Wo chamak chamak kar taare
Posted by: Atul on: July 11, 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 the film Comrades-1939.
As per the Dictionary, the meaning of the word “Comrades” is….a person who fights on the same side as you in a war or a person who is a member of the socialist political party as you (read Communists). The story of this film is neither about a war nor about communist party. It is an usual love triangle story of 2 brothers and an orphan beautiful girl. I fail to understand how the film title ” Comrades” fits with this story ! Maybe because the second world war had started, the filmmakers gave this title to this film !!
The film was made by Sagar Movietone. They were on the top of the world in 1939 in film making. As many as 7 films were released and 4 films were on the shooting floors in 1939 for Sagar. Their good luck deserted them suddenly and in 1940 Sagar movietone merged with National Studios, with new partners. This is what the film industry was going through in those days. In 1937, the famous Madon Theatres of Calcutta closed down. The very next year, in 1938, the famous Imperial Film Company- makers of India’s First Talkie film ” Alam Ara”-1931 closed down and in 1939 it was the turn of Sagar Movietone. In the 1940s, Bombay Talkies closed and in the 50’s decade the famous New Theatres, Calcutta downed its shutters. The second world war was a bad omen indeed !
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….”
Film Comrades was directed by nandlal jaswantlal. Music Director was Anil Biswas. kanhaiyalal, who was famous as “Sukhilala” in the film ‘ Mother india’-1957 and other roles as a stingy sawkar, old man and a village villain was one of the 3 Lyricists of this film. The other two were Zia Sarhadi – the son-in law of a reluctant Music Director Rafiq Gazhnavi and Dr. Safdar Aah Sitapuri. The cast of the film was Surendra, maya Bannerjee Jillo, Jyoti(real name Sitara bai- daughter of actress, singer Waheedan nbai and sister of actress Nimmi aka Nawab banoo), Sankatha prasad (brother of Kanhaiyalal0, Bhudo Advani and others.
In this world, some people are born Lucky. They are not only born with the proverbial Silver spoon in their mouth but they get everything – name, fame and wealth on a platter without any efforts or asking for it. They live with fame and die in wealth. One such person was actor Surendra.
Surendranath Sharma was one of those rare artistes who did not have to struggle for entry into films as a Hero. On the contrary, he had to be cajoled and convinced to join films. As a lucky person, he had those 3 things with him, which the Industry was looking for in every entrant to the films. ONE- He was very handsome. TWO-He was a singer. And THREE- He was educated and from a respectable family.
Surendranath Sharma was born on 11.11.1910 to Shri Reliaram and Ratan Devi Sharma of Punjab. He and his sister Sheela, both were fond of singing. When he was just 8 years old, his mother died and he was put into a Boarding school. Surendranath did his B.A. and was completing his LL.B. He used to sing in private parties and functions as well as college shows. He considered singing as his Hobby.
Those were the days when every studio in Bombay was worried as to how to counter the assault from the films made in Calcutta, with K L Saigal singing in them. Saigal was becoming a national favourite. These studios from the west were looking for an answer to Saigal, and were desperately searching for a singer of calibre. One of the scouts, Alopi Prasad, heard Surendra singing in a private party. He was impressed with the handsome personality of Surendra. He contacted Surendra and persuaded him to come to Bombay with him.
After his LL.B., Surendra came to Bombay. Bombay was ecstatic with his looks and singing and immediately Sagar Movietone signed him on a princely salary of Rs. 400/- pm on their rolls. In those days this was a fabulous salary.(consider, Ashok kumar had started on Rs.100 and after 3 Hits in Bombay Talkies, was mad with joy when his salary increased to Rs.250/-p.m. ! He did not know where to keep this ‘huge’ amount, till his friend Manto suggested he keep it in the Post Office.).
Director Mehboob Khan took him as Hero in his film ” Deccan Queen “-released in 1936. Aruna Devi was his Heroine. In this film itself, he was made to sing a song ” Birha ki aag lagi more man mein”,on the tune of Saigal’s famous song from Devdas-35,” Balam aye baso more man mein”. The composer Pransukh Nayak ( a ‘Dada’ in Gujarat stage and film field) tried his best to make Surendra’s singing style as Saigal’s copy.
But Surendra was an astute artiste. He soon realised that copying Saigal was not going to take him anywhere and so from his next film-Manmohan itself, he tried to develop his own style. Lo and Behold ! The songs of Manmohan-36, particularly,” Tumhi ne mujh ko prem sikhaya”-with Bibbo, became an instant Hit. All songs composed by Ashok Ghosh were popular. SURENDRA had arrived ! Then there was no looking back. Surendranath became one of the major singers of Indian Films. The period of 1936 to 1948 was his Golden Period in singing.
After 1948, he got many competitors like Rafi, Mukesh, Talat, Batish etc. By 1954, his singing diminished to a great extent. Actually Naushad-who once, patronised him so much, did not give even a single song to Surendra in the film Baiju Bawra-52. On the contrary, he was made to lip sync his songs in this movie !
In 1954, he did his last Hero’s role in ‘Mahatma Kabir’. he continued doing character roles till ‘Kunwara Baap’-73. He was last heard in a song with Manna Dey and Mehmood in the film-Pati Patni-1966. . He acted in 73 films in all. His first film as an actor was Deccan Queen-1936 and the last film was Kirayedar-1986….a long period of 50 years ! He also sang 152 songs in 40 films. His first song was in the film Deccan Queen-1936 and the last song was in the film Pati Patni-1966….a long period of 30 Years ! After films, he wisely established a Short films and Ad films production company, which soon prospered after the advent of Television in India.
Surendranath Sharma died on 11-9-1987 at Bombay. His son Kailashnath continued with Ad films and soon became a very successful producer.(His company had produced ‘Mile sur mera Tumhara’ and other national integration films.) I had an opportunity to meet his son Kailashnath, his wife and Surendra’s close relatives during the release function of the book,” SAGAR MOVIETONE”, written by Shri Biren ji Kothari. The function was held in Mumbai on 11-2-2014. Aamir Khan had released the book. At that time I also had an opportunity to talk to Susheela Rani, yesteryear Heroine of the 40s and wife of the great Baburao Patel.
Here is the story of the film Corades-1939 for you….
Seth Madhavlal (Kaayam Ali) family is a typically happy and contented one. His wife Radha (Jilloo) is very loving mother and a devoted wife. His elder son Jatin (Surendra), younger son Kiran (Harish) and Rekha-an orphan girl, daughter of a distant relative play together and are very close with each other. They share everything and are ready to do anything for each other.
Eventually, all grow up. Now Rekha has become a very beautiful young girl and both the brothers, unknown to each other, love her. One day Jatin sees and hears Kiran expressing his love for Rekha. Jatin is shocked and also disappointed. He does not want to be an obstacle between them, so he decides to become a baddy. He starts dating Nirmala(Jyoti),an employee Tulsidas’s daughter. Additionally he becomes very arrogant also. Everyone is hurt by his behaviour. One day he even returns home in a drunk condition.
The father admonishes him. After arguing with father, Jatin is thrown out of the house. He now becomes a thief and comes to father’s house to steal one night. Rekha confronts him and tries to reform him but he goes away.
Kiran has an idea why Jatin is doing this. Actually Rekha had turned him down saying that she loved only Jatin, but Jatin did not hear the full conversation that day. Nirmala is being slandered due to Jatin. To save her reputation, Kiran marries her, as he likes her too. Jatin is very angry and fires Kiran for deserting Rekha. Kiran explains everything to him and the clouds of misunderstanding are removed.
Jatin gives up all bad things, returns home and gets married to Rekha. Thus the Comrades remain friends for ever in the rest of their lives.
Let us now enjoy today’s song. Actually, it is a chorus song. The main voice is that of Maya Banerjee.
Song- Wo chamak chamak kar taare (Comrades)(1939) Singer- Maya Banerjee, Lyricist- Not known, MD- Anil Biswas
Lyrics
aa aa aa aa
wo chamak chamak kar taare
aa aa aa aa
wo chamak chamak kar taare
chupke
chupke
chupke karen ishaare
chupke
chupke
chupke karen ishaare
kahen aa
aa aa aa
kahen aa
aa aa aa aa
kahen aa
aa aa aa aa
more aangan mein aa jaa re
more aangan mein aa jaa re
aa aa aa aa
a a aa aa
wo chamak chamak kar taare
aa aa aa aa aa
wo chamak chamak kar taare
kahte hain hum aankh michauli
tujhe khilaayen ae ae ae ae
kahte hain hum aankh michauli
tujhe khilaayen ae ae ae ae
kahte hain hum indradhanush par
tujhe sulaayen
kahte hain hum indradhanush par
tujhe sulaayen
phir khelen khel nyaare
phir khelen khel nyaare
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
wo chamak chamak kar taare
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
wo chamak chamak kar taare
chupke
chupke
chupke karen ishaare
chup ke
chup chup ke
chup chup ke kare ishaare
kahen aa
aa aa aa
kahen aa
aa aa aa
kahen aa
aaa aa aa aa
more aangan mein aa jaa re
more aangan mein aa jaa re
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
wo chamak chamak kar taare
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
wo chamak chamak kar taare
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
July 11, 2024 at 8:58 pm
Arun Sir,
It is fascinating to learn that, due to technological limitations, different singers were sometimes used for film soundtracks and gramophone records until the mid-50s. Singers had to perform twice: once for the film shoot and again for the commercial records.
Thanks for giving detailed information about actor-singer Surendra.
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July 12, 2024 at 7:29 am
your appreciation is appreciated.
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