Roothhaa na karo
Posted on: January 12, 2025
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.
This article covers the 600th song of C Ramchandra in the blog as a music director.
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Remembering today the music director-singer, C. Ramchandra (12/01/1918 – 05/01/1982) on the occasion of his 107th birth anniversary. This Blog has a number of articles on his life and the musical career. I will, therefore, confine mainly to his musical journey.
After joining Minerva Movietone in 1937 as a harmonium accompanist to music directors, due to his friendship with Master Bhagwan, C Ramchandra got his first assignment as a music director in two Tamil films in 1940-41. On return to Mumbai, he got his first Hindi film, ‘Sukhi Jeewan’ (1942) as a music director, again due to Master Bhagwan who was directing the film. During the recording of the film’s first song, ‘saare jahaan se achchaa Hindostan hamaara’ which was a chorus song, music directors, Anil Biswas, K Datta and a few others had suddenly dropped in to watch his first recording. All of them participated in chorus singing without C Ramchandra’s knowledge. It was only when he noticed that some of the voices in the chorus sounded different, he came to know of their participation. It was the best way by fellow music directors to encourage a new music director.
The career of C Ramchandra as the music director of Hindi films can be divided into four distinct phases. The first phase (1942-45) was a beginner’s phase in which apart from working for stunt/action/costume films, he got associated with a few social and devotional films especially when he joined Jayant Desai Production in 1943 as a music director and composed songs for ‘Zabaan’ (1943), ‘Bhaktraj’ (1943), ‘Lalkaar’ (1944), ‘Manorama’ (1944) and ‘Samraat Chandragupta’ (1945). All these films became box office hits. In this phase, though he was the music director for 16 films, some of which were successful at the box office, hardly any song from these films can be clubbed in the popular category.
In the second phase of his music director’s career (1946-50) C Ramchandra left Jayant Productions and joined Filmistan, during which he consolidated his position as a music director of repute. He experimented with using western instruments with Indian ones to develop a hybrid orchestration, inspired from Anil Biswas’s style of orchestration whom C Ramchandra considered as his Guru. During this period, he composed songs for 32 films, the notable films among them being ‘Safar’ (1946), ‘Saajan’ (1947), ‘Shehnaai’ (1947), ‘Duniya’ (1949), ‘Patanga’ (1949), ‘Niraala’ (1950), ‘Samaadhi’ (1950), ‘Sargam’ (1950 etc. The turning point of his career during this period was the popularity of his song, ‘aanaa meri jaan meri jaan sunday ke sunday’ from ‘Shehnaai’ (1947).
There is an anecdote which C Ramchandra had himself revealed in his autobiography. After he achieved the name and fame through the success of ‘Shehnaai’ (1947), one day while on the way to Minerva studio, C Ramchandra met actor-director, Gajanan Jagirdar who faintly remembered him as Chitalkar. He casually asked him as to what he was doing now, to which C Ramchandra replied that he composed songs. Jagirdar told him with a serious tone that he should do something new in music. Otherwise, we, the Marathi fellows usually work within the limited range. Just learn from the ‘Madrasi’ music director, C Ramchandra who has surprised the film world by his music. With this, Jagirdar walked away without giving C Ramchandra time to clarify that he himself was that ‘Madrasi’. This was an indirect tribute for him from an actor-director on his experiment with music composition of ‘Shehnaai’ (1947).
The third phase (1951-60) of the musical career of C Ramchandra was his best which coincided with the golden period of Hindi film music. During this period, C Ramchandra immensely contributed by composing many popular and melodious songs some of which have remained popular among even the current generation. Starting with ‘Albela’ (1951), some of his other films with popular songs were, ‘Parchhaain’ (1952), ‘Anaarkali’ (1953), ‘Subha Kaa Taaraa’ (1954), ‘Aazaad’ (1955), ‘Yaasmeen’ (1955), ‘Naushewan-e-Adil’ (1957), ‘Amardeep’ (1958), ‘Navarang’ (1959), and ‘Paighaam’ (1959). During this period, his friendship with Lata Mangeshkar seems to inspired him to compose the finest melodious tunes of his musical career. The decade of 1950s was most productive for him both in terms of quantity (47 films) and the quality of music.
C Ramchandra suffered a setback during the last phase (1961-78) of his musical career in which he was associated as the music director for only 17 films. One of the reasons for his setback seems to be that his friendship with Lata Mangeshkar, which was cooling down by 1960, came to an end sometime in 1963. She did not sing for him except a couple of songs which she rehearsed and recorded under his music assistant, Datta Davjekar. It appears that C Ramchandra lost interest in Hindi film industry in the 1970s. ‘Toofaani Takkar’ (1978) was C Ramchandra’s last Hindi film. So, his career of music director in Hindi films started and ended with a stunt film. It was a pathetic end of the career of a great music director.
During this phase of his music career, C Ramchandra produced and acted in Marathi films, ‘Dhananjaya’ (1966) with himself performing the title role in the film. Thereafter, he produced ‘Gurukul’ (1970). He composed the songs for both the films. Besides composing many Marathi and Hindi non-film songs, he composed the first two volumes of Marathi songs for ‘Geet Gopal’ (1972) written by G D Madgulkar on the lines of what Sudhir Phadke and G D Madgulkar had collaborated for ‘Geet Ramayan’. C Ramchandra also kept himself busy in giving public performances of his evergreen melodies with singers Pramila Datar and Kavita Krishnamurthy. He also used to join the talk shows with his admirers. Recently, I have watched nearly 90 minutes of his discourses on Urdu and Marathi Shaayari, interspersed with his renditions of a few of the ghazals and semi-classical songs composed by him from his films. From the talk, I found him to be a witty and a jovial person. I get the same impression from his autobiography with ‘no holds barred’ in Marathi, माझ्या जीवनाची सरगम ‘ (The Symphony of My Life) published in 1977.
C Ramchandra composed music for 112 Hindi films comprising over 900 songs and sang close to 200 songs during his musical career spanning over 3 decades. Despite producing many melodious songs especially in the 1950s, it is unfortunate that C Ramchandra did get any award for his Hinid films – whether National Film Award or Filmfare Award as a music director. The first Filmfare Awards were announced in April 1954 for films released in 1953. But his film, ‘Anarkali (1953) was not in the reckoning for the best music director’s award. The first National Film Award were announced in October 1954 for the films released in 1954, but there was no category for the best music director award. His film, ‘Aazaad’ (1955) and ‘Paighaam’ (1959) were nominated for the Filmfare Award in best music director category but did not win.
‘Roothha Naa Karo’ (1970) was one of the last three films of C Ramchandra as the music director. The film was produced by Bishwanath Prasad Shahabadi under the banner of Nirmal Pictures and was directed by Sundar Dar. The star cast included Shashi Kapoor and Nanda in the lead roles with Rajendranath, Naaz, Sulochana, Arun Irani, Laxmi Chhaya, Jayshree T, Mirza Musharraf, Hiralal (Guest appearance) etc. This was the last film in which Nanda and Shashi Kapoor acted together in lead roles.
‘Roothha Naa Karo’ (1970) is a musical romantic film with outdoor shootings at Kashmir, Simla and Mahabaleshwar for romantic sojourns. The story takes a back seat in the film. The story of the film is as under:
Neeta (Nanda) and her cousin, Naina (Naaz) live with Neeta’s widowed mother, (Sulochana Latkar). Neeta’s father has bequeathed a large property in her name which includes hotels in Shimla, Darjeeling and other places. Sudhir (Shashi Kapoor) is from a middle-class family with photography as his profession. He is acquainted with both Neeta and Naina. Sudhir is in love with Neeta and she reciprocates his love. Anil (Rajendranath) who is Neeta’s another cousin, supports Neeta’s choice of Sudhir who is also his friend. Neeta’s mother gives her consent for the marriage.
Naina always feeds Neeta the adverse things about Sudhir. She instils fear in the mind of Neeta that Sudhir is in love with her with an eye on her property. But every time Naina feeds Neeta against Sudhir, she gets confused and rushes to Sudhir and gets confidence to trust him. One day, Naina takes Neeta to a lawyer’s office where Sudhir was discussing property documents. Naina tells Neeta that Sudhir has come to the lawyer’s office to transfer the title to the property from Neeta’s name to his name. When Sudhir gives her documents to sign, she confronts him thinking that he wants her to sign to transfer the property to Sudhir. Sudhir is hurt due to her lack of trust in him and leaves the house. When Neeta reads the documents, she realises that Sudhir had come the make property deed to transfer of all Neeta’s property to her cousin, Anil so that no one would point a finger toward him that he married Neeta for her property.
Neeta feels very bad about her behaviour towards Sudhir. She rushes to his place to apologise but Sudhir is no mood to accept her apology. Disappointed, Neeta returns home and confronts with Naina who reveals that she was in love with Sudhir but he did not reciprocate her love. Therefore, she tried to separate her from Sudhir by creating false impressions about him but did not work out. She tells Neeta that Sudhir is very good person and she should not lose him. With this, Naina bids goodbye to Neeta by telling her that she is going far away from her (probably kills herself).
Meanwhile, Sudhir decides to shift to Kolkata. He drives to the airport to catch a flight. However, Anil who is following him after he gets to know the truth about the property deed from Neeta, rushes to catch up with Sudhir and prevents him from boarding the flight. Neeta soon joins them at the airport and unite with Sudhir.
On the occasion of C Ramchandra’s 107th birth anniversary, I have selected a song, ‘ae meree sholaa badan….roothha naa karo’ from the film,‘Roothha Naa Karo’ (1970) rendered by Kishore Kumar. The film had seven songs written by Hasrat Jaipuri of which three songs have been covered on the Blog.
The background of the song is that Naina (Naaz) is regularly feeding the negative things about Sudhir(Shashi Kapoor) in the mind of Neeta. With the unsettled mind, she goes on a romantic date with Sudhir who thinks that she is upset with him. So, he props up her mood by addressing her ‘shola badan’, ‘chaand kee ujalee kiran’ etc. As usual, whenever Neeta meets Sudhir, she comes back home with thrust in Sudhir more than Naina.
This is the 600th song of music director, C Ramchandra to appear on the Blog.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Roothhaa na karo (Roothhaa na karo)(1970) Singer-Kishore Kumar, Lyrics-Hasrat Jaipuri, MD-C Ramchandra
Lyrics (Based on Video Clip):
ae meree sholaa badan
tumko iss dil kee kasam
ae meree sholaa badan
tumko iss dil kee kasam
roothha naa karo o o
roothha naa karo
roothha naa karo o o
roothha naa karo
chaand se ujhlee kiran
dekho mar jaayenge ham
chaand se ujhlee kiran
dekho mar jaayenge ham
roothha naa karo o o
roothha naa karo
roothha naa karo o
roothha naa karo
tum sitam khoob karo
ye gawaara hai mujhe
chaahe gussaa bhee karo
wo bhee pyaaraa hai mujhe
tum sitam khoob karo
ye gawaara hai mujhe
chaahe gussaa bhee karo
wo bhee pyaara hai mujhe
tum agar roothh gayeen
tum agar roothh gayeen
to nikal jaayegaa dam
roothha naa karo o
roothha naa karo
ae meree sholaa badan
tumko iss dil kee kasam
roothha naa karo o
roothha naa karo
jhoom kar tum jo chalo
chhaaye duniyaa pe nashaa
jhoom kar tum jo chalo
chhaaye duniyaa pe nashaa
maikade gir phire
dagmagaa jaayen fizaa
mar mite teree kasam
mar mite teree kasam
isi andaaz pe ham
roothha naa karo o
roothha naa karo
ae meree sholaa badan
tumko is dil kee kasam
roothha naa karo o
roothha naa karo
roothha naa karo o o
roothha naa karo
roothha naa karo o o
roothha naa karo
4 Responses to "Roothhaa na karo"
January 12, 2025 at 4:21 pm
Sir, many thanks for this post giving a tribute to the great music composer C. Ramchandra. I have always been a big fan of his compositions. Thanks for this informative article about the different phases in his career as music composer. It was interesting to read about the anecdote related with Gajanan Jagirdar. I think I had not read about this earlier.
Congratulations to you for covering the 600th song of C Ramchandra and congratulations to Atul jee and all of us associated with this blog.
I have not watched this movie Roothhaa na karo)(1970) yet. Thanks for its details.
Regards,
Avinash
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
January 12, 2025 at 1:06 pm
This was a rare Kishore song by C Ramachandra and along with the other solo Tum bhi khoobsurat ho he brought Kishore Kumar’s voice on Shashi kapoor for the first time. Both were fantastic songs and great melodies indeed !
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January 12, 2025 at 8:36 pm
Thanks for the inputs which I missed.
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