Aao jhoolaa jhoolen Kaanhaa
Posted by: Atul on: April 6, 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 : |
5741 | Post No. : | 18263 |
Today’s song is a DayDream song video from the film Brandy ki Botal-1939.
The period of early Talkie cinema was interesting in many ways from the point of view of Cinema history. The experimental attitude of the filmmakers allowed the audience to enjoy a variety of subjects of life. Not only this, but due to studios like Prabhat, Huns, Maharashtra Film co. etc making bilingual films in Hindi and Marathi, gave a taste of Marathi style of acting and pronunciation of the dialogues. Exposure to Marathi actors, who acted only in Marathi films, had a typical accent, diction and style of delivering the dialogues which , at times, sounded funny and odd. The Hindi language that was used in these Bilingual films from Maharashtra was sprinkled with ” Hindi-ised” Marathi words, which, though not completely wrong, were rarely used in day-to-day use in the Hindi Belt. One example would be ” मैं तुम्हारी बाट ( वाट in Marathi) देखूंगी “…. which simply meant ” I will wait for you ” !
Similarly, Bilingual films from Bengal were different. These films used ultra-pure Hindi language which one found, possibly, only in decorative novels and Hindi stage dramas of yore. Bengal- made Hindi films insisted on using such language in film dialogues where, sometimes, the audience felt they were getting lessons from a Hindi class ! When a boy tells a girl “मैं तुम से प्रेम करता हूं, मेरा हृदय अर्पण करता हूँ ” in these films, the Hindi belt audience got busy in deciphering it as ” मैं तुमसे प्यार करता हूं. मैंने मेरा दिल तुमको दे दिया ” and by that time the film rolled further !
This apart, these films did the important job of National integration of the East and West culture for the rest of India. Later on, in the period from the release of the film ‘Chandralekha’-1948, from the Madras stable, it opened yet one more Bilingual gift of Tamil/Telugu-Hindi films. This brought in the southern style of acting, dialogues, diction and a special “Madrasi Hindi” (used only for describing and not with any ill intent please). Their period Costume films initially with family dramas and socials later on, added the much loved Southern Flavour to Hindi films, on an All India basis.
The year was 1939 and the British Government had declared war against Germany and Japan, as soon as the WW II began. All countries ruled by Britain were – willingly or unwillingly, drawn into the war efforts and its effects. The war began in the month of September and soon various restrictions came into operation – like rationing, blackouts, shortages etc. The film industry which was still under its development stage suffered. It also realised the importance of remaining united as one industry. However, all that came after 1 or 2 years. In 1939 there was not much effect seen on the film industry.
The industry had its own problems. In spite of the playback system in operation, their problem was that because there was no technique of recording from the film negative yet, the singers had to sing twice. Once for the actual film shooting of the song, and later, with the same set of orchestra, for commercial records. Sometimes, the original singer was not available due to any reason, some other singer had to sing for commercial records. Thus we have many such examples, where the singer in the film song and the record is different. However, this problem continued only till mid 50’s when the Tape and the required technique became available. With just one time recording, the film and commercial recording were taken care of.
Khemchand Prakash. K.Datta (Datta Koregaonkar), Rafiq Ghaznavi and Anupam Ghatak made their Debut as Music Directors. Kavi Pradeep wrote his first film song for film Kangan. In 1939, 2 most Unusual songs were presented, for the first time . One was a Multi-Lingual song from film Aadmi-39, a film by Prabhat….Kis liye kal ki baat. This song was in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bangla, Tamil and Telugu. ( In its Marathi film version-” माणूस “, this song was only in one language-Marathi.) Different Lyricists and MDs were used for each language. The song became very popular.
Second unusual song was from film ‘ Ghareeb ka Laal’-1939. The song lyrics had the names of 32 artistes, operating in Hindi films that time. Top Heroes and Heroines were mentioned in this song. The beginning of the song was ” Tuze Bibbo kahoon ya Sulochana, Uma shashi kahoon ki Jamuna “. This song was sung by the comedian Mirza Musharraf. In later years many songs with film artistes’ names came but none had so many names. Thus this record is still unbroken, in case of this song.
Besides these songs, let us quickly take a look at some films of 1939….
Aadmi – Prabhat’s hit film, a remake of the Marathi film ” माणूस “. It had some good songs by Shanta Hublikar, Sundarabai Jadhav and Ram Marathe.
Adhuri Kahani – a trend of Tragedy films set by the effect of film ‘Devdas’. All the 3 main characters of this film commit suicide in the end.
Badi Didi – A New Theatres film.
Brandy ki Botal – Master Vinayak’s comedy remake of Marathi film ‘ ब्रॅंडीची बाटली ‘.
Dil hi to hai – Debut of Kidar Sharma as a Director and Ramola as a Heroine in a Hindi film.
Dushman – New Theatres’ film of Saigal, with only his 4 songs.
Ek hi Raasta – Sagar presents first film with 3 Heroes in one film.
Ghazi Salauddin – Debut of Khemchand Prakash as M.D.
Hukum ka Ikka – First film with a Triple role by Umakant Desai ( who later specialised as Lakshman in 7 films, including Ramrajya-43).
Imaandaar – Debut of actress Shamim Akhtar.
India in Africa – This was the First Hindi film to be shot abroad (in Africa). The Hero B. Nandrekar had also gone to Africa for its shooting. Naaz-54 was not the first such film, though HFGK mentions it so.( Ref – pp 69, Maharashtra-The Birthplace of Indian cinema by Isak Mujawar)
Kangan – First of the 4 Hit films of Ashok kumar and Leela Chitnis, made by Bombay Talkies. Kavi Pradeep’s Debut as a Lyricist in this film.
Kapal kundala – New Theatres. Pankaj mullick’s hit song ‘ Piya milan ko jaana ‘.
Leather Face – Debut of Meena kumari as a child artiste.
Navjeevan – Debut of Hansa Wadkar as a Heroine- Bombay Talkies film.
Pukar – Hit film from Minerva Movietone. Naseem Bano sings ” Zindagi ka saaz bhi kya saaz hai….”
BRANDI KI BOTAL(1939), a Huns Picture Production was produced and Directed by Master Vinayak(Father of actress Nanda). The film was a remake of the successful Marathi film ‘ Brandichi Batali ‘ (1938) written and directed by famous Marathi writer/Dramatist P.K.Atre.
The cast included Master Vinayak, Meenakshi Shirodkar(Grandmother of Shilpa and Namrata Shirodkar),Visnupant Jog, Javdekar, Salvi, Ashalata and Lyricist Pt. Indra etc.
Brandi ki botal was a story about morality and self discipline. The naively innocent Bagaram(Master Vinayak), a Municipality clerk, has to find and secure a bottle of Brandy, to restore the health of his Boss’s ill son. Bagaram secretly loves Malati (Meenakshi),boss’s daughter. For this reason, not knowing anything he sets about to search for a Brandy Bottle. The film is full of hilarious incidents. Finally, Bagaram gets the Brandy bottle, but Malati calls him Bhaiyya !
The role of Bagaram was done by Damuanna Malwankar, the famous Marathi comedian in the Marathi version and it was a grand success.
The music was given by Dada Chandekar(Shankar Vishnu Chandekar),and most of the songs as well as story, screenplay and dialogues were written by P.K. Atre himself. One song was by Pt. Indra. The singers were Meenakshi, Rajkumari and Master Vasant Eric.
Today’s song is sung by Meenakshi Shirodkar and Master Vasant Eric. The male voice that we hear in this song belongs to a singer named VASANT ERIC ( actual name Vasant Jadhav) or MASTER ERIC. He sang all the songs of Master Vinayak in Marathi and Hindi films, after the film Premveer-1937. Master Vinayak could not sing due to tooth problems and Master Vasant Eric used to sing all his songs. However in all such films Vinayak was credited with the songs instead of Eric.
Now, who was this Master Eric ? His real name was Vasant Jadhav. He was born in 1907 into a Marathi Christian family of Kolhapur. Bhalji Pendharkar selected him for acting and singing in Shyam Cinetone’s film Parth kumar-1934 (Hindi/Marathi) His pet name was Eric, so he became Vasant Eric and later on due to his singing, he was called Master Vasnt Eric. He joined Kolhapur Shalini Cinetone and worked with master Vinayak. He also worked in films like Aakashwani-34 and Honhaar-36. He sang songs in films from 1937 onwards. In all the Marathi/Hindi films of Vinayak he sang for him.
Vasant Eric knew Rattanbai. She introduced him to Ardeshir Irani and he employed Eric in his Music Department, playing various instruments and singing whenever needed. He acted and sang in films made by Huns, Navyug and Prafull films. In 1948, he gave music to a Marathi film. He was called by many MDs to play Chord Piano for their songs. The male voice in Lata’s First Hindi Playback song ” Paa laagu kar jori re” is that of Master Vasant Eric only.
His son Ravindra was an actor and daughter Hemlata Shankar (Jadhav) was a film dancer. His grandson Nitin Shanker is an arranger in Bollywood today. Master Vasant Eric died in 1982. (This information is based on an article in the book ” Marathi Chitrapat sangeet ” by Madhukar Potdar, with thanks.)
Song-Aao jhoola jhoolen Kaanhaa (Brandy Ki Bottle)(1939) Singers- Meenakshi Shirodkar, Vasant Eric, Lyricist- Pt. Indra, MD- Dada Chandekar
Both
Lyrics
Aao
jhoola jhoolen Kaanhaa
Aao
jhoola jhoolen Kaanhaa
Jamuna ke teer Kaanhaa
Jamuna ke teer Kaanhaa
Jamuna ke teer eer
Kanhaiyya ?
Jamuna ke teer
man ka hindola mera
man ka hindola mera
jhoolo nawelee
kunj mein Raadhaa raanee
kalee kalee ras kee pyaasee
?? ke bhare morey nainaa
?? ke bhare morey nainaa
phir bhi piya ke
piya ke ??
o Kaanhaa
Jamuna ke teer aao
Jamuna ke teer
chadramukhi pe chandr dhalaa hai
chadramukhi pe chandr dhalaa hai
surya binaa ye kamal khilaa hai
surya binaa ye kamal khilaa hai
madhuban mein nandan-ban
hamne paayaa
bansi ki dhun mein ?? ko bisraayaa
??
?? banwaaree na bisraanaa
bansi ki dhun mein
tum ho bansi ke taan
tum ho raadhaa ke praan
praanon se praan milaa ke
jeevan sangeet sunaanaa
jeevan sangeet sunaanaa
aao jhoolaa jhoolen Kaanhaa
aao jhoolaa jhoolen Kaanhaa
jamunaa ke teer aao
jamunaa ke teer
Kanhaiyaa aa aa aa
jamunaa ke teer
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
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
Leave a comment