Vindravan mein kabhee naa aanaa
Posted by: Atul on: August 20, 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 a duet from a very old film-almost 90 year old- Gramophone Singer-1938.
From the 19th century till the beginning years of the 20th Century, the only means of public entertainment was stage dramas and local folk dances pertaining to each demographic region individually. The first gramophone recording took place in India when 2 Nautch Girls- Sashi Mukhi and Feni Bala from Amarendra Dutta’s classical Theatre sang songs in Calcutta on 8-11-1902, Saturday, for a recording.
After the Phonograph was invented by Edison in 1877, many changes took place in it and the well known Gramophone which played the wax made flat records became commercially available. In the 1930s, the Vinyl records were introduced and the Gramophone and its Records became an entertainment tool for the rich in the society.
Like singers on the All India Radio were famous as Radio Stars, Gramophone record singers became famous as Gramophone Singers. Over a period and after commercial production on mass scale, the Gramophone and its records became popular in the general public too. When Talkie films came to India, songs were an important segment of these films and the film song records gained popularity. But before this, the NFS or the Non Film Songs records had become popular. However, with the huge onslaught of film song records and the NFS singers also joining films, the NFS fell behind and slowly stopped being popular compared to film song records.
Sagar Movietone’s film GRAMOPHONE SINGER-1937 was a film at a time when the use of gramophones had increased many folds in India, after records of Film songs started being available commercially and due to to availability of Playback, new PB singers who were only singers and not actors also could be now heard, additionally.
The Film Industry, even at that time, was alive to current events and a film on the life of a Gramophone singer was made. Most likely, it was an imaginary story at that time, though such things kept on happening at later stages in the industry. This film was a milestone for FEW things.
Zohrabai Ambalawali sang her FIRST SONG , under Anil Biswas, in this film (Piya ghar naahi,akeli…).
This was also the FIRST FILM of character actor KANHAIYA LAL, who was specially recommended by Surendra, to the Sagar Owners. He was the younger brother of Sankatha Prasad, a permanent fixture in Sagaar since silent movies. Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi, a Purbhaiyya from UP, also wrote lyrics for many films in his early days.
This film was also the FIRST HINDI FILM as a Director for VIRENDRA CHIMANLAL DESAI, the first husband of Nalini Jaiwant ( she was his second wife), whom he directed in Nirdosh,in later years. Unfortunately he died too soon (12-10-1913 to 25-1-1946), and directed 12 films. His first film as a Director was Sri Tyagaraja-1937, in Tamil.
This was also the FIRST FILM as Director, of the other Director RAMCHANDRA THAKUR, who directed 15 films. He wrote the story of this film and also of Baiju Bawara later. His last film was Nawab Sirajuddaulla-1967. He died on 31-10-1992.
In those days, Sagar had a good collection of actors, actresses, directors and MDs on its payroll. Sagar went on to make several Hit films from 1931 onward. In 1934, Motilal joined the company and in 1935, the singing actor Surendra came. Sagar was on a victory roll and it became one of the major film making companies in India. In the form of Surendra, Sagar got an actor/singer, who would compete with KL Saigal of New Theaters, Calcutta as the “Bombay’s answer to Saigal” !
Surendra, however, was an educated (BA, LLB), intelligent person and he understood that Saigal was in a different league altogether. Instead of copying his style, Surendra cultivated his own identity. Sagar, however, ensured that the competition between the two got the desired reckoning and this showed in their pattern of films. As against ‘Devdas’ (1935), Sagar released ‘Manmohan’ (1936)’. After ‘President’ (1937) came ‘Jagirdar’ (1937) and after ‘Street Singer’ (1938) Sagar released ‘Gramophone Singer’ (1938). Nevertheless all these films became successful.
In the Hindi film industry, we read frequently about famous stars, actors/actresses of the early era who ended their last days in penury, illness, loneliness and misery. Many had to beg on roads for a living. Some of these cases are tear jerking too. However, even in those days there were some wise artistes who planned their afterlife thoughtfully and retired gracefully spending the rest of their life happily. Some names like SD Batish, Laxmi Shankar, Ranjan, Shashi Kapoor Sr., Mukund Roy Trivedi-MD, Durga Khote etc. come to mind in this connection. Actor Surendra too falls in this category. Before he retired from films, he established an advertising firm and made short films (Durga Khote also did the same). His sons expanded the business successfully.
‘Gramophone Singer’ was the debut film for both the directors, who bloomed in their careers later. Actress Prabha started with Sagar from this film onward. Kanhaiyalal became a regular actor with this film – instead of a Lyricist. Zohrabai Ambalawali sang her first song under the baton of Music Director Anil Biswas, in this film.
Surendra and Bibbo acted together in 6 films of Sagar Movietone. Their first film was ‘Manmohan’ (1936), in which their duet song “Tumhin Ne MujhKo Prem Sikhaaya” became a Hit in those days. Then came ‘Jagirdar’ in 1937 and ‘Dynamite’ in 1938. Like Motilal and Sabita Devi (8 films), this pair too proved to be a ‘Hit Jodi’. However, at the time of planning for the film ‘Gramophone Singer’, Surendra and Bibbo had some dispute and they were not on speaking terms. They even avoided each other. This problem was tactfully solved by director Ramchandra Thakur, who diplomatically lied to both separately that the other one was keen to work with her/him. Like true professionals both agreed and the film got through. Not only this, but they even worked in another 2 more films also !
The film is a story of a love triangle and Prabha did the role of Surendra’s wife in this film. Prabha is not known to most people. Let us know more about Prabha.
Prabha Rajpal was from a respectable Hindu family of Punjab. She was born on 6-6-1915 at Ludhiana. Her father was a high ranking government officer based at Lahore. All her education was done in Lahore. She was fluent in Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and English.
Right from childhood, she was keen on working in films. Belonging to an orthodox family, there was opposition, but despite all this she entered films and her first film was ‘Jung Bahadur’ (aka ‘Dare Devil’) in 1935. After doing some films like ‘Dilawar’ (1936), ‘Awakening’ (1936), she left the Bhavnani camp and worked in Minerva’s film ‘Atma Tarang’ (1937) as the heroine opposite Sohrab Modi. She was very beautiful. Then she joined Sagar and worked in films like ‘Gramophone Singer’ (1938), ‘Ladies Only’ (1939), ‘Civil Marriage’ (1940). Later she became a freelancer.
In all she worked in 36 films in her career. She got married to Virender Ahuja, a cinematographer, and settled down after the film ‘Veerangana’ (1947). When her husband was one of the producers, she worked in the film ‘Shrimati ji’ (1952) and then retired from films. She died on 12-3-1975.
‘Gramophone Singer’ was a reasonably successful movie. Its lyricist was Zia Sarhadi. It had 15 songs, but only 4 Records having 8 songs came into the market.
The story of the film was….
Sundardas (Surendra) was a successful gramophone singer and lived in a town near Bombay. He was happily married to Mohini (Prabha) and had a baby boy also.The family was a picture of happiness, but….
Tilottama (Ishrat Sultana or Bibbo) was a famous singer of international reputation. She conducted foreign tours also. She lived in a luxurious flat in Bombay. She had heard the songs of Sunder and loved his voice. She was waiting to meet him.
Sunder had to visit Bombay often for song recordings etc. He was very friendly with Ghosh Babu (Bhudo Advani), owner of a Gramophone company. Rana ji (Kayam Ali) was a regular customer of Ghosh Babu. Once in a party given by Ghosh, Rana ji introduces Sunder to Tilottama. In the first meeting itself she fell in Sunder’s love. He too was impressed with her. Slowly their meetings increased and soon they were in deep love, Sunder forgetting about wife and child. Once they decide to go to Rampur – a resort. Here poor Mohini waits for Sunder for many days. The child falls ill too. Finally, Mohini decides to visit Bombay. There she learns everything about Sunder’s affair. She meets Madan (Sankatha Prasad), a singing partner of Tilottama, and a silent deep lover of hers too. They went to Rampur, but the pair was missing.
In the climax scene, Tilottama and Sunder are about to get married, when Mohini, her sick child and Madan reach the spot. Seeing his wife and ailing child, Sunder realizes his folly and returns to Mohini. Madan wins over Tilottama and the end is at Tilottama’s wedding party thrown by Ghosh Babu.
Today’s song is a duet of Bibbo and Surendra. This is an old type of a song tune, which was prevalent in those times, as people were used to stage drama singing. Enjoy….
Song- Vindravan mein kabhi naa aana (Gramophone Singer)(1938) Singers- Bibbo, Surendra, Lyricist- Zia Sarhadi, MD- Anil Biswas
Lyrics
Vindraavan mein kabhi na aana
Vindraavan mein kabhi na aana
gauven charaane murli bajaane
gauven charaane murli bajaane
van mein dhoom machaane aa aa
van mein dhoom machane aa aa
sakhiyaan jaan chuki hain ye to
sakhiyaan jaan chuki hain ye to
aate ho neend churaane
aa aa
aate ho neend churaane
aa aa
Vindraavan mein kabhi na aana
Vindraavan mein kabhi na aana
Vindraavan mein kabhi na aayen
Vindraavan mein kabhi na aayen
gauven charaayen na murli bajaayen
gauven charaayen na murli bajaayen
dekho samjho kahaan nahin hum
jahaan nahin tum wahaan nahin hum
dekho samjho kahaan nahin hum
jahaan nahin tum wahaan nahin hum
kaun nahin hai hamaara hamaara
kaun nahin hai hamaara hamaara
Vindraavan mein kabhi na aayen
Vindraavan mein kabhi na aayen
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