Amar hai prem kee shakti
Posted on: March 13, 2024
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.
|
Blog Day : |
5717 | Post No. : | 18236 |
Today’s song is from the film Gol Nishan-1936.
The first Talkie film came in 1931. The first year had just 24 films, but within a span of 3 years, the Talkie films crossed the century mark, with 121 films in 1934, 152 in 1933 and 134 in 1936. Making a film was a complicated process which needed a studio, the latest machinery and a lot of money. This was difficult for a single person and thus the Studio System got established. The studios ruled the industry and the film making. Films were sold on the names of the studios and the actors had secondary appeal to the audience.
There were three major film centres in 1936 – Bombay, Calcutta and Poona. In Bombay, studios like Imperial, Bombay Talkies, Sagar Movietone, Ranjit etc were big names. In Calcutta, New Theatres and East India Film Corporation were major players. Prabhat film company was famous from Poona. This was the position in 1936. Like any other industry, the film industry too needed an organisation of the big players, so that the workers had no upper hand on them. Accordingly, “Indian Motion Pictures Association” (IMPA) was established first in Bombay, followed by Bengal Motion Picture Association in Calcutta. Poona, being in the Bombay Presidency, did not have a separate organization.
1936 saw the formation of Huns Pictures by Master Vinayak and Baburao Pendharkar. The year was noteworthy for Prabhat Film company as one of its directors, Keshavrao Dhaibar had to leave the company, for marrying one of the company’s employee-actress Nalini Tarkhud and thus breaking the company’s rule not to marry an employee ! Much later, even V.Shantaram had to leave Prabhat when he married actress Jayashree, an employee of Prabhat !!
Let us now take a look at some important films of 1936….
The year was notable for the type of films it produced. The initial limitation of making films only on Mythologicals or folk stories slowly changed over to social issues and problems. As such, due to the British rule Indians had started following lot of western manners, dressing pattern and our traditions were giving way to modern ways of developing countries like the Europe or the America.
From Calcutta came 3 films of New Theatres, Manzil, Maya and Karodpati. Manzil was a love story of a rich boy and a poor boy loving the same girl. Maya was a story of a rich wayward girl and an orphan girl in her house loving the same boy. Karodpati was a comedy enacted by Saigal and Molina Devi.
Bombay Talkies had 4 films, but only 2 were note worthy. The first was Jeevan Naiya, which saw Ashok Kumar becoming a reluctant Hero (he was only a Lab-Technician) opposite Devika Rani. The other film was Achut Kanya – a film based on the ills of Untouchability.
The year 1936 was memorable because of films from Prabhat, which made the film Amar Jyoti, showing Durga Khote as a Lady Pirate. The film was made on Grand scale and in such a way that it was much ahead of its time !
The other important film was Sant Tukaram in Marathi. The film ran for one year in Bombay theatres. The role of the wife of Tukaram was done by an actress, who was a sweeper in the studio before this film, but she excelled in her role. Her name was Tanibai Davari. This was the first film to celebrate the Golden Jubilee at many places. It won the honour of ” One of the 3 Greatest films of the world” award at Venice Film Festival in 1937.
Sagar Movietone launched actor singer Surendra with the film Deccan Queen. The other film was Manmohan, which copied the film Devdas, by becoming a tragedy of a heart broken lover. Some other notable films were Sunehra Sansar by East India company, introducing Vijay Kumar from Shimla and K.N.Singh. K.N.Singh also debuted as a Hero in the only film Bandit of the Air from the same company. There were films like Jay Bharat from the Wadias, Passing Show from Prakash films and Said E Hawas from Minerva Movietone. Film Maa from Prafull Pictures used ” Vande Mataram” for the first time in a film. Film Shokh Dilruba had 150 kissing scenes (there was no restriction from Censors then). First Talkie Seeta Vivah from Orissa also came.
Today’s film Gol Nishan-1936 was produced by Navbharat Movietone, Bombay. This costume film was perhaps based on the famous story of Zorro by Johnston McCulley in 1919. It was based on a Mexican folktale. The immediate inspiration was from the silent film – The mark of Zorro-1920. In this film Zorro, the swordsman makes a sign of Z with his sword before leaving any place. In the Indian version, Gol Nishan, the masked Heroine makes a sign of a Zero, with her sword ! That is why the second name of this film was The mark of Zero. The cast of the film was Navinchandra, Gauhar Karnataki, Amrutlal, Brijmala and others.
The name Gauhar is a part of ” The Same Name Confusion”. We find a lot many Gauhars as singers or actresses, as following….
Gauhar Jaan of Sholapur-Singer
Gauhar Jaan of Patiala- Singer
Gauhar Jaan of Calcutta-Singer
Gauhar Sultana of Lucknow-Singer
Gauhar of the Parsi Theatre-Actress
Gauhar Mamajiwal-Actress and
Gauhar Karnataki- Actress
Gauhar Karnataki, heroine of the film Gol Nishan was the sister of the famous actress-Singer Amirbai Karnataki. Tabla player Hussain Khan, living in a small town Belagi, near Hubli, had 6 daughters. The first was Allamma(Ahilya),then Amirbai, next was Gauhar(Born in 1908), then a series of badi Munni,Chhoti Munni and Nanhi Munni. Son was Dastgir.
Being from a poor family, Amirbai and Gauhar(Gauramma) worked in a drama company called Vanivilas Natak mandali. Since Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum came under Bombay Presidency and were also near Sangli/Miraj and Kolhapur, the sisters were experts in Marathi too.
Brother Dastgir went on to study B.Sc and did a job in AIR, Belgaum. From the beginning only, Amirbai and Gauhar did not get on well with each other. Maybe professional jealousy. Gauhar got classical music training from a blind teacher Nilkanth Panchakshari Buwa. Great classical singer Mallikarjuna Mansur’s brother Basavanna wrote songs for Gauhar and also accompanied her on Harmonium.
Marathi singer actor Chaphekar took the sisters to Bombay for working in films. Gauhar and Chaphekar stayed as companions in Bombay for a few years. Meanwhile Gauhar got a daughter Ashamma. Her father’s name is not known. Ashamma remained with Gauhar till her death.
Gauhar started acting in Marathi and Hindi films. She acted, sang and also composed her own songs, but no records were brought out.
Gauhar was mesmerised by the famous Marathi singer actor BAL GANDHARVA. She first met him in 1937, in actor Himalayawala’s flat(Amirbai karnataki’s cruel Husband). It is widely believed that Gauhar used Black magic to attract Bal Gandharva to her. As expected he fell in her love and Gauhar joined his Balgandharva natak mandali in 1938. After her arrival into the mandali, all senior artistes left the company as they were afraid of Gauhar’s black magic.
From 1938, Gauhar remained with Balgandharva till she died in 1964. Balgandharva’s wife died in grief in 1940 and Gauhar married Balgandharva in 1951.
She acted in films like Raas vilas-32, Kala Pahad and Sohni mahiwal-33, Kala vagh and Shak karta Shivaji(M)-34, Pyar ki Maar-35, Bansriwala, Gol Nishan and Graduate-36, Kala Bhoot and Chabuk swar-37, Vijay Danka-38, Hawai khatola and Swadesh sewa-46. Chabuk sawaar-37 was a stunt film a-la Fearless Nadiya style wherein she did some stunts and fencing too. (Thanks to lifekidhun, warren senders, wiki and HFGK for some information used above.)
Gauhar is mentioned as Gauhar Karnataki or Gauhar from Bijapur in the HFGK. She must have sung at least 100 songs but since there were no records, there is no information. As her many films were C grade, no redords were issued even for them. However she has sung many Marathi natyageet and Bhajans. There can not be any comparison with her sister Amirbai since Amirbai was in a higher league and her records were also made. She had many composers and singers to sing along.
Here is some rare information of the film’s hero- Navinchandra…..
Navinchandra’s full name was Navinchandra N. Joshi. He was born in 1907 at Jambusar and belonged to a Gujarati Bramhin family. When he was studying Intermidiate, his dream was to do M.Sc. and become a Professor. He was very much interested in body building and was a weight lifter. He was expert in Long jump, High jump and Malkhamb too, along with yogasanas. This made his body solid. Fair and handsome physique was noticed by one of the seniors in his Gym and he was taken to Bombay to meet produced director Indulal Yagnik. He offered him a Hero’s role in a stunt film. Thus Navin entered the film line with first silent stunt movie “The fall of Pawagarh”-1928. It was produced by Indulal Yagnik and directed by Nagendra Mujumdar. His first Heroine was Iris Crawford. He worked in more than 20 silent films and was famous as the Hero of Stunt and action films.
His first Talkie film was Kala Pahad-1933 in which his Heroine was Gauhar Karnataki ( sister of Amirbai Karnataki and wife of Marathi stage artiste Bal Gandharv). The film was made by Sharda Movietone and directed by Baburao Apte (brother of actress Shanta Apte). Navinchandra acted in 33 talkie films, mostly stunt and action films. When the attraction of stunt films waned, he stopped getting roles, because stunt films were not being made now on roll. His last film was Jadui Putli-1946.
His age also caught up with him and he stopped getting films. He started doing small uncredited roles like an extra. The last information about him was when he was working as a Production manager in Imperial Film company, where now the studio was rented to other producers for shooting their films, by Irani’s heirs. One peculiar thing about Navinchandra was that except for the film’s required costume, he was always seen in Dhoti and Kurta only.
Today’s song was sung by Gauhar Karnataki. Lyrics were by Dr. Dhaniram Prem. Music Director’s name is not given in HFGK also. The songs sounds typically like a Natyageet, i.e. stage drama song. That was the trend in those times.
Enjoy this 88 year old song….
Song- Amar hai prem ki shakti(Gol Nishaan)(1936) Singer- Gauhar Karnataki, Lyricist- Dr. Dhaniram Prem, M.D.- Not known
Lyrics
aa aa
amar hai prem ki shakti
amar hai prem ka gaana
amar hai prem ki shakti
amar hai prem ka gaana
na koyee bhool saktaa hai
??? prem ka ??
na koyee bhool
jagat ke prembandhan pe
ae ae ae ae
ae ae ae ae
jagat ke prembandhan pe
bandhe hain
jagatswaami bhi
jo nirgun se agun ban pade
pade iss lok mein aanaa
jo nirgun
na jeeta hai koyee isse
na jeetegaa koyee isse
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
na jeeta hai koyee isse
na jeetegaa koyee isse
sabhee devon se badhkar
prem ka hi devtaa jaanaa
sabhee devon se badhkar
bithhaayee prem mandir mein hai
jiskee mooratee hamne
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa
aa aa
bithhaayee prem mandir mein hai
hai jiskee moortee hamne
usee ko devta samjha
usey Parmaatmaa maanaa
amar hai prem ki shakti
amar hai prem ka gaanaa
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
March 13, 2024 at 7:31 am
Atul ji and Arun ji,
Lyrics corrections as per the song book of the film:
amar hai prem kaa ‘gaana’
‘sureela’ prem kaa ‘gaana’
jagat ke ‘prembandhan per bandhen hain’
jagat ‘swaami bhi’
jo ‘nirgun se agun ban pade’
‘iss lok mein aanaa’
sabee devon se badhkar
prem kaa hi devta jaanaa
LikeLike
March 13, 2024 at 8:14 am
Thanks for the lyrics corrections. This song does have lyrics that are unusual by the standards of Hindi movie lyrics.
LikeLike
March 13, 2024 at 11:15 am
Thanks.
LikeLike