O raanee mahaaraanee
Posted on: February 20, 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 Dance song from the film Ram Rajya-1943.
The film was made by Prakash Pictures. It was directed by Vijay Bhatt. The music was by Shankar Rao Vyas- the resident Music director of Praksh pictures. All the 12 songs were written by Ramesh Gupta and the cast included Shobhana Samarth, Prem Adib, Umakant, Badri Prasad, Amirbai, Yeshwant Nikam, Madhusudan Bhatt, Shanta Kumari and many others.
Established as a film production house in 1934 in a far off, isolated suburb of Andheri in Bombay, this company produced mainly stunt, action and costume films nof B and C grade. With these films, they made a lot of money and in 1942 they made the film ” Narsi Bhagat”. The owner brothers- Vijay and Shankar Bhatt, like many other Gujarati people, were followers of Gandhi ji, whose favourite bhajan ” Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye” was written by Narsi Bhagat. The film was a Hit film. For this film, they had taken a Marathi actor Vishnupant Pagnis, who had become All India famous for his role as Sant Tukaram (in Marathi) in the 1936 film of same name.
Same year they made ‘ Bharat milap-1942 in Hindi and Marathi (as Bharat Bhet), with Shobhana Samarth as Seeta, Prem Adib as Shri Ram and Umakant as Laxman. The film was highly successful. prakash pictures realised that Ram Katha is extremely popular in India and they decided to make another film “Ram Rajya” This was to cover the later period of Ram Kathai.e. after Lanka vijay return to Ayodhya, Shri Ram becoming the King, Seeta deserted to Ashram, birth of Lav-Kush, and finally the milan of Shri Ram and Lav-Kush and Sita going underground with Dharati mata.
This part of the story had a lot of emotions, which were sure to evoke interest among the audience. Once the story was finalised, it was also decided to continue featuring Prem Adeeb as Ram, Shobhana Samarth as Seeta and Umakant Desai as Laxman, to encash their popularity in those roles. Even The Director-Vijay Bhatt and Composer-Shankar Rao Vyas also continued in this film. Initially the title of this film was planned as Lav-Kush, but during that year, Mahatma Gandhi was talking about bringing Ram Rajya to India, so the title was changed to Ram Rajya.
Shobhana Samarth, Prem Adib and Umakant had become so popular as Seeta, Shri Ram and Laxman, that later these three acted in 7 more films in that role ! As Expected, the film Ram Rajya became a Hit film all over India. So much so that even Mahatma Gandhi saw this film on 2-6-1944 at a friend’s house in Juhu, Bombay. This was not the only film Gandhi ever saw in his life, as popularly believed. He had earlier seen the film ‘ Mission to Moscow “-43, Directed by Michael Curtiz, in a well wisher’s home in Wardha, in 1943. This has appeared in ” The Hindu “, (Kathmandu Edition), dated 8-2-2010, as told by Gopaldas Shreshtha, a Gandhian from Nepal. He was Gandhi ji’ s assistant in Wardha.
Like many Hit films, even this film had a controversy, which was as to who were the real singers of the film’s iconic song “Bharat ki ek sannari ki Katha….”, sung by Lav and Kush on the screen. Several names were taken like Ram Apte, Madhusudan Bhatt etc. Ramesh Gupta added to this confusion by making some wrong guesses, in one of his interviews. Finally the truth came out. Mr Dhananjay Nanivadekar, a US based music lover met the two singers during his visit to India. He sent his findings to Mr Harmandir Singh Hamraz who published it in Listeners’ bulletin number 154 (November 2012). According to it, Yashwant Balkrishn Joshi sang for Madhusudan Bhatt (playing Kush). Lav was played by Yashwant Nikam and he sang for himself. Madhusudan Bhatt had practiced for the song, but he could not sing high notes and so he was replaced by Yashwant Balkrishn Joshi for playback singing of the song.
Film RamRajya-1943 was also made in Marathi and Hindi and almost all the songs in both versions had similar tunes. While the Hindi version is available on YouTube, the Marathi version is difficult to find.
After the success of films ‘ Narsi Bhagat-40’ and ‘ Bharata Milap-42’, Shanka Rao Vyas rode on the Pinnacle of his career with the popularity of Ramrajya songs. Vyas was a very hard working person. Once while recording songs of the film ‘ Vikramaditya’-45, he needed the Echo effect in the song ‘ Om Jai Jai Shankar’. In those days, the recording studios were not equipped with such facilities. Vyas searched and found out a Temple having a big Dome, in the obscure suburb Jogeshwari in Bombay and recorded this song in that Temple at 2 am in the midnight when it was very quiet !
Ramrajya-43 was the most successful musical film of that era. When Prakash Pictures planned to produce Ramrajya again in 1967, the MD was Vasant Desai. Before recording the film’s first song Desai garlanded the photo of Shankar Rao Vyas and then only started the work, seeking his Blessings. Ramrajya also had the distinction of being the only Hindi film Mahatma Gandhi saw. It is said that he was pleased with its songs very much.
He was very busy in many fields as a composer, Principal of his music school, author of articles and bandishes, President of Gandharva Mahavidyalaya and founder editor of ‘Sangeet Kala Vihar’ magazine (founded in 1947) of Vidyalaya that is published even today. He passed away at Ahmedabad on 17-12- 1956.
Most people will miss the name of Shanta Kumari in the cast of this film. She rose from C grade films to A grade films by her hard work.
Miss Shanta Kumari, a forgotten name of early Bollywood, who championed in both silent and talkies (please do not confuse with the South Indian actress of the same era).
Miss Shanta Kumari was born in 1904 to a family of ten and entered silent movies at the age of sixteen (1920). She worked in 1920 s with the Sharada film company ( Kala Pahad, 1927) with Master Vitthal and later joined Delhi’s Great Eastern film company ( Bhai ki Kasai, 1928, Pilgrims of Love 1929, Kumud Kumari 1929). She later joined the Ranjit film company ( later Ranjit Movietone) and acted with Eddie Billimoria in Prince Charming (1930) & Castles in the Air (1930). In 1930 also she worked with Kohinoor Film Company for the movie Arya Kanya (1930). Since she was a very accomplished singer and dancer she hadn’t got any difficulty in entering Talkies and excelled in Talkies. She made her debut talkie with Shri Krishna Film Company’s Heer Ranjha (1931). Her some other memorable early Talkies were Lanka Dahan (1933), Hatim Tai (1933), Bulbul-e- Punjab(1933), Bhoola Shikar (1933), Aaj Kal (1934), Sinhasan (1934), Baal Hatya (1935).
Shanta Kumari was very beautiful. After her first Talkie film Heer Ranjha-1931, came many films, including 4 parts of the film Hatimtai-33, in which she was Heroine Husnbanu. In film Sant Tulsidas-34, she sang along with even G N Joshi, famous classical singer of those times and later on an officer in H.M.V. Recording section. Due to her good singing, till 1936 she sang on A.I.R. Bombay. In 1940, she got married to Sound Recordist Kothari. In the later period, she acted in some famous films , where Kothari was the Sound Recordist, like Bharat Milap-42, Ramrajya-43, Prithvi Vallabh-43, Gwalan-46, Ram Vivah-49 and Grih Laxmi-49. She acted in 27 films and sang 21 songs in 8 films. She died on 18-1-1976 ( information adapted from Beete kal ke sitare by Shriram Tamrakar, MuvYz,interview by V S Nigam on medium.com and book The lost Treasure by K.Pasupuleti with thanks).
Now let us enjoy the video of the song from the 82 year old film Ram Rajya-1943….
Song- O Raani Maharani (Ram Rajya)(1943) Singers- Child voice 1, child voice 2, Lyrics-Ramesh Gupta, MD-Shankar Rao Vyas
Lyrics
kaho
uhoon
kaho raanee kaho
unhoon
o raanee
mahaaraanee
itna to kaho vichaar
sapnon mein kyaa kyaa dekhaa
sapnon mein kyaa kyaa dekhaa
kahoon
uhoon
hamne dekhaa
do premee kaa hara bhara sansaar
haan haan
hara bhara sansaar
kaho na tumne kyaa kyaaa dekaa
hamne kee priye ashwa sawaaree
hamne kee priye ashwa sawaaree
raanee
tu ban gayee hamaaree
raanee
tu ban gayee hamaaree
sachche prem kee bandhhee dor se
miley hriday ke taar
kaho na tumne kya dekhaa
aaya vasant
aayaa vasant
aayaaa
vasant aayaa mastee laayaa
soya huaa unmaad jagaayaa
jhoom jhoom ke lata ghata ??
pee se kartee pyaar
?? pyaar
kaho na tum ne kya dekhaa
ghiree ghataa barkhaa ritu aayee
?? daal phalee konpal ??
aayee man mein bahaar
un donon ke shudhh prem kaa
hua pushp taiyyaar
hua pushp taiyyaar
ek sundar saa sapnaa dekha
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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