Nis din palchhin tarasat nain
Posted by: Atul on: November 8, 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 an average Social film Haar Jeet-1954.
The film was made by Film Craft, Bombay. It was directed by Jaggi Rampal (his only film as a Director) and the music was by S.D.Batish. The cast of the film was Shyama, Suresh, Manorama , Sunder, Heeralal, Madan Puri and many others.
The 50’s decade was called the Golden Era of HFM, not for nothing. Year after year, the films provided excellent songs, different film Genres, convincing stories, superb acting and Full Paisa Vasool Entertainment. In such a scenario an average music, beaten track stories, mediocre acting, poor direction and lustreless short lived songs had no chance of winning. Today’s film was one such film.
Just before this decade, the Genre of crime story films had already started being popular with films like Apradhi-1949 and Sangram-1950. In 1951 Baazi, in 1952 Jaal etc. continued this trend. The year of 1954 also began with Guru Dutt’s Aar Paar, with hit songs by O.P.Nayyar. Next was Taxi Driver from Navketan. It had foot tapping melodious songs.
Filmistan brought Nastik, which showed the change of a Nastik to being Aastik, Its songs were very good. Filmistan’s Naagin gave Hemant Kumar the necessary boost with hit songs. Minerva’s Mirza Ghalib showered good songs. It also won the President’s Gold Medal – the First for a Hindi film.
After Do Bigha Zameen-1953, Bimal Roy brought Naukari on the issue of unemployment. His other film was Biraj Bahu, an effective Tragedy film, based on Sharat Babu’s novel. Kamini Kaushal won her First and the only Filmfare award for Best Acting.
Film Amar from Mehboob Khan survived with good songs in spite of a weak story. Some films were made for and on children. Filmistan’s Jagriti, Munna– India’s second songless film from K.A.Abbas, Bimal Roy’s Baap Beti and H.S. Rawail’s Mastana were these films. All had good music too.
Satyen Bose made Parichay, Debki Bose’s last film in Bombay-Kavi, Mohan Sehgal’s Aulad were followed by Shantaram’s Subah ka Tara– last film before Shantaram and jayashree were divorced. To save the sinking studio Bombay Talkies from bankruptcy, its employees made the film Baadbaan, in which all artistes, technicians and others worked free of charge. However Bombay Talkies had to be sold to Tolaram Jalani. Today, its site in Malad is full of small Plastic factories.
Kala Maharshi Baburao Painter died in 1954. Dilip Kumar became a victim of depression due to his continuous Tragedy films in which he always died in the end and had to seek psychiatric treatment. The year 1954 also saw some films being made in colour partially heralding fully coloured films in a few years later.
Though the music of the film Haar jeet was not very good compared to most other films, I have a lot of respect for S D Batish,who did a marvelous job of promoting Indian Music in the UK and USA. He is one of those rare people who left the film world, but continued serving Indian Music, by turning a corner in Life. Such people are few in this world. The monumental work he did for Indian Music in foreign lands is unparalleled. An important point is that he did not do this service to Music for his personal gains. For his sustenance,he had opened a Restaurant in Santa Cruz, California, which was providing him enough for a comfortable living in the USA.
Born December 14, 1914, in Patiala, India, Shiv Dayal Batish abandoned a career in the nascent telephone industry to study devotional song, folk drama, and Indian classical music under his guru Hakim Chandan Ram Charan. In 1934, he relocated to Bombay to try his hand at acting, but roles proved scarce and he returned to Patiala two years later, renewing his focus on music. By 1936 Batish was regularly appearing on All India Radio and recording his first sessions for His Master’s Voice. The film industry nevertheless retained its allure for him, and in 1939 he returned to Bombay, working for a spell under broadcasting legend Z.A. Bokhari. After earning his first film work as an assistant musical director in 1942, Batish later graduated to full-fledged Bollywood musical director, in the years to follow working with playback singer greats including Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar, and Mohammed Rafi.
Batish also moonlighted as a playback singer in 70 films, singing 115 songs, among them 1944’s Daasi and 1948’s Barsaat ki Raat, before relocating to Britain in 1964. After accepting a position with the BBC Immigration Unit, Batish became a regular on British radio and television, most notably composing “Nai Zindagi Naya Jivan,” the theme song to the Beeb’s classic South Asian series Apna Hi Ghar Samajhiye (“Make Yourself at Home”). He also returned to his roots as a live musician, performing Indian folk and classical music on the vichitra veena, a long-necked fretless flute. In 1965 Batish was summoned by percussionist Keshav Sathe to record the Indian-inspired incidental music for the Beatles’ second feature film, Help! — the experience also proved the beginning of his lifelong friendship with Beatle George Harrison, who later hired Batish to teach his then-wife Patti Boyd the stringed dilruba.
In 1969 Batish assembled wife Shanta Devi, daughter Vijay Laxmi and sons Ashwin Kumar and Ravi Kumar to record North Indian Folk and Classical Music, which for decades remained the lone Indian release to appear on the seminal folk label Topic Records. A year later, the family emigrated to the U.S., settling in northern California and founding a restaurant, the Santa Cruz-based Krishna Café. Although the restaurant business remained Batish’s primary focus for the remainder of his life, he continued playing live and also cut the occasional LP, most notably 1980s Raga Todi, 1985’s Om Shanti Meditation on Dilruba and 1997’s The 72 Carnatic Melakhartas.
He founded “Batish Institute of Music and Fine arts” in California and wrote about 12 books on Indian Classical music,like Ragopaedia,Raga Channels,Rasik Raga lakshan Manjiri etc. He had also founded Batish Recording Co.
He died at the age of 91 on July 29, 2006.
From the memoirs of his son Ashwin……
Born in Patiala, Batish showed promise early. As the story goes, when he was as young as seven, he was regaling audiences and receiving praise from the likes of Hari Singh, the Maharaja of Kashmir. Encouraged by the plaudits perhaps, he forayed into Bombay to forge an acting career. His attempt wasn’t quite successful, though, and he returned to Patiala to study music with Pandit Chandan Ram Charan.
His guru, quite taken by Batish’s sense of rhythm and memory, gave him the moniker Rasik, which Batish adopted as a pseudonym on some compositions crafted later in California. By 1936, he was an artiste with the All India Radio and recording for the label EMI as Master Ramesh – a name he acquired while singing covers of songs rendered by popular singers, especially KL Saigal.
As always, fortune seemed to smile on him. His singing on AIR drew the attention of an older cousin, Pandit Amarnath, who was an accomplished musician in the Punjabi film industry in Lahore. Amarnath gave Batish the opportunity to sing a song – Pagdi Sambhal Jatta – he had composed for the film Gawandi (1942). The song became a hit, making Batish popular. But, all told, the experience was bittersweet. Ashwin says his father did not relish acting in the movie: the frequent takes, the blinding light from mirrors used as reflectors unnerved him.
As Amarnath’s assistant, Batish learned various aspects of music direction: rehearsing with singers, synchronizing instruments and working with an orchestra. These learnings opened yet another opportunity for him. He was invited to Bombay by the Marathi writer and film impresario Keshav Prahlad Atre (Acharya Atre) to compose music for the film Paayaachi Daasi. But, in the end, credit was given to Annasaheb Mainkar.
After the Partition in 1947, the year Amarnath died, Batish moved back to Bombay, this time not to try his luck as an actor, but as a singer and composer. Several prominent music directors of the day employed him for their movies – Anil Biswas for Laadli, Husnlal-Bhagatram for Sawan Bhado, Hamari Manzil, and Surajmukhi; Ghulam Mohammad for Kundan; Roshan for Barsat ki Raat and Taksal; and Madan Mohan for Ada and Railway Platform. Some of his more notable songs were sung with Geeta Dutt in films he provided music himself, such as Betaab and Bahu Beti. He was associated with films in Hindi and gave music to 20 films, composing 154 songs, as S.D.Batish,Master Ramesh and Nirmal Kumar. Some of his songs were famous.
Batish, whose musical oeuvre has been described as an “amalgam of classical music and Punjabi folk and popular styles” composed for 20 films, including Har Jeet, Tipu Sultan and Toofan. For two films, he composed under the name Nirmal Kumar – a moniker that Lata Mangeshkar had given him for luck, according to Ashwin.
By this time, Batish had grown disenchanted with the Hindi film world. Ashwin recalls that his father needed a steady income to sustain his young family, but payments were erratic and delayed. Irked by this, Batish worked for a while to set up an artistes’ union to give them a platform to air their grievances and demands. Then the family decided to go to England.
On October 10, 1965, the series Apna Hi Ghar Samajhiye premiered on BBC1 television and radio. Presented in Hindustani, Urdu and English, its theme music was composed by the multi-faceted Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish, who had already won considerable renown as singer and music composer in the Hindi film world. The series aimed to reach the new immigrant from South Asia: it offered advice on matters like housing, insurance, migration and education, interspersed with music from the subcontinent, especially film music.
SD Batish, as he was better known, was also a recent arrival to England. As his son, the musician Ashwin Batish recounted, he had reached London earlier that year on a “near relative visa” following his older daughter Surendra’s admission to a course in ophthalmology. Word of his arrival spread among fellow musicians such as Keshav Sathe, who worked in the Indian High Commission and moonlighted as a tabla player, and Batish soon became part of the BBC’s outreach programmes.
A multi-instrumentalist, who was proficient at the sitar, tabla and vichitra veena, Batish featured regularly at music festivals across Britain. At one of these, the Cardiff Music Festival, his playing impressed the British parliamentarian and activist Fenner Brockway. Brockway helped Batish secure permanent residency status, Ashwin says. Not long after, Batish’s family joined him from Bombay. It was a decision, Ashwin says, that balanced his mother Shanta Devi’s practicality with his father’s musical dreams.
Shanta Devi, like Batish early in his career, had been an artist with the All India Radio at one time. To raise money for the air tickets, the family sold its land in Bombay’s Santa Cruz neighborhood – now worth a fortune, Ashwin says. Its new home was on Birchington Road, a residential area in London’s West Hampstead.
A few weeks later, as Batish recalled, came Sathe’s memorable call inviting him to make up the quartet of Indian musicians assembled to provide accompaniment for the Beatles’ album Help!. The others in the quartet were Sathe on tabla, Diwan Motihar on sitar and Qasim (known just by his first name) on flute.
A kinship must have formed during those musical sessions, for Batish’s association with George Harrison did not end there. Months later, Batish was engaged to teach Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd, the dilruba, a stringed instrument that later featured on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album (1967).
Around 1970, the Batish family moved again, this time to Santa Cruz in California. The emigration was not altogether impulsive. Batish had been teaching a short-term course at the University of Santa Cruz, where his colleague, the mathematician Ralph Abraham, had been taking tabla lessons from him. Abraham suggested the Batish family move to the US and the family agreed. As a family, Ashwin quipped, they were as much “move-icians” as musicians.
The move to the US, as with the one to England, was a family decision. Shanta Devi’s initiative led to the Batish India House (at first called the Sri Krishna Café), a restaurant on Santa Cruz’s Mission Street that served Indian food while music was played by members of the Batish family. “I would serve food and then jump on stage to play music,” remembered Ashwin, who like his father plays several instruments, including the sitar and tabla.
The restaurant was featured often in the local paper, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, and ran till 1985, before music became the all-absorbing act, and SD Batish embarked on the “project of a lifetime”. His wish to collate, annotate, and set in writing every known detail of the Hindustani (the Ragopedia compendia) and Carnatic musical systems coincided with Ashwin’s discovery of Gopher, an early internet protocol that enabled files to be recorded, uploaded and distributed easily. It was a project envisioned after their visits to the library of the University of Berkeley yielded barely a few books on Indian music, and mostly on the Carnatic tradition. What was an inspiration for Batish to explain every raga became a boon not merely for music aficionados but also for his students who were familiar only with English.
The family set up the Batish Institute of Music and Fine Arts in 1976. It was the third of its kind to come up in California after the Ali Akbar Khan College of Music and the Music Circle, which was set up by Harihar Rao, a long-time associate of Ravi Shankar.
Besides being a recording studio, the Batish Institute continues to offer classes and texts, including several hundreds of Batish’s compositions (his raga lakshan geet set in the Hindustani classical system), and his derivative ragas based on the 72 melakartas of the Carnatic tradition. He regularly performed with his children, Ashwin and daughter Meena, and lived long enough to see his grandchildren, Keshav and Mohini, grow into musicians.
In my memory,the image of S D Batish is etched as a person with a large Fur Cap. Such a type of cap was worn by Shaikh Abdulla and his son Farooq Abdulla. I saw V.Shantaram too wearing that type of cap. Later his son followed by wearing the same ( I mean similar type) Fur cap like father, as if it was a family tradition ! Of late,I have seen the famous film Historian Shri Nalin ji Shah with this cap. When I had met him a few years back,he had jokingly said that this cap is his Trademark !
S D Batish was the cousin brother of Pt. Amarnath and brothers Husnlal-Bhagatram,all bore the same surname – Batish.( Thanks to obituary and bio byJason Ankeny, an article by Anu kumar in scroll.in dated 24-6-2021, an article by his son Ashwin, along with muVyz, HFGK, Wiki and my notes. All excerpts are adapted ).
Today’s song is sung by a lesser known singer Ashima Banerjee. Ashima was born in Comilla, East Bengal(now Bangla Desh) in 1936, but like many middle class Bengali families they too shifted to Calcutta.Ashima got Postgraduate training in classical music from Gyanprakash Ghosh and others, and completed her M.A. .At the age of 18 years she came to Bombay,where her Mama was working as a technician in Ranjit studio.She got her first break in Ranjit’s BAHADUR-53.She sang 2 solos and a duet with Rafi.Surprisingly for a new comer, she got 4 more films in 1953 itself-Footpath,Khoj,Gul Sanobar and Naina.However her luck exhausted and she got 2 films in 54,1 each in 55 and 56 and few more till 1963.
She got married to Alok Mukherjee in 1960 and later in 1965 settled in Calcutta where she worked as a Musician in A.I.R. Her selective Filmography is Bahadur,GulSanober,Khoj,Naina,Saaya,Sultana Daku,Dhobi Doctor,Haar jeet,jungle ka Jaadu,Flying Horse etc.
She sang with Rafi, Talat, Shankar Dasgupta, Geeta Dutt, Chandbala, Ira Mujumdar, Asha etc. In all, she sang only 18 songs in 11 films.
Let us now enjoy her classical song, recorded exactly 70 years ago….
Song-Nis din pal chhin tarasat nain (Haar Jeet)(1954) Singer-Ashima Bannerjee, Lyricist-Saraswati Kumar Deepak, MD-S D Batish
Lyrics
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
ta na na na dere na
ta na di re na
nis din pal chhin
tarasat nain
gin gin ghadiyaan
din beetat hai
taare gin gin beetat rain
madhur madhur murali dhun kee ne
chheen liyo kaahe sukh chain
nis din pal chhin
tarsat nain
dwaar tihaare nain hamaare
kaise kahen man ki batiyaan
laaj kee chunari se muskaaye
dulhan ban aayee rastiyaa
dulhan ban aayee ratiyaa
ta na na na dere na
ta na dire na aa
nis din pal chhin
more man kee peer na jaane
aas padosan ki sakhiyaan aan
o nanadee ke veer bata de
kyun pheri humse ankhiyaan
kyun pheri humse ankhiyaan
ta na na na
ta na na dire na
ta na dire na
ta na dire na
ta na dire na
nis din pal chhin
sa ni ni re sa
pa ma pa dha pa
sa ni re sa
sa sa sa ga pa ma ga re sa
ta na dire na
nis din pal chhin
sa ni re sa
sa sa ni pa
pa ma dha pa ma
ga ma ga
re sa pa ma
nis din pal chhin
tarasat nain
nis din pal chhin
pa ni sa
ni dha pa ni
sa ni sa
pa ma dha
ma dha
pa ma ga
nis din pal chhin
nis din pal chhin
nis din pal chhin
tarasat nain
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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