Saat bhaanwren jis se padeen
Posted on: November 30, 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 eminently obscure film Sanskar-1958.
What is the meaning of ‘Sanskar’ in English ? There is no single exact word for it. You can roughly say” building Values”. Sanskar is an important part of Indian culture, irrespective of religion. For example, our sanskar is ‘to touch the feet of our elders’. It is prevalent in Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Boudhs, Jains etc.etc. in India. Those who are india’s original residents follow these customs, as Sanskars are not connected to any religion. These are the ways of life in India. These are handed down, rather taught from generations to next generations. Sanskars are always positive and a guide to a happier life.
The film Sanskar-1958 was a film which indicated its genre by its name itself. It was one of those films, in which Indian culture and the right sanskar are highlighted at the cost of the suffering of the heroine.
There were films by name Sanskar in 1940, 53 and 58, but the name Sanskar, in my mind, is associated with the Award winning debut film of GIRISH KARNAD, in KANNADA language. This Kannada film SANSKARA-1970, was based on the revolutionary novel of U.R.Ananthamurthy and directed by Pattabhirama Reddy, with his own wife Snehlatha Reddy and Girish Karnad in the lead. With this film Karnad not only started acting, but also wrote his first screenplay. This film had won the FIRST President’s Golden Lotus Award for Kannada Films. I had seen this film and was quite impressed with Girish Karnad, that time. Snehlata Reddy died on 20-1-1977, due to severe asthma..
Sanskar-58,had a story, Dialogues and screenplay written by Sarashar Sailani (real name-Bheemsen), in addition to few songs, along with Indeevar and Diwakar.
Jagmohandas (Badriprasad) is an honest businessman, who has fallen on bad days. He has given high education and good sanskar to his daughter Nirupa (Ameeta). She is engaged to Kishen (Anant Kumar), son of Ramprasad (Kanu Roy), a rich businessman. Kishen being a simple person, he is kept in the care of Ram Bharose (Randhir), the evil and crooked Munimji of Ramprasad. Ram Bharose introduces Kishen to Bansuri (Ranjana) and they both slowly drain money from him.
After marriage, Nirupa learns about the deeds of Ram Bharose and tries to keep Kishen away from bad habits,but Kishen is introduced to Gambling and drinking also and the money from business is slowly spent towards all this. Once Ramprasad gives Rs.10000 to Nirupa for safekeeping. Kishen steals this money and Ramprasad fires Nirupa. Her mother in law calls her a thief and her father scolds her.
The rest of the film takes an interesting turn from here.Nirupa, not only rescues her husband Kishen from the clutches of Ram Bharose and Bansari, but also exposes them and wins back everybody’s confidence in herself. This became her success story, because she had good SANSKAR on her.
Film Sanskar-1958 was made by Filmistan. The film was directed by Chaturbhuj Doshi.The cast consisted of Ameeta, Anant Kumar (real name Anant Marathe-brother of the child actor and later the famous classical singer Ram Marathe), Ranjana, Yaqub, Leela Mishra, Badri Pershad, Kanu Rai, Parshuram and many others. The Music Director was Anil Biswas, who was on the waning side of his career. He had a lot of personal problems and it looked as if all this had affected his musical abilities. The Lyricists were Sarshar Sailani, Diwakar and Indivar. There were 9 songs and 4 singers. One of them was Mohd. Rafi.
Why I am mentioning this is because Anil Biswas had never liked the style and voice of Rafi. Out of his 77 films with 777 songs, he used Rafi for a very few films like Beqasoor, Heer, Paisa hi Paisa, Abhiman, Sanskar etc. Similarly his ‘Chela’ C.Ramchandra also used Rafi very sparingly, though much more than Anil Biswas. He gave 15 songs in 10 films to Rafi from his 104 films and 932 songs. There was one more M.D. – Salil Chaudhari – who too used Rafi sparingly.
Today’s song is sung by Manna dey. As far as Manna Dey is concerned, I have always felt that he never got his dues from the industry. True to our tradition of branding and categorising people,he was also branded as ” fit only for classical songs and bhajans”. The fact is,if you see some of his songs he sang for Raj Kapoor(romantic), for Mehmood(comedy), for Balraj Sahni(serious songs) and a host of other Genres, Manna Dey has always given his best. Still he did not get what he deserved. A lot has been written about Manna Dey, so there is no point repeating his Biography. Instead, here are 10 special points about Manna Dey….
1. Manna Dey’s singing talent came to the fore while he was studying at Scottish Church College. Later he started taking singing lessons from his uncle Krishna Chandra Dey as well as Ustaad Dabir Khan.
2. Manna Dey’s career as a playback singer started with the movie Tamanna in the year 1943. His uncle, Krishna Chandra Dey composed the musical score and he paired up with the well-known Suraiya to sing this wonderful duet. The entire nation loved this song and Manna Dey became a household name.
3. Mohmammad Rafi had famously said that though the world listens to his songs, he only listens to Manna Dey’s songs.
4. Manna Dey sang two hugely popular song with the evergreen Kishore Kumar- Yeh dosti(Sholay) and Ek chatur naar (Padosan)
5. In his playback singing career spanning over seven decades, Manna Dey sang in many languages, mainly Bengali and Hindi. He sang more than 1200 songs in Bengali, 85 songs in Gujarati films, 55 songs in Marathi, 35 in Bhojpuri and several others in ten more different languages.
6. Dey had teamed up with Bhimsen Joshi and belted out the classic number Ketaki Gulab Juhi.
7. His autobiography, Jiboner Jalsaghorey, has been published by renowned Ananda Publisher in the year 2005 which has been translated in English as Memories Come Alive, in Hindi as Yaden Jee Uthi and in Marathi as Jiboner Jalsaghorey.
8. Manna Dey is one of the rarest singers who have worked with more than 100 music composers.
9. He sang a record 160 songs with Asha Bhosle and 101 duets with Mohd Rafi.
10. Dey was a huge fan of Rajesh Khanna. “I loved the way he picturised music. The success of a song depends upon how an actor picturises it. He was the number one in picturising songs. I will be indebted to him,” said Dey about the first superstar of the country.
From one of his rare interviews to RMIM, I give herewith a portion of it in which Manna Dey has expressed his opinions and impressions about few composers with whom he had worked with. In the end, read about his version of the song ” ketki gulab juhi”…
Q : You sang many of R.D. Burman’s early songs. What was your impression of him? How long did you know him?
A : I knew him from the day he was born. He was definitely one of the most creative and innovative of our music directors. My first song for him was “Allah jaane main hoon kaun, kya hai mera naam” from “Pati Patni”. The combination of R.D, Mehmood, and myself was particularly good, because we had such fun in the recording room. I did whatever vocal gags I thought were appropriate, and sometimes the three of us would just fall down laughing. But underneath all the playfulness Pancham was a serious and dedicated music director. Did you know he was well trained in classical music?
Q : Who in your opinion was the music director most fun to work with?
A : As I’ve already said, R.D. Burman.
Q : The most capable?
A : It depends on what you mean by capable.
Q : I suppose it refers to a music director who was thoroughly able to give the film’s director exactly what he wanted, in terms of the song situation in the film.
A : That would be Shankar-Jaikishan. There were absolute masters in delivering the goods exactly the way the director wanted.
Q : And the strictest?
A : C. Ramachandra. C.Ramachandra and Naushad are both hard taskmasters and knew how to extract work from a singer, and there was no fooling around with them. (*Another aside. In a previous meeting I had asked Manna Dey why although both he and Naushad were inclined towards classical music, there had hardly been any collaboration between them. I could only think of “Dukh bhare din” from “Mother India”, and a duet with Rafi in “Palki”. He seemed reluctant to discuss it, but told me that even though sound recordist Minoo Katrak had strongly recommended him to Naushad, the maestro preferred Rafi over Manna for his compositions, for whatever reason. Still, Manna holds Naushad in great esteem as one of our supreme music directors*)
Q: In songs based on classical music which require a singer to perform a few complicated phrases or taans, typically what fraction of these are pre-composed? How much is the singer allowed to do impromptu? Is the singer asked to emulate classical artists or styles? What happens if the artist is not familiar with the raag?
A: There is always scope for improvisation, and a good music director will always be receptive to suggestions. I can confidently say that in all my songs, my own contribution has been at least 25%. Yes, we were asked occasionally to imitate the styles of great classical singers, but I’ve never done it.
Q : Does this mean that the taans at the end of “Laaga chunari mein daag” or “Phul gendwa na maaro” were yours?
A : That’s Roshan! No, never with the likes of Roshan or Naushad. For those two songs Roshan had the whole thing down pat and I just did what I was told. What a composer! The question of improvising on such a masterwork never even arose.
Q : In India famous playback singers continue to sing past their ability to sing properly or correctly. A good example was Hemant. Towards his last days he could never say ‘No’ and the results were terrible. And now it’s happening with Lata. Would you stop when you think you’re unable to perform the way you did, or continue, saying ‘My fans want me to sing’?
A : I have completely stopped singing for Hindi films, but it’s not because of any inability. I think I’m in good voice, and my riyaz keeps me in tune for my stage programmes. I just don’t fit in with the present crop of music directors. But if I were to be approached with a good song, meant for filming on a character-actor, then perhaps I would still consider it.
*By now Mannada was a little tired, so I decided to slip in just one question of my own*
Q : You sang ‘Ketaki gulab juhi champak’, with Bhimsen Joshi, in ‘Basant Bahar’. What was the experience like?
A : Haven’t I told you that story? It’s interesting. At first the film’s hero Bharat Bhooshan didn’t want my voice. After the success of ‘Baiju Bawra’ Rafi was understandably his first choice. But Shankar, ever my supporter, prevailed upon him, and some tact was called for since Bhooshan’s brother was the film’s producer. The first song recorded was ‘Sur na saje’, and that won Bharat Bhooshan over completely. Next came ‘Nain mile chain kahan’. Then Shankar called up and said, “I need you for a duet. The film’s situation calls for the hero to sing with a music ustad, and defeats the ustad in the process”. I said “Sure. When do we do it?”, confident that my co-singer would be Rafi or another playback singer. “Well, we’re trying to get either Pt. Bhimsen Joshi or Ustad Amir Khan for the ustad’s voice”, Shankar said. (*Eyes wide open, thunderstruck*) My heart sank. ME? Sing with Bhimsen Joshi? And ‘defeat’ him in a duet? I tried at once to get out of it. “Why don’t you get two classical singers for the duet”, I asked him. Shankar’s firmness could cut both ways – he lost no time in pointing out that after two songs had already been recorded, I was now the established voice of the hero, and who was going to explain to Bharat Bhooshan why another voice was now being used? I went home depressed, and told my wife, “Pack! We leave Bombay tonight and return only after six weeks”. When I told her why, she chided me and said “Shame on you! It is after all, a playback song”. After much arguing and convincing I finally decided to take it up as a challenge. I made Shankar give me the song a full four weeks in advance. We had two rehearsals, and Bhimsen Joshi’s voice was incredible. Standing next to him in the recording booth was an experience. But then I was also appreciated, especially for my ‘entry’ in the song, with an alaap in a single long breath.
Enjoy this 66 year old song from Manna Dey….
Song- Saat Bhaanwren jis se padeen (Sanskaar)(1958) Singer- Manna Dey, Lyricist-Indeevar, MD-Anil Biswas
Lyrics
saat bhaanwren jis se padeen
wahee saath nibhaayegee
par-naaree kee preet
kaam kitne din aayegee
saat bhaanwren jis se padeen een
bhool se toone samjha jisko
amrit kee pyaalee ee
vo to madira hai
tujh ko behka dene waalee
behka dene waalee
madira Ganga kee paawantaa
kahaan se laayegee
par-naari kee preet
kaam kitne din aayegee
saat bhaanwren jis se padeen
do praanon ka bandhan hai
do din kee naheen ye baat
saat bhaanwron ka matlab hai
saat janam ka saath
saat janam ka saath
Seeta jab janmegee
Raam ko byaahee jaayegee
par-naaree kee preet
kaam kitne din aayegee
saat bhaanwren jis se padeen een
sabke saamne haath thhaam kar
jise diya dhokhaa
us par kya beetee hogee
toone ye naheen socha
toone ye naheen socha
tadap kisee kee tujhe
zindagi bhar tadpaayegee
par-naaree kee preet
kaam kitne din aayegee
saat bhaanwren jis se padeen
wahee saath nibhaayegee
par-naaree kee preet
kaam kitne din aayegee
saat bhaanwren jis se padeen een
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
November 30, 2024 at 12:05 pm
Arun ji,
Snehalata Reddy and her husband were both imprisoned during Emergency ( without trial )for political activism. Snehalata.. solitary confinement in a Bengaluru Central jail. An Asthmatic, her health rapidly detiorated and she was released on bail after 6 months . But , she passed away 5 days after her release.
You must have got confused with an episode in B V Karanth ‘s life: attempted murder/ suicide of Vibha Mishra, Bhopal.
SAMSKARA was based on the novel of the same name by U R Ananta Moorthi. Journalist, writer, film maker P Lankesh was the third main character in the very well made film.
On Sat, 30 Nov, 2024, 5:00 am Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of
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November 30, 2024 at 6:11 pm
Thanks for the correction. This statement was based on information from a book Cinerang, by Ashish Deshpande.
Requesting Atul ji to make a correction.
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November 30, 2024 at 7:36 pm
Correction is done.
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