Dekho chanchal hai mera jiyaa
Posted by: Atul on: January 6, 2025
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 YIPPEE Song- Last song- of the film Baadbaan-1954. The film was directed by Phani Mujumdar and the music was by Timir Baran and S.K.Pal. The cast of the film was Ashok Kumar, Dev Anand, Meena Kumari, Usha Kiran, Shivraj, Jairaj, Shaikh Mukhtar, Leela Chitnis, Bipin Gupta, Gope, Krishnakant and many more.
I always got confused about the film titles of Baadbaan and Baghbaan. For a long time I mistook them to be Baadbaan only. In a way there was “Same Name Confusion” in the titles. I realised afterwards that they were different titles, sounding almost the same. They have different meanings too. Baad means a Storm and Baan means SafeGuarding, whereas Baghbaan means Maali, a Gardener- one who cares for the trees and tends them.
Take a cursory look at the Film Title Index and you will find, if not many, but some same sounding film titles like Anjaam and Anjaan, Aaghaat and Aaghaaz, Aaj ki baat and Aaj ki Raat, Anaaj, Anaam and Anaar. There must be many such titles. My patience did not last long to go through all the film titles !
This film has some history behind its making. After actress Devika Rani left Bombay Talkies in 1945, it was going downhill. The fall had actually started in 1940, after Himanshu Rai’s death. That is when Devika Rani took over the reins of Bombay Talkies. From the day she was brought back from Calcutta (after the elopement), Devika Rani was not comfortable with Shashdhar Mukherjee. She had always suspected that he instigated the staff against her and they ridiculed her. She caught hold of Amiya Chakraborty in her group and there were clearly two groups in Bombay Talkies management.
As a result of continued friction, a big group of disgruntled staff of the company left Bombay Talkies and later formed Filmistan. Devika Rani was shattered, but the other loyalists helped her and the company continued till 1945. In this year, Devika Rani got married, sold her shares and left the company. The new management kept on making films sporadically, but except film Mahal-1949, no Hit film was made. Finally in 1952, the company was sold to Tolaram jalan, a businessman not connected with films. In 1952, Bimal Roy made the film ‘Maa’ and Phani Majumdar made the film ‘Tamasha ‘, but these too could not save Bombay Talkies.
As a last effort, the employees of Bombay Talkies got together and formed “Bombay Talkies workers’ Industrial Cooperative Society ” and made the film “Baadbaan “-54. As a help to the workers and as a gesture of gratitude, all the artistes of the film, like Dev Anand, Meena Kumari, Usha Kiran,Jairaj, Leela Chitnis etc etc, the director Phani Majumdar and the composers Timir Baran and S K Pal, along with all Technical staff worked free for this film.
In Spite of all this, the film Baadbaan flopped and finally the company was closed down in December-1954. That was the background history of the film Baadbaan. The meaning of this Title word is…Baad means Storm and Baan means Safeguard. The film is about the storm that comes in the life of the Hero and how his life changes after this.
The all-star cast of eleven top-rate players comprised of Dev Anand, Meena Kumari, Usha Kiron, Ashok Kumar, Bipin Gupta, Gope, Krishnakant, Jairaj, Leela Chitnis, Sheikh Mukhtar and Shivraj. The credit for handling this brilliant array or talent goes to Director Phani Mazumdar who also wrote the story and to Nabendu Ghosh whose compact screenplay and terse, but telling, dialogue exploit both the stars and their well-written parts as well as the richly-interesting story.
A beautiful, very melodious music score composed by Timir Baran and S.K. Pal, lovely lyrics written by Indivar and Udhav Kumar and superbly choreographed dances designed by the brilliant exponent Shanti Bhardan and Parvati Kumar provide sparkling highlights in this engrossing film.
The picture depicts a story rich in incident and emotional conflict and centers on an orphaned child whose parents, fisher folk, are killed in a storm and who is adopted by a rich, kind and broad-minded philanthropist. The real drama sets in when the boy returns from England and falls in love with a lovely young socialite who reciprocates his love. On hearing of his true parentage, however, her father forbids the marriage but relents at seeing his daughter’s unhappiness.The hero’s overwhelming passion for a beautiful fisher girl from the village of his birth to which he returns, bent on improving his people’s lot, and his love for his charming wife make for strong emotional power climaxed tragically by the latter’s death and given subtle meaning by his return to his own people and a girl of his own kind. The best performance comes from Usha Kiron who dominates the picture with her gloriously rich portrayal as the fisher girl Mohania. She literally lights up the screen with her brilliant, sympathetic acting.
Dev Anand, as the hero, puts on a good role despite the fact that he tends to fall short in some of his scenes and is a trifle gauche throughout the film. Meena Kumari, as his ill- starred wife, turns in a quiet, polished role in a quite difficult part. Another subtle but telling performance comes from Ashok Kumar who plays her silent lover and the hero’s friend with the consummate ease of a veteran artist.Bipin Gupta and Krishnakant, as the hero’s foster-father and the heroine’s father, act impeccably as usual. Jairaj, as Dev Anand’s father, does well in a small part and Leela Chitnis as his mother acts well and looks lovely. The comedy is provided mainly by Gope who handles his comic and dramatic scenes very well. ( review adapted from Cineplot, with thanks.).
The story of this film was….
Lalan (Jairaj), the village headman, leaves to warn fishermen about an impending storm but he goes missing during the storm followed by his wife Leela (Leela Chitnis). Their orphaned child who is left in the house is adopted by the District Magistrate, Choudhary (Bipin Gupta). The child grows up to become Naren (Dev Anand). Educated abroad, he is to wed Bina (Meena Kumari), the daughter of a family friend. Shankar (Ashok Kumar), Naren’s friend and Bina’s music teacher, is also in love with her but keeps his feelings to himself. The marriage of Naren with Bina is called off when Choudhary admits that Naren is the son of a fisherman, adopted by him.
With this background, Naren shifts to his village where he decides to dedicate his life to the welfare of the fishermen. He starts an ice factory and the workers co-operative society. He falls in love with the village girl, Mohania (Usha Kiran). In the meanwhile, seeing that Bina is very sad as she misses Naren, Choudhury agrees to her marriage with Naren. But she is unhappy about his rural activism. The death of his wife, Bina in a tragic circumstance leads Naren to be with his own people and also with Mohania, who shares his passion for improving the lot of fishermen in his village.
Dev Anand was the highest paid Hindi actor from 1957-1964 and the second highest paid Hindi actor from 1965-1975. Dev Anand held the record for the most solo hero Hindi films starting from 1957 – when Dev already had 40 solo hero films and by 1985 he had 90 solo hero films, which was the maximum by a Hindi hero. Rajesh Khanna broke Dev Anand’s record in 1987 as by end of the year 1987, Rajesh Khanna became the only Hindi hero with maximum solo hero films (ie. film where the whole film revolves around his character and others support his character) with 92 released films and with 14 two hero released films. Dev Anand was the Only Lead Actor in the World whose career spanned 8 decades–1940s to 2011.
Dev never liked to work with other famous Heros. Many offers came but he refused all of them. The first ever film he worked with another equally famous Hero like him was Ashok Kumar in the film Baadbaan-1954. Next year he worked with Dilip Kumar in film Insaniyat-1955, after hearing the story and confirming that he would get the Heroine in the end and not Dilip Kumar. He also refused many films in which there were no songs for him. He also was not ready to do films in which he was supposed to ‘die’. In the 112 films that he did, he ‘died’ only in 2 films, Zalzala-1952 and ‘Guide’-1965.
The name SHIVRAJ in the cast always created curiosity in my mind. I had seen this actor in several films. I was unable to get any information on him anywhere. His role as the meek husband of Kaushalya (Manorama) in the film Seeta aur Geeta-72 is unforgettable. When I started work on this post, I tried again. This time I found an article – actually an Obituary – on him in The Hindu, dated 4-6-2017. Of course it described in it only about his different roles. From some other source, I got his date of Birth and Death and a little other information.
Shivraj was born on 11-6-1920 in Madhya Pradesh. His real name-according to his daughter Neetu- was Rajkumar Seth. After graduating, he came to Bombay in search of a good job, but joined the film industry. To start with he worked in Minerva as an assistant in administration, He did some film roles too without getting credited. He left Minerva and got a role in the film Sarai ke bahar-47. This was a film made by National studios. His next films were Ziddi, Majboor, Batohi, and Asha all in 1948. Then there was no looking back. Shivraj acted in 212 films. He directed 1 film, Jaani Dushman-57. He retired from work in 2000, but his last released film was Yaar meri zindgi-2008. Shivraj died on 4-6-2017.
Another name of interest is that of the Director Phani Mujumdar. Phani Mujumdar (28-12-1911 to 16-5-1994), was a seasoned Director. He is the only Director who directed films in 9 languages (Hindi, Bangla, English, Malay, Chinese, Magadhi, Maithili, Aasamese and Punjabi). Starting with P C Barua in Calcutta, besides Street singer-38 and Kapalkundala-39, he had directed several hit films like Baadbaan, Doctor, Tamanna, Door Chalen, Faraar, Aarti, Kanyadan, Akashdeep, Oonche Log etc., a total of 29 films. Here is a short Biography with some extracts from an Obituary on him, written by the famous Film Historian and writer of “Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema”-Ashish Rajadhyaksha. It was published in The Independent,Calcutta, on 22-6-1994.
PHANI MAJUMDAR was a pioneer of Indian cinema, working in the late 1930s with PC Barua, India’s equivalent of DW Griffith, in the famous New Theatres Studio of Calcutta. Here, between 1936 and 1939, new standards were set for Indian motion pictures in a series of reflective, lyrical films that brought cinema closer to life and literature.
Majumdar’s contribution was Street Singer (1938), a melancholy love story, his debut and a classic of Indian cinema. Its male lead, Kundanlal Saigal, sang his immortal song ‘Babul Mora’ here, on a charged symbolic landscape of boats adrift in the mist. The Famine of 1943 and Partition of India were events of the future yet much of the symbolism of Bengal, the redolent Tagorean motifs of life-giving rivers, the feudal elite recreating the 19th century in desolate mansions – all the stuff that Satyajit Ray later spoke of as ‘the past’ – was in place with Street Singer. It was watched, not just as a love story par excellence, but as an expression of themes of Indian identity and nationalism which would be relevant for India,and Majumdar, even beyond Independence.
Majumdar was born in Faridpur, in what is now Bangladesh, on 28-12- 1911. From Calcutta he moved to Bombay in 1941, directing classic musicals which often promoted traditional ways of Indian life, with stars like Suraiya (in Tamanna, 1942), Shanta Apte in Mohabbat (1943), and the blind singer KC Dey.
Majumdar’s Andolan (1951), Indian cinema’s most elaborately constructed nationalist propaganda feature, was made to promote Nehru’s Congress Party and was the closest that India ever came, on film, to defining a popular culture of nationalism: a small family in Bengal experiences in microcosm the major political events in the country, from 1885 (when the Congress Party was established) to Independence.
Majumdar returned to India from working in Singapore in the 1960s, and proceeded to make films in Punjabi, and even in obscure languages like Magadhi (Bhaiya, 1961) and Maithili (Kanyadaan, 1965). His interest in themes of an intrinsically Indian nature was a driving force to the end of his career. He worked on the television phenomenon of the 1980s in India, the 78-part religious epic The Ramayana, and was working on a television series Our India when he died. No doubt, had he lived, the Our India series, on a state television network struggling to hold its own in competition with satellite, would have been the fitting finale to a career which started with Street Singer.
He directed 29 Hindi films, from first film-Street singer-38 to last film Babul-89. Some of his better known films were Street Singer-38, Kapal Kundala-39, Andolan-51, Tamasha-52, Baadbaan-54, Aarti-62, Oonche Log-65 and Mamta-77. He had married actress Monica Desai, sister of actress Leela Desai. Phani died on 16-5-94 at Mumbai.
Let us now enjoy this 71 year old song by Asha Bhosle. With this song all songs of this film are covered and the film gets YIPPEED !
Song- Dekho chanchal hai mera jiya (Baadbaan)(1954) Singer- Asha Bhosle, Lyricist- Indeevar, MD- Timir Baran and S.K.Pal
Lyrics
dekho chanchal hai mera jiya
ho
kanchhal ka jaise hiya
dekho chanchal hai mera jiya ho
kanchhal ka jaise hiya
aaj halchal see dil mein machee hai kyun
na jaane kya pa liya aa aa
dekho chanchal hai
o dekho chanchal hai mera jiya ho
kanchhal ka jaise hiya
main ab tak to apne se anjaan thhee
preet se meree na pehchaan thhee
main ab tak to apne se anjaan thhee
preet se meree na pehchaan thhee
na pehchaan thhee
main to anjaan thhee
?? meree kisee ne aaj
darpan sa dikhla diya aa aa
aaj halchal see dil mein machee hai kyun
na jaane kya pa liya aa aa
dekho chanchal hai
o dekho chanchal hai mera jiya ho
kanchhal ka jaise hiya
sapne mere ae ae ae
rang badalne
rang badalne laage ae
sapne mere rang badalne lage ae
armaan dil ke machalne lage
sapne mere rang badalne lage ae
armaan dil ke machalne lage
machalne lage
rang badalne lage
aaj tirchhee nigaahon ne shaam(??) kee
baadal mein rang bhar diya aa aa
aaj halchal see dil mein machee hai kyun
na jaane kya pa liya aa aa
dekho chanchal hai mera jiya ho
kanchhal ka jaise hiya
dekho chanchal hai mera jiya ho o o
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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