Chhod baabul ka ghar…kabhee kisee se dil na lagaanaa
Posted on: June 9, 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.
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Today’s song is from a social film Albeli-1955.
This is a very rare song and I spent more than a month searching for this song, but could not get it. Finally, on my request I got the audio MP3 format of this song from my friend Syed Zafar Shah ji. He has always been very helpful to me. I have few other well known song collectors like Girdharilal Vishwakarma ji, Vishwas Nerurkar ji and Deepak Choudhari ji, who extend their help whenever I request them. I consider it my good luck to know them so well.
The year 1955 gave us some really meaningful and entertaining films. Raj Kapoor’s ‘Shri 420’ tried to bring in limelight, as usual, the hypocrisy of elite society. It was a great film with a message, good direction and everlasting music by Shankar-Jaikishan, the three specialities of an RK film. From this film onwards, “Raju” became the favourite name of Raj Kapoor’s Heroes.( Like ‘Shanker’ was Shammi Kapoor’s lucky name in early films. Similarly ‘Vijay’ was the favourite film name of Amitabh Bachhan in 20 films, of Jeetendra in 18 films and of Mithun Chakravarti in 16 films.).
Guru Dutt’s film Mr.and Mrs.55 was perhaps his last light comedy movie, which has peppy music by O P Nayyar. Later he made serious films like Pyaasa-57, Kagaz ke phool-59 and Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam-62, for which he will be known forever. Sunil Dutt made his Debut with Railway Platform. V.Shantaram’s Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje was an example of how an art film devoted to Dance can also become a commercial success. The film being in color also helped. Seema and Devdas were serious films. Pather Panchali hit the Indian screens. Azaad, Insaniyat, Munimji, Udan Khatola and Baradari were entertainers with very good music.
Children’s film society was established in 1955. Shammi Kapoor and Geeta Bali got married. New Theatres of Calcutta made its last film Bakul and downed its shutters forever.
Film Albeli-1955 was a fun filled film, featuring my favourite actress of the 50’s Geeta Bali. The film is a cleverly knit mixture of a good story, excellent music, direction from a good director and a suitable cast. The only thing that was left wanting was the choice of the Hero- Pradeep Kumar. I felt that Geeta Bali and he were poles apart from their images in the minds of the audience. Geeta Bali was seen as a capable actress whereas Pradeep Kumar- a good looking actor with less of histrionic talent.
In Hindi films, there have been three actors who were very handsome and very lucky but zero in acting – Karan Dewan, Pradeep Kumar and Bharat Bhushan. They all appeared in leading roles opposite all leading actresses of their times. They had the best films, best songs and best roles. Karan Dewan had about 25 Silver Jubilees to his credit and was considered a lucky star. Bharat Bhushan had the most musical films to his credit like ‘Baiju Bawra’ (1952), ‘Shabaab’ (1954) and ‘Mirza Ghalib’ (1954) etc. Pradeep Kumar had ‘Anarkali’ (1953) and ‘Taj Mahal’ (1963).
All three had their brothers producing films for them. Gemini Dewan made films for Karan Dewan, R Chandra made films for Bharat Bhushan and Kalidas for Pradeep Kumar. Unfortunately, in later years, all three lost everything and died in poverty and neglectful anonymity. Karan Dewan was a manager with BR Chopra’s production company. When he died no one came for his funeral except for Chandrashekhar and Manmohan Krishan from the Cine Artists Association. Bharat Bhushan worked as a watchman in a film studio, in his last days. Even he died unsung and only the men from the Association were present at the cremation.
Pradeep Kumar’s case is the saddest. He lay seriously ill in the ICU of a Calcutta nursing home, abandoned by his relatives. The hospital was not discharging unless the bills were paid. Luckily one Mr. Pradeep Kondaliya, an estate agent, recognised him, despite his grown beard. He paid the huge outstanding bill of the hospital and took Pradeep Kumar to his home, where he passed away after a few days. He was cremated by his fan. Such is the film industry – cruel and ruthless, where the recognition lasts only till one is successful.
The star cast of film Albeli-1955 was Geeta Bali, Pradeep Kumar, Om Prakash, Tun Tun, Johnny Walker, Ranjana Shukla (Heroine of Dilip Kumar in film Milan-1946) and others. The film was interesting. The story was…..
The film is a hilarious mixture of misunderstanding and confusions, like a comedy of errors. Geeta is daughter of Verma ji, owner of Hotel Nan Ching Chungh. She is fond of music and is a great fan of singer Pradeep. Once Pradeep comes to their town for a show. Geeta, in spite of her efforts,can not attend and she misses the show. Her younger sister Rita loves a boy named Brij. Geeta helps her to elope with Brij and get married. While doing so a bad element Bahadur Singh chases Geeta. To avoid him, she starts running and Pradeep, who is passing by that road, thinks that she is a thief running away. He catches her and they reach the Police station. There, instead of telling the truth she accuses Pradeep of kidnapping her with bad intentions. The Police release her and hold Pradeep. She returns home after one day in custody. She finds that Brij and Rita are home but are afraid of telling the truth to the family.
Meanwhile the Police telephones Verma ji and tells him that the charges on Pradeep are false and Geeta is bluffing. Police and Pradeep reach her home. To save the situation,Geeta pretends that she is not the same girl. It must be her twin sister who looks alike. There is a lot of confusion. Pradeep believes Geeta and apologises to her. Now Geeta loves him more. Pradeep also starts loving her. He still thinks that she has a twin sister.
Verma ji sends both girls to learn music, to Kalaniketan School of Music,where Pradeep is teaching music. Geeta helps Rita to go to Kashmir for honeymoon and tries to play the double role of twin sisters. One day Rita comes back and Pradeep hears their conversation. He learns about the reality that there is no twin sister. He arranges to send both sisters back to their home. Pradeep and Brij also reach there and all the confusion is cleared. Vermaji is happy that both daughters are getting husbands of their choice.
All’s well that ends well.
In the last so many years- till 1980 – I must have seen hundreds of Films- Hindi, Marathi, English, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. In the Hindi films, I can not forget 3 actresses, who were Bubbly, playful, with innocent looks and with Natural acting talent. They were Meena Shorey, Nalini Jaywant and Geeta Bali. I enjoyed every film of these actresses, which I saw. It is difficult to forget the role and acting of Meena Shorey in film ” Ek thi Ladki-49″, or Nalini Jaywant in film ” Hum sab chor hain-56″, or Geeta Bali in film ” Aji Bas Shukriya-58″. These were all my favourite actresses. It is very unfortunate that they all met their deaths in very tragic circumstances.
Geeta Bali’s dancing eyes and her animated, expressive face which mirrored her soul were her most outstanding features. Yet life was snatched away from this vibrant personality at an achingly young age of 35.It is some consolation that Geeta crammed a lot into her short life: 80 odd films in a ten-year career. She married struggling actor-turned-megastar Shammi Kapoor and mothered two children: a son and a daughter. Today, she is remembered as a wonderfully natural actress and a fabulous human being.She was quite close to her sisters and brother. Her childhood pet name was KEETA.
True, Geeta’s reputation as an actress rests more on her performances than her roles. Natural, spontaneous and gifted with a spot-on sense of comic timing, she never really found a vehicle worthy of her talent. Largely a shade better than the movies she starred in, she frittered away her talents in B-grade films. Probably the fact that she was born into a family that had to struggle for sheer survival and the fact that she reached the top through sheer grit had Geeta stress on quantity rather than quality. Film lore has it that when mentor [filmmaker] Kidar Sharma first met Geeta, she was living with her family in somebody’s bathroom!
Geeta Bali (real name Harkirtan Kaur) was born in Amritsar on 30-11-1930, in a Sikh family, known for its religious and Scholarly traditions. Her father was a Sikh Missionary Preacher and travelled not only all over India, but also to Burma, Ceylon and Malaya. Due to frequent change of place, Geeta’s education was not consistent and it ended after 6th standard. When the family was in Kashmir, she joined the dancing and music classes. Keeta (her family nickname) did dance performances on stage in her schools.
When she was about 9-10 year old, she gave a public performance of her Dance in Lucknow. The puritans in their society objected, made a hue and cry and the pendal was burnt, to stop her show. Such experiences made her very bold in life. While at Lahore, Geeta directly entered the A.I.R. office to get a music contract. She got it also. She used to participate in Children’s programmes.
Through her Dance Director in A.I.R., she got into a documentary ” Cobbler” made by Shorey pictures. Impressed, she got a dance performance in film ” Badnami”-46 as well as Kahan Gaye-46 and Pancholi’s Patjhad-47, before moving to Mumbai. Impressed by her off-screen vivacity, Sharma cast Geeta in his Suhaag Raat (1948). Audiences related to her instantly and watched wide-eyed as she nonchalantly tossed her unconscious hero, Bharat Bhushan over her shoulder in a scene.
Soon, Geeta was inundated with contracts (that’s what they called film offers then). She accepted most. She won raves even in supporting roles like in the 1949 Suraiya starrer Badi Behan and the Madhubala starrer Dulari. In 1951, she became a major star with Guru Dutt’s first hit, Baazi (she went on to do three other films under his direction). Geeta played a gangster’s moll with a golden heart to Kalpana Kartik’s conventional heroine. But Geeta played her role with such gay abandon that hero Dev Anand divulges, “People came repeatedly to theatres to see Geeta’s spirited dancing to Tadbeer se bigdi hui taqdeer bana de.
Next she worked with Raj Kapoor in Bawre Nain-50, Bhagwan’s Albela-51 and Navketan’s Baazi-52. Now there was no looking back. Geeta Bali went on to act in 80 films in her short career of just 14 years. She even sang a few lines in a song from the film Rangeen Raaten-56, with Shamshad Begum and Uma Devi. She worked with Prithviraj Kapoor in Anand math-52 and his sons Raj kapoor in Bawre nain and in many films with Shammi kapoor. With Dev Anand she did Baazi, Faraar, Milap, Jaal, Zalzala, Ferry and Pocket Maar. She worked opposite Ashok Kumar, Motilal, Balraj Sahani, Prem Adib, Jairaj, Rehman, Bharat Bhushan, Abhi Bhattacharya, Kamal Kapoor, Karan Dewan, Shekhar, Sajjan, Amarnath, Jaswant and Suresh.
Some of her notable films were, Girls’ School-49, Dulari-49, Badi bahen-49, Nishana-550,Bawre Nain-50, Baazi-51, Albela-51, Zalzala-52, Raag Rang-52, Anand Math-52, Jhamela-53, Baaz-53, Daaku ki Ladki-54, Vachan-55, Miss Coca Cola-55, Jawab-55, Faraar-55, Bara Dari-55, Albeli-55, Pocket Maar-56, inspector-56, Coffee House-57, Mujrim-58, Jailor-58, Aji Bas Shukriya-58, Mr. India-61 etc etc.
Geeta proved she could do tragedy (Sharma’s Raj Kapoor starrer Bawre Nain) or and play the lighthearted heroine to comedian Bhagwan in the super successful Albela. Albela’s swinging C Ramchandra composed songs like Shola jo bhadke and Sham dhale mere khidki tale made front-benchers dance with the stars and even fling coins on screen. Pug-nosed Geeta was no conventional beauty, but that transparent face and that smile constantly flirting on her lips made sure you couldn’t tear your eyes away from her.
Watch Geeta Bali in the Guru Dutt-directed Jaal (1952). Dev Anand, a cigarette-smoking smuggler on the run from the police, tries to entice morally upstanding heroine Geeta into his web. Geeta evocatively communicates her struggle against, and her eventual surrender to, handsome Dev’s seduction call Yeh raat, yeh chandni phir kahan Famously down-to-earth despite her star status, Geeta was the antithesis of the coy 1950s’ heroine. She often drove herself to her premieres in an open jeep. Those who knew her claim she was a Samaritan who touched the lives of whoever she met. She is said to have personally groomed Mala Sinha, then a newcomer.
To date, so many years after her death, her secretary Surinder Kapoor’s (Boney Kapoor’s father) productions begin with a shraddhanjali to Geeta Bali.
Shammi Kapoor entered her life when they worked in the quaintly named Miss Coca Cola and Coffee House together. On an impulse, Geeta played a small role of a man in Sharma’s Shammi Kapoor starrer Rangeen Raatein. On the film’s Ranikhet outdoor, Shammi and Geeta fell in love. Kapoor was a year younger to her and was not yet a star, but the twosome were hell bent on marrying each other. Geeta had worked with Shammi’s eldest brother, Raj Kapoor in Bawre Nain, and with his father, Prithviraj Kapoor in Anand Math, Shammi was unsure about their reaction to this match. But on August 23, 1955, with producer-director Hari Walia and friend Johnny Walker as witness, the couple were married at the Banganga Temple at 4 am.
Geeta continued to work after marriage in a few films like Sohrab Modi’s Jailor (1958), where she won raves as a blind girl. With Shammi Kapoor turning into a huge star and the birth of her two children Aditya (nicknamed Mickey) and Kanchan, she eased her workload.
The desire to do that one fulfilling role she would be remembered for prompted Geeta to attempt the production of a classic for herself. She started Rano, based on Rajinder Singh Bedi’s famous novel, Ek Chadar Maili Si, based on a widow’s remarriage to her brother-in-law. Upcoming star Dharmendra played her hero.
Geeta had not been vaccinated for smallpox, despite the fact her father too had died of Smallpox. She had ignored repeated warnings in her childhood. She contracted the dreaded disease while shooting the film. The best care was rushed to her, but her fever apparently reached 107 degrees. Her doctor saw a picture by his patient’s bedside and asked who the pretty lady was. The disease had so wracked Geeta’s frail frame that he didn’t recognise her as the same person!
Geeta Bali passed away on January 21, 1965, leaving behind eight-year-old Aditya and three-year-old Kanchan in the care of a devastated Shammi Kapoor.
Ironically, she was cremated in Banganga, not far from where she was married. ( adapted from Rediffmail.com, books Star Portraits by Harish Booch and Stars of the Indian Screen by Baburao Patel, India Today, Yaadon ki Baaraat by Shirish Kanekar and my notes – with thanks.)
I thank our friend Sadanand Kamath ji for uploading this song on my request. He has always done this for me. This is the last and final song of this film. With this song, Albeli 1955 becomes a YIPPEE film.
Song-Chhod baabul ka ghar….Kabhee kisee se dil na lagaanaa (Albeli)(1955) Singer-Asha Bhosle, Lyricist-Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, MD-Ravi
Lyrics
Chhod baabul ka ghar
gayee pee ke nagar
uthhe paaon magar
laut aana pada
zindagee hai nazar(?)
thee mujhe na khabar
phir bhi dil ko ye ?? geet gaanaa padaa
kabhee kisi se dil na lagaana
pyaar ke chakkar mein na aanaa
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
dekho jee dekho
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
dekho jee dekho
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
haaye mohabbat haaye zamaanaa
nayi museebat kissa puraanaa
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
dekho jee dekho
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
??
ithhlaate bal khaate
??
ithhlaate bal khaate
laut ke aaye sharmaa ke
ghabraake jaan bachaake
kya hai mohabbat anjaanaa
ab na sunenge unka gaanaa
kya hai muhabbat
hamne ye jaanaa
ab na sunenge unka gaanaa
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
dekho jee dekho
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
kabhee kisi se dil na lagaanaa
pyaar ke chakkar mein na aanaa
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
dekho jee dekho
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
saajan kee soorat na dekhee
dekhe din mein taare
nain milaane kaheen na jaiyyo
rahiyo apne dwaare
saajan kee soorat na dekhee
dekhe din mein taare
nain milaane kaheen na jaiyyo
rahiyo apne dwaare
warna padega thhokar khaanaa
yaad aayenge naani naanaa
warna padega thhokar khaanaa
yaad aayenge naani naanaa
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
dekho jee dekho
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
haaye mohabbat haaye zamaanaa
nayee museebat kissa puraanaa
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
dekho jee dekho
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
kabhee kisi se dil na lagaanaa
pyaar ke chakkar mein na aanaa
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa
dekho jee dekho
hum ko pada hai pachhtaanaa aaaaaa
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
June 9, 2024 at 8:41 am
Atulji Namaste,
All your articles are worth invaluable.
Thanks for sharing.
Regards
Uma🙏
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