Night is lovely dark and cool
Posted by: Atul on: January 14, 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.
|
Blog Day : |
6024 | Post No. : | 18764 |
Remembering today, the music director, Chitragupt on his 34th Remembrance Day.
Chitragupt Shrivastava (16/11/1917 – 12/01/1991) was a double post-graduate in Economics and Journalism. He got a job as a lecturer in Patna University. His elder brother, Braj Nandan ‘Azaad’ was a freedom fighter who was also the editor of ‘Indian Nation’ and its Hindi counterpart, ‘Aryavrata’. Besides, he was also a percussionist as a hobby. Chitragupt was also interested in music and had undergone basic training in Hindustani classical music.
One day, Madan Sinha, Chitragupt’s friend in Patna told him that he was leaving for Mumbai to try his luck in Hindi films and suggested him that he should also try for Hindi films since he was interested in Hindi film music. Chitragupta agreed and both landed in Mumbai sometime in the mid-1940s. [Incidentally Madan Sinha became a Cinematographer and also directed ‘Imtihaan’ (1974), and ’Ye Kaisa Farz’ (1985)]. Chitragupt’s decision did not go well with his elder brother.
Chitragupt had landed in Mumbai without any acquaintance in the city. However, he managed to meet director, Nitin Bose who gave him a chance to sing in a chorus. After some time, he got a chance to work under music director, S N Tripathi who was a product of the famed Marris College of Music, Lucknow. He also helped Chitragupt to get his first independent assignment as a music director in ‘Fighting Hero’ (1946), a stunt film. In the 40s and the 50s, Chitragupt composed songs for ‘B grade ’films mainly in the genres of stunts/action/costumes/fantasy/mythology.
Chitragupt got his first major hit, ‘Sindbaad The Sailor’ (1952). Another important landmark in his career was he got ‘Shiv Bhakt’ (1955) from a big banner, AVM on the recommendation of his morning-walk friend, S D Burman. This big banner film also gave him the opportunity for the first time to use Lata Mangeshkar as a playback singer in this film. The success of ‘Shiv Bhkat’ (1955) opened up a new vista for Chitragupt from South India. He was the music director for AVM’s social films, ‘Bhaabhi’ (1957), ‘Barkha’ (1959), ‘Suhaag Sindoor’ (1961), ‘Main Chup Rahungi’ (1962) ‘Main Bhi Ladki Hoon’ (1964), ‘Mera Qasoor Kyaa Hai’ (1964)’.
When his career as a music director was reaching high with the success of films like ‘Oonche Log’(1965), ‘Aakaash Deep’ (1965), ‘Afsaana’ (1966) ‘Aulaad’ (1968) and ‘Vaasna’ (1968), Chitragupt suffered a heart-attack in 1968 putting some break on his career. This was followed by a paralytic stroke in 1974. He did recover from his illness but for medical reason, he could not take up an arduous work schedule. His sons, Anand and Milind started helping him as his music assistants. In the 1980s, Chitragupt restricted his assignments and devoted mostly for about a dozen Bhojpuri films following his success of his Bhojpuri film, ‘Balam Pardesiyaa’ (1979).
Chitragupt passed away on January 12, 1991, after the second heart-attack but not before seeing his sons, Anand and Milind becoming a successful music director duo and winning their first Filmfare Award for the Best Music director for ‘Qayaamat Se Qayaamat Tak’ (1988).
‘Pyaar Kaa Sapna’ (1969) was one of those films of Chitragupta when his career as a music director was on a high point. The film was produced by T C Dewan under the banner of Modern Pictures and was directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The star cast included Ashok Kumar, Mala Sinha, Biswajit, Helen, Johny Walker, Kundan, Rajan Haksar, Durga Khote, Bipin Gupta, Mridula Rani, Naina etc.
I have watched this film on VCDs of different uploaders available on the video sharing platforms and found that two songs of the film have been edited out in all the VCDs. Fortunately, the story of the film’s VCD appears seamlessly without much of editing. The film was a family drama with a familiar story line in Hindi films in which the film’s hero gets married to a conventional girl against his wishes due to pressure from his parents. He leaves his newly wedded wife and gets hooked to another girl until he falls in love with his own wife and unites with her. The plus points about this film is the slick screenplay, good dialogues, pleasing foreign locales and good music.
The film’s story in detail is as under:
During a train journey, Sudha (Mala Sinha) and her mother (Durga Khote) who are on pilgrimage, finds an elderly couple, Jwala Prasad (Bipin Gupta) and his wife Parvati (Mridula Rani) as their co-traveller. Jwala Prasad and his wife are impressed by the upbringing of Sudha as gathered during the conversations. In Sudha, they find the qualities which they are looking in the prospective wife for their son, Ramesh (Biswajit). Jwala Prasad offers to make Sudha his daughter-in-law. Sudha’s mother after some thought agrees because Sudha was rejected by a number of prospective grooms for her lack of knowledge of English.
While his father is finalising Sudha as his prospective bride, Ramesh after completing his graduation is partying and planning to visit Europe on holiday. Jwala Prasad makes a surprise visit to Ramesh’s place to announce that he is getting married next week. Ramesh makes some excuses like going abroad for higher study and intending to be independent. But under financial pressure, Ramesh succumbs to getting married to Sudha against his will. The marriage takes place but Ramesh does not even look at Sudha.
Next day, Ramesh wants some money from his father to go abroad for higher study. His father gives him more money to take Sudha also with him. He knows that there is no point in arguing with his father and retreat. However, he informs Sudha that he is going abroad for higher study and he is not going to return. Before, he leaves, Ramesh gives her a letter which will facilitate her an easy divorce.
When Jwala Prasad comes to know about the letter, he is furious. He decides that he would get Sudha remarried. Sudha is caught in a bind as she wants to stay with her in-laws but at the same time, she does not want divorce and remarriage. She runs away to her mother’s place who specifies her that she should return to her in-law’s place. While returning, she tries to commit suicide by coming in front of a car. When Shankarnath (Ashok Kumar) sees her act from the car, he asks his driver to stop the car. Shankarnath takes Sudha to his house.
After knowing details from Sudha, Shankarnath visits Jwala Prasad’s house and informs him that Sudha is at his house after she tried to commit suicide in front of his car. He suggests Jwala Prasad that it is better that Sudha stays in his house for some time before she is sent back to his house to avoid the relapse of her suicidal tendency. Shankarnath says that he is suggesting this out of his own experience with his son, who went to London, got married to a English girl who later divorced him. Now both are dead and he is in search of his granddaughter.
On the way to London on a ship, Ramesh meets Gupte (Johny Walker) who is also happy go lucy fellow like him. Gupte makes his stay arrangements in a house in London. Both Ramesh and Gupte spend good time visiting pubs, attending parties etc. Gupte introduces Jenny (Helen) who is a dancer. She knows Hindi because her English mom had married an Indian. So, Ramesh has got a cute company in Jenny for parties and visiting night clubs.
Meanwhile, Shankarnath teaches Sudha English speaking, the western table manners, make-over in her dresses and saaree that are the favourites of high society women. After satisfying himself that Sudha has completely changed from a typical Indian woman to a westernised woman, he gives her passport and visa to travel to London with an assignment to woo Ramesh with an adopted name, Sushma in such a way that he becomes devoted to her. First, she flatly refuses to visit London as she is apprehensive that she would be recognise by Ramesh. However, later she relents, may be that she would get to meet her husband.
In London, Ramesh gets attracted by the presence of a young Indian woman by her beauty and western mannerism. He entrust the work to Gupte to find out details about her. She is Sushma who has recently come to London with her ‘uncle’ Prakash Malhotra (Rajan Haksar) and Gupte believes that Malhotra is Sushma’s bodyguard. After some initial problems between Ramesh and Sushma, they slowly turn into a loving pair. After a series of meetings with two songs, Ramesh is now deeply in love with Sushma despite her revelation to him that she is already married and her husband has left her after few days of marriage.
Now, there is a twist in the story. One day, Shankarnath secretly visits London without the knowledge of Sudha/Sushma for, he has got some leads in finding out his granddaughter and he has to visit her. Prakash meets Shankarnath and gives him his report about the progress of Sushma in wooing Ramesh. Shankarnath is happy.
Shankarnath visits his granddaughter’s house who turns out to be Jenny. He says that he has come to London to take her to India so that they can stay together. She declines to come to India as she wants to be in the same city Ramesh is staying to whom she loves. But Ramesh has fallen in love with Sushma. Hearing this, Shankarnath is in a quandary. Between Jenny and Sushma, one has to sacrifice their love for Ramesh. Whom would Shankarnath favour – his adopted daughter, Sushma/Sudha or his real granddaughter Jenny?
After series dramatic manoeuvres by Shankarnath which give the impression that he wants Sudha/Sushma away from Ramesh. It becomes very clear to Shankarnath that Ramesh is badly in love with only Sushma and not with Jenny. Before Shankarnath opens his cards about Sudha, he does one more dramatic move. He returns with Sushma to India from London to check the response from Ramesh. When he comes to know of this from Gupte, Ramesh follows Sushma by arriving in India. He visits Shankarnath house to formally ask for his consent to marry Sushma. Shankarnath, however, directs him to go to his real father, Jwala Prasad’s house where his wife, Sudha is waiting for him and who has survived from her suicide attempt. In the meanwhile, he sends Sushma to Jwala Prasad’s house.
A surprised Ramesh goes to his father’s house who directs him to meet his wife first. He meets Sudha who is sitting with back to him. He confesses that he has badly treated her without her mistake and to make amend to his behaviour, he is prepared to sacrifice Sushma for her. He walks towards her and sees her face for the first time after their marriage. He is pleasantly surprised to find that Sushma is none other than Sudha.
On the occasion of 34th Remembrance Day of the music director, Chitragupt, I present one of the songs from ‘Pyaar Kaa Sapna’ (1969) has been composed by him. The song is Hinglish one, ‘night is lovely dark and cool’, rendered by Asha Bhosle. The film had six songs written by Rajendra Krishna of which three songs have been covered on the Blog.
The song under discussion is picturised on Helen who is dancing in a club with Biswajit siting on a bar table. This song is deleted in film’s VCD. The possible context this dance figures in the film is that Helen is a club dancer and she has been formally introduced to Biswajit by Johny Walker. Probably, she may have invited Biswajit to the club to watch her dance.
—————————————————————————————
Note: Chitragupt’s life profile is mainly based on an article by Rudradeep Bhattacharjee which appeared on scroll.in. The article was based on his conversation with Sudha Srivastava, daughter of Chitragupt.
Audio Clip:
Video Clip:
Song-Night is lovely dark and cool (Pyaar Ka Sapna)(1969) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyrics-Rajinder Krishan, MD-Chitragupta
Chorus
Lyrics (Based on the Audio Clip):
o o o
o o o o
night is lovely
dark and cool
night is lovely
lovely
dark and cool
night is lovely
lovely
dark and cool
sard suhaanee raat andheree
sard suhaanee raat andheree
pooree huyee tamannaa meree
mil gayaa meraa fool (phool?)
night is lovely
lovely
dark and cool
night is lovely
lovely
dark and cool
aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
haa aaa aaa aaa aaa
aaa aaa aaa
aaa aaa aaa
aaa aaa aaa
aaa aaa aaa aaa aaa
der se aayaa
door se aayaa
lekin aayaa aaj
yaaa yaa hia
yaaa yaa hia
der se aayaa
hu hu hu
door se aayaa
hu hu hu
lekin aayaa aaj
pahnaayegaa apne haathhon
sar pe mere taaj
main samjhee thhee
dagaa de gayaa
ye thhee meree bhool
night is lovely
lovely
dark and cool
night is lovely
lovely
dark and cool
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
tere kaaran
o mere saajan
raat hai lovely lovely
yaaa yaa hia
yaaa yaa hia
tere kaaran
hu hu hu
o mere saajan
hu hu hu
raat hai lovely lovely
jab meraa dilbar hai lovely
har baat hai lovely lovely
kar de pyaar se ek ishaaraa
lovely sweet and cool
night is lovely
lovely
dark and cool
night is lovely
lovely
dark and cool
sard suhaanee raat andheree
pooree huyee tamannaa meree
mil gayaa meraa fool (phool?)
night is lovely
lovely
dark and cool
cool
night is lovely
lovely
dark and cool
coooool
Share this:
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
- Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
- Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
Related
3 Responses to "Night is lovely dark and cool"
January 14, 2025 at 5:44 pm
Sadanand Ji
Thanks for the post. Nice knowing details about Chitragupta and his career.
I had an impression that ‘Chitragupta’ is his assumed name while providing music to films( something on the lines of ‘Anna Saheb’ used by Chitalkar).
Is Chitragupta his real name ( though your post says so)?
LikeLike
January 14, 2025 at 7:18 pm
Thanks for your comments.
Yes, Chitragupt is his real name.
LikeLike
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
January 14, 2025 at 2:16 pm
This is a rare unheard song from Chitragupta.
LikeLike