Mumbai aamchee re
Posted on: December 8, 2024
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, 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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‘Sitam’ (1991) was produced by Vikram Makandar (Vikram, the actor) who also wrote the story. The film was directed by the then husband-wife duo – Aruna-Vikas. The cast included Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil, Vikram, Arun Sarnaik, Keith Stevenson, Sulabha Deshpande, Manju Asrani, Vikas Desai, Master Hith (Aruna-Vikas’s son) etc. The film is said to be based on a real-life story which happened during a football match. The film’s completion was delayed as Aruna-Vikas were pre-occupied with their young daughter’s cancer treatment and subsequently her passing away in 1983. The film’s shooting was completed sometime in 1984. This was the only film which Vikram produced.
There is some confusion as to when the film had a theatrical release. Online information gives three different years – 1982, 1984 and 1991. On checking, I found that film’s song album was released in 1982. The film was certified by the Censor Board on 1984 and got limited theatrical release on May 31, 1991. Aruna Raje, in her biography, has mentioned that the film had a long delay in its theatrical release.
The film is about two football players – Naseeruddin Shah and Vikram. During a football match, Naseeruddin Shah, the goalkeeper gets a powerful hit on his temple from Vikram, making him unconscious. Naseeruddin Shah is taken to hospital where he dies. When Vikram goes to offer his condolence and asks for forgiveness of his wife, Smita Patil blames him for her husband’s death. She refuses to forgive him. Vikram feels guilty and goes into depression. Finally, he ends in a mental hospital. Even after various types of treatment, Vikram is not responding. It is at this time that a psychiatrist suggests that if Smita Patil forgives him, his condition may improve. With some reluctance, Smita Patil agrees, and Vikram recovers. But during their meetings Vikram develops attachment towards Smita Patil who, though sympathetic toward him, does not respond with her same feeling.
It is apparent from the film’s story in nutshell that the knowledge of the game of football and the technicalities of the medical treatment for the mentally ill person for the actors as well as for the directors/screenplay writer were important ingredients. For this purpose, Aruna-Vikas arranged football playing practices for Naseeruddin Shah and Vikram under the supervision of a football coach from Tata Sports Club and some of its football players for a couple of months. Later, the coach and players from Tata Sports club participated during the shooting of the football playing scenes in the film. Both Naseeruddin Shah and Vikram watched few football matches that were being held at Cooperage ground to become well-versed with the nuances of the game. From the psychiatry and depression angle, Aruna-Vikas had engaged a specialist doctor who apprised of the technicalities involved in the treatment of mentally ill patients. [Source of this information: ‘Freedom – My Story’ by Arunaraje Patil (2017)].
Recently, I watched the film on one of the video sharing platforms. The story in detail of the film is as under:
Subhash (Naseeruddin Shah) is a football player (goalkeeper of his team) who lives with his wife, Meenakshi (Smita Patil) and a school going son (Master Hith) in Pune. He is always happy, cheerful and full of excitement. He is a big fan of Shammi Kapoor. So, his inter-action with his wife is always in Shammi Kapoor style and sometime with Shammi Kapoor songs appropriate for the occasions. At the same time, Subhash as a football player is serious person who is regular at the practice sessions with his fellow team mates. He also takes up with his football team management the issues for the improvement in the facilities for his team mates.
During the second half of the final match for Bombay Football Cup, Subhash is hit on his temple by a powerful free kick from Inder (Vikram) of the rival team. Subhash falls on the ground. The spectators and his team mates think that Subhash is doing his usual antiques which he is known for during the matches. It is only when he does not get up, the team’s coach goes with the first aid box. They realise that he is in serious condition. Subhash is shifted to hospital. Inder and his team’s coach, Bakshi (Keith Stevenson) visit the hospital to enquired about Subhash when doctor informs that he has passed away due to the rapture of blood artery in the temple.
Both in the hospital as well as at the funeral of Subhash, Meenakshi is in aggressive mood toward Inder as she thinks that it is him who has killed her husband. Inder is not even given time to tell his side that the unfortunate incident has happened unintentionally during a match. As a result, Inder is traumatized with Subhash’s death. This leads him to a mild depression during which he sometime becomes violent to even his team mates. Meenakshi has started working in a company to sustain her life.
One day, Inder goes to Pune and visits Meenakashi’s house to seek her forgiveness. But she is not in a mood to do that. Instead, she pushes him out of the house after insulting him. Completely depressed, Inder goes back to Mumbai and attempts suicide, but he is timely saved. He is admitted to Dr. Ginde’s Mental Hospital. When things are not improving for him, Dr Ginde (Arun Sarnaik) calls a Psychologist (Vikas Desai) who through hypnosis therapy, finds out that Inder is holding himself responsible for his parents death who had died in a bus accident while visiting his boarding school. The death of Subhash had triggered his guilt conscious about the death of his parents.
The Psychologist suggests that one of the ways to come out of his guilty feeling is to make Meenakshi forgives him for the death of her husband. Bakshi takes this responsibility to convince Meenakshi. A long arguments and counter arguments between Bakshi and Meenakshi ensue during which Bakshi reveals that as per doctor’s report, Subhash was already suffering from aneurysm of his artery in the temple and Inder’s hit on his temple was only a coincidence. Meenakshi sees a point in this as Subhash used to get frequent headache. She agrees to meet Inder. At her first meeting, Meenakshi is shocked to see Inder’s condition, which makes her to visit him almost every day.
Meenakshi continues to make regular visits to Dr. Ginde’s Mental Hospital to meet Inder, sometime spending more time with him. Slowly, Inder’s health is in the path of recovery. But her regular visits to Inder is resented by her aunt (Sulabha Deshpande) who had come to stay with her after the death of Subhash. Caught in a bind between Inder and her aunt, Meenakshi’s visits become less which affects Inder, more so because he has started liking her. At the same time, Meenakshi is not able to decide whether she likes Inder, or it is her sympathy toward him. To come out of this dilemma, she decides to shift to her parental house in Dharwad. Her aunt is happy.
The continued absence of Meenakshi’s visit to Inder makes him depressed. Finding Inder uneasy for the last few days, Bakshi takes Inder to Meenakshi’s house where he reveals her that he cannot live without her as he has no one in the family. Meenakshi tells him that she cannot help him as she has decided to shift to Dharwad. With this, she closes her door to him. A dejected Inder slowly walks toward Bakshi’s car to return to hospital. Immediately, Meenakshi hears a commotion arising out of a car accident. Assuming that it must be Inder who has met with the accident, she runs out of her house shouting his name. She reaches the accident spot and finds that the person who has been injured with an accident is not Inder. She looks around and finds Inder slowly walking. She runs toward him. The film ends with Meenakshi hugging Inder while Bakshi watches them with a chuckle to himself.
‘Sitam’ (1991) is a superb film to watch. It is a well-researched film especially on the football game and the technicalities of psychoanalysis of a mentally ill patient. The film makes the audience feel real in the scenes of football matches and of the mental hospital with discussion between two doctors as to what line of treatment to pursue for the mentally ill patient, Inder (Vikram). A long scene of Bakshi (Keith Steveson) convincing Meenakshi (Smita Patil) to soften her hard stand against Inder and make her agree to meet him regularly to facilitate his recovery gives a feel of closeness to a real situation. It is unfortunate that a film with high quality contents got a limited theatrical release and has now become an obscure film.
The film had five songs, four of which were written by Gulzar and the remaining one being Shammi Kapoor’s medley. The four songs were set to music by Jagjit Singh-Chitra Singh. Two songs have been covered on the Blog. I am presenting the 3rd song, ‘Mumbai aamchee re’ rendered by Subhash Gill, Vinod Sehgal, Hariharan, Abhijeet Bhattacharya and chorus.
The background of the song is that football team is going from Pune to Mumbai for participating in the Bombay Football Cup tournament. The Manager has permitted those players who wants their wives to accompany them. During the bus journey, the football players sing the song led by Naseeruddin Shah who sings in the style of Shammi Kapoor with his antiques. Smita Patil and Manju Asrani are also seen along with football players during the song picturisation.
Editor’s note:-HFGK(1981-1985) mentions this movie as a movie of 1984.
Audio Clip:
Video Clip:
Song-Mumbai aamchhe re (Sitam)(1984) Singers-Hariharan, Subhash Gill, Vinod Sahgal, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Lyrics-Gulzar, MD-Jaghit Singh-Chitra Singh
Lyrics (Based on Audio Clip):
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaachee re
konaache re ae
o Mumbai konaachee re
Mumbai konaachee re
o Mumbai konaachee re
Mumbai konaachee re
o Mumbai konaachee re
o Mumbai konaachee re
o Mumbai konaachee re
Mumbai konaachee re
humpty dumpty jiskee bhee thhee
aaplee Mumbai aamchee re
o Mumbai konaachee re
Mumbai konaachee re
humpty dumpty jiskee bhee thhee
aaplee Mumbai aamchee re
o Mumbai konaachee re
Mumbai konaachee re
[Gibberish words]
Bumbai ko sar par leke Bumbai mein naachenge
Hanging Garden ghoomenge
garden garden hangenge
bandar kaheen ke
Colaba se Bori Bundar
sabko hairat sabko wonder
arre kaun hai ye shahzaade
shahzaade
shahzaade
ham sinhaansan par jaa baithe
jab jab karen iraade ae ae ae
jab jab karen iraande
iraade
ab to ek iraadaa hai
ha ha
hey………..
humpty dumpty jiskee bhee thhee
aaplee Mumbai aamchee re
o Mumbai konaachee re
Mumbai konaachee re
konaachee re
Mumbai konaachee re
har akhbaar kaa pehlaa pannaa
aur apnee tasweer kaa chapnaa
bas
Mumbai kee heroinen paagal hokar dhoodengee
rock and roll pe naachengee
cha cha cha pe jhumengee
one two chaa chaa chaa
one two chaa chaa chaa
one two chaa chaa chaa
one two chaa chaa chaa
bas meree to Zeenee baby
haay
bas meree to Zeenee baby
chiknee chakkardaar jilebee
Taj mein wo invite karegee
dheelee dibree tight karegee
tum munne ko ghar pe rakhnaa
ghatiyaa batiyaa chiwdaa chakhnaa
o main to Taj mein raat ko lunch karoongaa
raat ko lunch
kyon naheen
hey
humpty dumpty jiskee bhee thhee
aaplee Mumbai aamchee re
o Mumbai konaachee re
Mumbai konaachee re
konaachee re
Mumbai konaachee re
ghe ghe ghe ghe
ghe re saaibaa
maakaa naakaa gho
maakaa naakaa gho
maakaa naakaa gho
maakaa naakaa gho
ghe ghe ghe ghe
ghe re saaibaa
maakaa naakaa gho
maakaa naakaa gho
maakaa naakaa gho
maakaa naakaa gho
Bambai ke saare hero…………o
Shashi Mithhun aur Dharmender
Gaurav Rakesh aur Rajinder
Amit Shatru aur Jitender
Pammi(?) Shammi aur Someinder
Bumbai ke saare hero
sar pe rakh ke nikalenge
hey Ganapati Bappa
moryaa
pudchaa varshee lavkar yaa
Ganapati Bappa moryaa
pudchaa varshee lavkar yaa
Ganapati Bappa moryaa
pudchaa varshee lavkar yaa
Ganapati Bappa moryaa
pudchaa varshee lavkar yaa
hey Ganapati Bappa
moryaa
haan haan
aur dariyaa mein visarjan bhee kar denge
dariyaa……
bloo bloo bloo bloo
dariyaa pe hai Chaupaatee
dariyaa pe hai Chaupaatee
Chaupaatee pe padi paaus
aage dekho Opera House
Opera House meijn bioscope
aage dekho Nana Chowk
Nana Chowk keeoongpali
moongpali se jholi bhar lee
Haji Ali se nikle Worli
Worli se jo mil gaya
saamne aa gaya apnaa Dadar
Dadar se jo haan padee gaadee
koi aaghaadee koi pichhaadee
koi aaghaadi koi pichhaadee
pomp pomp pomp pomp pomp
hey……………
humpty dumpty jiskee bhee thhee
aaplee Mumbai aamchee re
o Mumbai aamchee re
o Mumbai aamchee re
aamchee re
Mumbai aamchee re
aamchee re
Mumbai aamchee re
aamchee re
Mumbai aamchee re
aamchee re
Mumbai aamchee re
aamchee re
Mumbai aamchee re
aamchee re
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
December 8, 2024 at 8:09 am
Thank you Sadanandji for this song. On listening, I realized that I know the song & used to like it.
the lady in Red-Dress dancing with Naseeruddin Shah is Manju Asrani
And it was eye-soothing to see the various familiar landmarks & landscapes enroute to Poona (before it became Pune). The song comes to a close just as the bus is nearing the famous Khandala Tunnel
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December 8, 2024 at 8:16 am
Also, I like the way Gulzar has played with the names of the actors of Bollywood much like the Kishore Kumar song- ‘guni jano bhakt jano’- which had words like ‘Aashirwaadam Ashok Kumaram’, ‘prithvi par bhi teen Inder’
Now I, also, understand the inspiration for the song in “Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi” – “Phir milenge chalte chalte” which also had a similar play of words
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December 8, 2024 at 11:11 am
Thanks Peevesie’s Mom for the additional inputs.
I am not able to recall now, but I think there was a song in a film either in late 40s or early 50s with names of the popular actors of that time in the lyrics.
Incidentally, the song under discussion has been written and composed by ones straying away from their usual styles.
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