental house in Seven Bungalows at Versova and brought his family from Jammu.
Rajinder Singh Bedi debuted as a dialogue writer in Kashyap Production’s ‘Badi Bahen’ (1949) which became a box office hit. This was followed by ‘Aaram’ (1951), ‘Do Sitaare’ (1951), ‘Naya Ghar’ (1953) etc. He also worked for the other film productions in fims like ‘Daagh’ (1952), ‘Mirza Ghalib’ (1954) ‘Devdas’ (1955), ‘Madhumati’ (1958) etc. He was actively associated with Hrishikesh Mukherjee as a dialogue writer in his films such as ‘Musaafir’ (1957), Anuradha’ (1960), “Mem Didi’ (1961), ‘Anupama’ (1966), ‘Bibi Aur Makaan’ (1966), Satyakaam’ (1969), ‘Abhimaan’ (1973) etc. Most of these films were box office hits. However, Rajinder Singh Bedi did not get much of the financial benefit from the success of his films.
Rajinder Singh Bedi also grew as a literary personality. He was associated with Progressive Writers Association (PWA). He wrote 72 short stories, a couple of plays and novellas in the span of about 5 decades of his literary pursuits. In 1965, he was awarded the Sahitya Academy Award for his novella, ‘EK Chadar Maili Si’, Padma Shri in 1972 and the Ghalib Award in 1978.
Sometime in the mid-1950s, Rajinder Singh Bedi felt that writing for films was at the cost of compromising the literary values. He decided to produce the film based on one of his published short stories. He formed a film production company named ‘Cine Cooperatives’ in partnership with Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Balraj Sahni, Geeta Bali, Amar Kumar and Homi Sethna and produced his first film, ‘Garam Coat’ (1955) directed by Amar Kumar. The film failed at the box office. However, Rajinder Singh Bedi got the Filmfare Award for the Best Story of the film.
Later, Cine Cooperative produced one more film, ‘Laal Batti’ (1957) which also failed at the box office. His next venture of film was ‘Rangoli’ (1962 which he produced in partnership with his friend, Amar Kumar. This film also failed at the box office. He now turned director with a Punjabi film, ‘Rano’ (1965, shelved) based on his novella, ‘Ek Chaadar Maili Si’. The film was produced by Geeta Bali with herself and Dharmendra in lead roles. However, with the sudden death of Geeta Bali in January 1965, the film was shelved. Thereafter, Rajinder Singh Bedi never attempted to make a film based on this novella during his lifetime.
Rajinder Singh Bedi produced and directed ‘Dastak’ (1970) which was based on his radio play, ‘Naql-e-Makaani’ staged on AIR, Lahore in 1944. The film was critically acclaimed. The film won the National Film Awards for the Best Actor (Sanjeev Kumar), the Best Actress (Rehana Sultan), the Best Music Director (Madan Mohan).
Following the success of ‘Dastak’ (1970), Rajinder Singh Bedi produced and directed ‘Phaagun’ (1973) and ‘Nawab Sahib’ (1976) which failed at the box office. In the process of film production, Rajinder Singh Bedi had lost a lot of money requiring him to mortgage his house. His last film as a producer-director was ‘Aankhin Dekhi’ (1978) which was supposed to be an off-beat film. Though completed and censor certified, the film remained unreleased because Rajinder Singh Bedi suffered from a paralysis attack, confining him to the bed. He had no one to rely on the spade work to be done for the release of the film. His wife had already passed away.
This was the beginning of calamities in his life. His son, Narender Bedi, a successful film director with films like ‘Bandhan’ (1969), Jawaani Diwaani’ (1972), ‘Raffoo Chakkar’ (1974), ‘Benaam’ (1974) ‘Sanam Teri Kasam’ (1982) etc, suddenly passed away in October 1982 at the age of 45. After this, Rajinder Singh Bedi lost interest in his life. He never recovered from series of shocks and his illness. He lost eyesight in one eye. At a later stage, he was diagnosed with cancer which became the cause of his death on November 11, 1984.
In his memory, the Punjab Government has constituted the Rajendra Singh Bedi Award for Urdu Literature.
His grandsons, Rajat Bedi and Manek Bedi are actors in Hindi films. His granddaughter, Ila Bedi-Dutta debuted as a screenplay writer with ‘Agneepath’ (2011). On the eve of Rajinder Singh Bedi’s birth centenary in 2015, his grandchildren produced TV Serial, ‘Laajwanti’, (2015) based on his short story by the same name. In 2006, Kavita Chaudhary had already made a telefilm, ‘Laajwanti’ (2006) on the same story.
‘Phaagun’ (1973) was Rajinder Singh Bedi’s second Hindi film as a producer-director-writer. The film starred Waheeda Rahman, Jaya Bahaduri, Vijay Arora, Om Prakash, Jagdev, Raj Rani, Narbada Shankar, V Gopal, Suman Sinha etc. Dharmendra made a guest appearance in the role of Waheeda Rahman’s husband.
The story of the film in nutshell is :-
on the holi festival day, Shanta’s (Waheeda Rahman) husband, Gopal (Dharmendra) leaves the house never to return due to some misunderstanding with his wife who is pregnant. A girl, Santosh (Jaya Bhaduri) is born. She grows up, completes her college and marries Dr Suman (Vijay Arora), an orphan who was in her college and has become a doctor. After marriage, both stay with Shanta. But the mother is so much obsessed with her daughter that she interferes in their personal life making difficult for the daughter and the son-in-law. It becomes a psychological case for Shanta when she momentarily starts seeing Gopal in her son-in-law. This troubles her and she starts feeling guilty. Shanta pleads with her daughter and son-in-law to get her reunited with her husband. Dr Suman tells the problems to his boss, Dr Effendi (Om Prakash) who promises him that he would find out the whereabouts of Gopal. In the meanwhile, due to some arguments with her son-in-law on the holi festival day, Shanta leaves her house only to see Dr Effendi accompanied by an aged Gopal walking towards her house in the midst of holi revellers. She and her family get united with her husband.
The film had six songs. Four songs written by Majrooh Sultanpuri and one traditional thumri have been covered in the Blog. All the songs were set to music by S D Burman. I am presenting the sixth and the last song, a Meera bhajan, ‘mero to Girdhar gopal dusro na koi’ rendered by Usha Mangeshkar. The song is picturised on Waheeda Rahman. Jaya Bhaduri and Vijay Arora join her in prayer.
The background to the song is that Waheeda Rahman sees her daughter and son-in-law in each other’s arms. Momentarily, she imagines herself in place of her daughter, Jaya Bhaduri in the arms of her son-in-law. Feeling guilty and as a penance for her sinful imagination, she goes to the pooja room and begins praying with Meerabai’s bhajan.
Note: For writing the profile of Rajinder Singh Bedi, I have mainly relied on the article on Rajinder Singh Bedi by his granddaughter, Nischint Bhatnagar on the eve of his birth centenary, and the Audio lectures on him by one of his close friends, Padma Sachdev at Sahitya Akademy, New Delhi. The audio clip is available on archive.org .
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Mero to giridhar Gopal doosro na koi (Phaagun)(1973) Singer-Usha Mangeshkar, Lyrics-Meera Bai, MD-S D Burman
Lyrics (Based on audio clip):
doosro na koi
mero to
mero to girdhar gopal
doosro na koi
mero to girdhar gopal
doosro na koi
mero to girdhar gopal
jaake sir mor mukut
mero pati woi
jaake sir mor mukut
mero pati woi
taat maat bhraat bandhu
aapno na koi
mero to girdhar gopal
ansuvan jal seench seench
prem bel boi
ansuvan jal seench seench
prem bel boi
ab to bel phail gayi
aanand phal hoi
mero to girdhar gopal
bhagat dekh raaji huyee
jagat dekh royi
bhagat dekh raaji huyee
jagat dekh royi
daasi Meera
aa aa aaaa aa
daasi Meera aao girdhar
taaro ab mohi
mero to girdhar gopal
doosro na koi
mero to girdhar gopal
mero to
Share this:
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
- Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
- Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
Related
3 Responses to "Mero to Giridhar Gopal doosro na koi"
November 29, 2023 at 6:17 pm
Thanks Sadanand ji regarding post on Rajinder Singh Bedi
LikeLike
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
November 29, 2023 at 9:46 am
Sadanand Ji
Thanks for the post. I have known Rajinder Singh Bedi thru his works ( especially Dastak). But did not know about his life ,his struggles and his misfortunes.
LikeLike
November 29, 2023 at 12:49 pm
Satish ji,
Ditto for me.
It was only when I heard the lectures of Padma Sachdev on Rajinder Singh Bedi, I felt that I should write an article on him.
The one hour of lecture in Hindi by Padma Sachdev is full of interesting anecdotes in the life of Rajinder Singh Bedi – from his Lahore days, migration to India, his entry in HIndi film industry, his film making and finally 3-4 years of his ill-health. I have avoided most of the anecdotes due to article becoming long apart from they being peronal in nature.
I felt very sorry for a man of letters who could not do anything for fulfilling his passion for writing during his last 3-4 years.
LikeLiked by 1 person