Niraash musaafir gaaye jaa
Posted by: Atul on: December 9, 2023
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, 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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Today’s song is from the film Adhikar-1938.
After a pretty long time, I am writing on a film song of New Theatres, Calcutta. From the 30’s to the early 50’s, New Theatres routinely made bilingual films in Bangla and Hindi. Almost every film coming from New Theatres became popular. The “Saigal” factor was one of the points of attraction, no doubt, but their films without Saigal also became popular.
Though I started seeing films from the late 40’s, my love for NT films grew up as I grew up. By the time I was about 15-16 year old, I saw many films in their second or third runs in the ‘ Morning shows’.
Ours was a joint family of 18 to 20 persons. We had a Gramophone and one of my Uncles was a Saigal and Pankaj Mullik fan. So, records of their songs as well bhajans of Juthika Roy were bought and played often in our house. I realised that I had not seen all the films where these actor singers had played a role. By the beginning of the 60’s, Hindi films from NT stopped being shown in Hyderabad as newer films were more in demand. I always rued that I missed those films.
When I was working in Pharma Marketing, I used to tour Calcutta many times, as one of our branches was located there. On one of my visits, I read in the local English paper that a “New Theatres Film Festival” was being arranged for next week. I was simply thrilled. I immediately returned to Bombay and the following week I went to Calcutta again. The entire week New Theatres’ Bangla and Hindi films were screened and I could see those films which I had longed for a long time to see. I was very happy.
The 1930s saw the emergence of the Talkie in its beginning with Alam Ara-1931. The entire decade was experimental. The two major centres of Hindi film production, Calcutta and Bombay became the Utopia for the aspirants from far and near towns who thronged here to try their luck in this new form of entertainment. Although the era of Silent Films had plenty of Anglo-Indian Heroines and uneducated but handsome Heros, the Talkie required knowledge of Hindi/Urdu, a flair for singing and and good looks with acting ability. This gave opportunity for educated Indian men and women in the film industry.
While Calcutta made Bilingual films in Hindi and Bangla, Bombay was replete with films in Hindi/Marathi and occasional Hindi/Gujarati films.
An important point to be noted here. Most of the films in the 30s and the 40s were based on existing stories, dramas or novels, so they not only had credibility but also a guaranteed acceptance by the audience. For this purpose noted writers were used. Alternatively, whenever possible, such personalities were invited to write the story, dialogues or screenplays. This was the trend in all language films like Hindi, Marathi or Bangla.
Writers like Premchand, Bhagwati Charan Verma (who wrote the story and dialogues of Kismet-1943) etc. for Hindi, V.S.Khandekar, Atre, Phadke, Madgulkar or H.N.Apte for Marathi and Bankim babu, Sharat babu etc for Bangla films were used for their creations.
This trend diminished after 50s and 60s and something called “Story Department” was established in every production house, cooking up imaginary stories which were unbelievable and unpalatable, sometimes. This was also a major reason for the quality of Cinemas getting lowered.
From the time Talkie films started, 90% of the films were based on Love themes only. Various permutations and combinations of Love Triangles were used.
Initially for the first 5 to 6 years, the posters and the advertisements of Films indicated only the production company’s names, for example- “The Imperial Company presents” etc etc. There was no mention of any actor’s names on the posters, though sometimes Photos were added.
The credit of including the names of Artistes on the film Posters and the Advertisements goes to the Superstar of those days-Sulochana (Ruby Myers). She was the most highly paid star of those days( Rs. 5000 p.m.) and used to come to the studios by chauffeur driven car, for daily work ! One day, she saw a film poster of her film and was shocked to find that no names of any actors were mentioned on it. She exploded and threatened to stop work with all other artistes, unless her and other main actors’ name were printed on every film poster and the advertisements. Due to her insistence, the producers started putting main actors’ names on the posters. Over a period, it became a regular practice. This was from around the year 1935 onwards.
However, this was NOT the case of Film song records. Though song records of films started commercially with MADHURI-1932, these records, barring few exceptions, did not carry the singers name on it, till almost 1949 !! A classic case is of the iconic famous song of Lata- ” Aayega Aanewala” from film Mahal-1949. The name on this record is KAMINI- which was the screen name of Madhubala in that film ! Lata’s name is NOT mentioned on this record !!
It was, probably from then onwards that the singers’ names were regularly started appearing on the records. That is the reason most of the song records available form the 30s and the 40s are without names and one has to listen to them and guess the singers’ names.
Unfortunately, the Lyricist’s name was not mentioned, making it extremely difficult to credit the song to any Lyricist. This is the case even in some famous songs. Now of course everything is available.
Have you ever heard of these names ?
Radhacharan Bhattacharya, Motibabu, N R Bhattacharya, Shoolpani Mukherjee, S P Mukherjee, V V Ganguly, Niren Lahiri, Shivrani Ghosh, A C Biswas, Bhishmadev Chatterjee etc etc.
I am sure none of these names ring any bell in your mind. Simply because they are not famous Bangla names. Let me tell you that these are the names of Bangla Music Directors, who gave music to Hindi films in the 30s and 40s.
In the beginning, there were only two major film centres in India. Bombay and Calcutta. The contribution of Bangla artistes in various fields of film making, especially Music composition and singing has been sizable. Over a period, with the emergence and strengthening of regional centres, the contribution started reducing and in a period of 20 years, it trickled to the minimum.
In the decade of the 30s Music Directors like R C Boral, Pankaj Mullik, K C Dey, Timir Baran, Anupam Ghatak and Anil Biswas contributed heavily and they helped build the base of Hindi Film music. In the 40s it was Pannalal Ghosh, Kamal Dasgupta, Pt.Ravishankar and Ram Ganguly. In the 50s it was S D Burman, Salil Chaudhary and Hemant Kumar. In 60s it was Robin Banerjee, in 70s it was only R D Burman and in the 80s it was only Bappi Lahiri.
Similarly, in Singers too the initial high number came down over a period. To start with it was K C Dey, Anil Biswas, Ashok kumar, Asit baran, Harimati Dua, Kalyani Das, Kanan Devi, Pahadi Sanyal,Pankaj Mullik, Parul Ghosh, Maya Banerjee etc. Then came Ashima Banerjee, Geeta Dutt, Hemant kumar, Jagmohan, Juthika Roy, Manna Dey, Ranu Mukherjee, Sandhya mukherjee, Sailesh Mukherjee, Shankar Dasgupta, Subir sen,Uutpala Sen etc. In the 70 to 85 period it was mainly Kishore Kumar, Amit Kumar, Arati Mukherjee, Bappi Lahiri, Runa Laila, Kalyani Mitra, Pankaj mitra, Sapan Chakravarty etc. After 1985 the number reduced to Shreya Ghoshal, Abhijeet, Babul Supriyo etc.
(All names are only indicative and not exhaustive).
Most films of the New Theatres of early years had become All India famous because-
1. In the early films coming from Bombay, one could feel the impact of Marathi and Gujarati stage dramas on the acting and music in these films. The stage drama type acting and Mehfil type singing was quite unattractive. In contrast, films of New Theatres had fresh acting and melodious songs which were not classical type. They had excellent music which was simple, having hummable tunes.
2. Their story base used to be very strong, as most films were based on the works of established and famous authors, dramatists and story writers. These stories were already famous in print and now people wanted to see the same in live on the screen. famous writers like Sharat Babu, Bankim Babu, Ravindranath Tagore and many such famous authors’ works were used to make films. Strong story base also reduced the dependence on the number of film songs…..which Bombay films used in plenty to counter weak story bases.
3. One major reason for their All India success was also the language they used in film dialogues and the songs. In the early era, many Muslim and Urdu poets, writers and well known authors went into the Bombay Film Industry. They wrote dialogues and songs in chaste Urdu or Urdu mixed Hindi, which was a problem for Non-Hindi speaking regions like Maharashtra, Gujarat or the southern states, to understand.
Films made by New Theatres and other Bengal studios, essentially used Pure Hindi words, and phrases in dialogues and film songs. In its pure form any Indian language becomes sanskritised and hence these dialogues and film songs were understandable and welcomed by both Hindi as well as Non Hindi regions all over India.
For example, Bombay films used words like Ishq, Mohabbat and Pyar, whereas films from Eastern zone used words like Prem, Preet and Pranay. Mulaqat became Bhent and Izazat became Anumati etc etc. Most of the Indian Languages have been evolved from Sanskrit, so these sanskritised words were acceptable, understood and liked by people in Andhra, Karnataka, Gujarat or all over the South.
Most actors from Bombay side being Hindi or Urdu educated, preferred language close to them-naturally. At the same time, actors from East India(read Bengal) had to learn to use Hindi (easier than learning Urdu, Persian or Arabic) in films and songs. (Remember the famous taunt Dilip kumar had made about Lata, expressing doubts about her Urdu pronunciation, just because she was a Marathi Girl…..Uske labjon se Dal Bhaat ki boo aati hai ! )
This one point was smartly picked up by Prabhat Films and we find that almost all Prabhat or Rajkamal films later on, used Hindi dialogues and songs, making Shantaram films more popular and widespread than the heavily Urdu-laden films of Sohrab Mody and his ilk.
Film Adhikar-1938 was directed by P.C.Barua. Music Director was Timir Baran. The cast was Jamuna (Barua), Menaka, P.C.Barua, Pahadi Sanyal, Pankaj Mullik, Jagdish Sethi and others. 3 solo songs by Pahadi sanyal, 2 by Pankaj Mullick and 2 duets of Pahadi and Mullik regaled the audience.
Jamuna ( 10-10-1919 to 24-11-2005) was the fourth of the six daughters of Puran Gupta, a resident of a village near Agra, India. Each of the sisters was named after an Indian river like Ganga, Jamuna, Bhagirathi etc. As destiny would have it, Jamuna came to reside in Calcutta, a leading film producing city in India. Originally from Gauripur of Assam’s Goalpara district (undivided), Jamuna was married to the legendary actor director Pramathesh Barua, or P.C. Barua, who died in 1951. She began her acting career in her husband’s famous production Devdas in 1936 and was the film’s lead character Parvati or Paro. She went on to make a number of memorable movies in Assamese, Bengali and Hindi, notably Amiri, Mukti, Adhikar and Sesh Uttar. She stopped acting after Barua died.
Jamuna made her film debut in the 1930s and played a small role in Mohabbat Ki Kasauti (1934), Hindi version of Rooplekha (Bengali), directed by P.C. Barua. A romance started although Barua, hailing from the native Indian state of Gauripur, Assam, was already twice married. As the actress, who was to play Parbati in Barua’s next venture Devdas (1935) reported inability to attend the studio on the very first day of shooting, Jamuna was called from Barua’s residence (she was living with him by then) and was asked to get down to work straight away without any preparation whatsoever. Thus she came to be the first Parbati of Indian talkies- Miss Light had played the role in the silent version of the enormously popular Sharat Chandra novel. Aishwarya Rai happens to the last so far and Devdas has been made and re-made a number of times. Jamuna played the same role in the Hindi version also and was accepted in this very first proper exposure as an actress in her own right.
She continued to act in Barua’s films like Grihadaha (1936), Maya (1936), Adhikar (1939), Uttarayan (1941), Shesh Uttar (1942), Chander Kalanka (1944) and the respective Hindi versions of each film. Barua had left the prestigious New Theatres in 1940 and was directing as well as producing his films. Thereafter she acted in a number of Barua directed Hindi movies like Amiree, Pehchan and Iran Ki Ek Raat. These films however did not add to the prestige of either to Barua or to Jamuna. Jamuna also acted outside Barua direction in three Bengali films Debar (1943) and Nilanguriya (1943) where she proved herself without Barua’s influence. Her last film Malancha (1953) was also outside Barua’s direction. She also starred in its Hindi version Phulwari (1953).
Barua’s death in 1951 when he was only 48 changed Jamuna’s life altogether. She had three sons by Barua, Deb Kumar, Rajat and Prasun. They were all minors at the time and the Gauripur estate refused to take any of their responsibilities. She had to wage a legal battle with the powerful and influential royal family to get her and her children’s dues and recognition. Time settled the matters and she was allowed ownership of the house with its vast adjoining land and also an allowance. Jamuna spent the rest of her life after Barua as a housewife, busy in bringing up her minor sons. She had to complete the unfinished film Malancha of course but bid adieu to the film industry soon after. Later in her life she did attend a number of functions to celebrate the centennial year of husband P.C. Barua and received felicitations on behalf of the Government of India and the state Government of Assam as the first Parbati of Indian talkies.
Her last days were not very comfortable and she was bedridden for more than six months prior to her death. She is survived by her three sons and their families and a host of relatives. According to her family members, she had been ill for some time, and the cause of death was illness related to old age. She died at her residence in South Kolkata. She had acted in 13 Hindi films. Her last film was Phulwari-51.
Here is the song, sung by Pahadi Sanyal. Enjoy….
Song- Niraash Musaafir gaaye jaa (Adhikaar)(1938) Singer- Pahadi Sanyal, Lyricist- Not known, MD- Timir Baran
Lyrics
Niraash musaafir
gaaye jaa
gaaye jaa
niraash musaafir
gaaye jaa
gaaye jaa
aashaa ki been bajaaye jaa
aashaa ki been bajaaye jaa
dukhiyaare man ki ee
dukhiyaare man ki
duniya mein
niraash musaafir
gaaye jaa
gaaye jaa
?? jeevan ka ?? rahe
manzil ka chiraag
??
?? jeevan ka chaaraghar
manzil ka chiraag
??
kaliyon mein tumhen ?? hain nazar
kaliyon mein tumhen ?? hain nazar
dheeraj dhar pair badhaaye jaa
aasha ki been bajaaye jaa
niraash musaafir
gaaye jaa
gaaye jaa
man ke aakaash pe
jab tere
sankat ka baadal chhaa jaaye
man ke aakaash pe
jab tere
sankat ka baadal chhaa jaaye
tab chandr kiran ke aasha se
tab chandr kiran ke aasha se
tu man ko geet sunaaye jaa
tu man ko geet sunaaye jaa
sunaaye jaa
niraash musaafir
gaaye jaa
gaaye jaa
aasha ki been bajaaye jaa
aasha ki been bajaaye jaa
dukhiyaare man ki ee
dukhiyaare man ki
duniya mein
niraash musaafir
gaaye jaa
gaaye jaa
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7 Responses to "Niraash musaafir gaaye jaa"
December 9, 2023 at 10:57 pm
You have said all names are indicative only. But I think we can add Kumar Sanu & Shaan to the list of new generation playback singers
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December 10, 2023 at 6:52 am
I was not sure that they too were Bengali. They must be, if you say so.
Thanks for additional information.
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December 10, 2023 at 1:28 pm
Kumar Sanu is Kedarnath Bhattacharya & Shaan is Shantanu Mukherjee. He has a sister Sagarika, both are children of Music director Manas Mukherjee. It seems their mother also was a singer – Sonali Mukherjee. And someone in their family was a lyricist too
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December 10, 2023 at 3:36 pm
Wow !
No wonder your posts are interesting, with so much of deep knowledge!!
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December 11, 2023 at 10:00 am
My God! you are complimenting me on my Knowledge!!!! Like Sun complimenting the candle that also TEA LIGHT CANDLE 😉
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
December 9, 2023 at 6:29 pm
Thanks Arun ji for the detailed post,enjoyed reading it very much and
I remember Pahadi Sanyal in Saathi(Rajendra Kumar) and Aradhana(in the role of Sharmila Tagore`s father)
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December 9, 2023 at 8:18 pm
Thanks, Prakash ji.
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