Roko na tum caravan ko jaane bhee do
Posted on: April 22, 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 duet from the film Caravan-1944.
This was yet another film rolled out by Ranjit Movietone, who took pride in claiming that they have ” more stars in their studio, than are in the Sky !” and that they had 8 shooting floors, the most among the existing studios.
This ‘stunt’ film was directed by an expert in this field – Aspy Irani (husband of the actress HUsn Bano). Aspi Irani was basically famous for stunt and C grade films. Aspi Irani was an important director from the early films.His full name was ASPANDIAR HORMUSJI IRANI. He was born in the Parsi colony, Panch Gardens in Dadar, Bombay on 8-10-1911. He started work in the film industry after he completed his secondary schooling and as all parsis are,due to his hard work,he soon attained a top rank in the Industry. He started directing films from 1936, the early Talkie stage,when the influence of Parsi Theatre,fantasies and dramas on folklore was the staple of stunt films. All such films had a basic structure and with a little changes here and there new films hit the screens.
There was a fixed audience for such films,but as the time went by,slowly the taste of the audience changed.However Aspi Irani continued with his style till the end. He did direct few social films also but the handling of social films had a clear stamp of Aspi’s direction.
He must have directed about 50-55 films till the early 80s. Some of his films were,Naya paisa, Qaidi no.911, Barood, Shabnam, Badal etc. He was married to actress Husn Bano ( daughter of actress Shareefa).
On a fine morning on 23rd November 1986, Aspi left his home in the morning for work and never ever returned. No one knows what happened to him. Since then there was no trace of this man. Officially he was declared ‘missing since 23-11-1986′. What an end to a legend !
The Music Director was Bulo C. Rani. There were 4 Lyricists. The film created a record by having 15 songs in the film – the highest in any film of 1944. The nearest film was ‘ Kadambari’-1944, having 14 songs in it.
One of the leading Record collectors and a Film Music Historian Shri Girdharilal Vishwakarma ji had done a meticulous analysis of the number of films and the number of songs from 1931 to June 2017. He had put his analysis on the RMIM forum a few years ago. In a concise form, this is what it showed….
| Decade | No. of Films | Average/yr | No. of songs | Average/film | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1931-40 | 931 | 93 | 8247 | 9.0 | |
| 41-50 | 1236 | 124 | 11121 | 8.9 | |
| 51-60 | 1203 | 120 | 9624 | 8.0 | |
| 61-70 | 1007 | 100 | 6990 | 6.9 | |
| 71-80 | 1327 | 133 | 8295 | 6.3 | |
| 81-90 | 1843 | 184 | 9558 | 5.2 | |
| 91-2000 | 1902 | 190 | 9059 | 4.8 | |
| 2000-2011 | 1967 | 197 | 9154 | 4.7 | |
| 2011-2017 upto 30/6 |
1475 | 227 | 6785 | 4.6 | |
| Total 86.5yrs | 12891 | 149 | 78836 | 6.1 |
Compared to these figures, 15 songs in the film Caravan-1944 was almost double of the decade’s average of songs !
The Music Director Bulo C.Rani was also a singer and he sang under a pseudonym “Bhola”. With this name he sang a number of songs. Most people took Bhola for the Music Director Bhola Shreshtha, but it is not correct. Taking another name for giving music or for singing, is not new in Hindi films Take the case of C.Ramchandra. For singing he used the name ‘Chitalkar’.
Let us take a quick look at a few other examples….
It was from the film ‘Albela’ that C Ramchandra gave music to Bhagwan’s film in his real name. Prior to this, he gave music to his stunt films as ‘Annasaheb’ and Ram Chitalkar. This type of use of pen names was followed by many MDs. C.Ramchandra sang songs in the name of ‘Chitalkar’. GM Durrani gave music as Gunjan, SD Batish gave music as Nirmal Kumar. Snehal Bhatkar used several names like Vasudev, B Vasudev, VG Bhatkar and Snehal, before taking up another pen name Snehal Bhatkar for the rest of his career. Actually his name was Vasudeo and Snehal was his daughter’s name. Similarly, MD Nashaad also used names like Shaukat Hussain Dehalvi, Shaukat Dehalvi, Shaukat Ali, and Shaukat Haider.
Lalita Pawar acted in Silent and Talkie films with the names Ambu, Chandrakala, Meenakshi, Saudamini and finally Lalita Pawar. In the initial stage of career Music Director Bulo C. Rani sang songs in the name of ‘ Bhola’. Film actress Ameeta had 5 names. She was born Qamar Sultana. Her mother called her Indira, friends called her Indu, In film Thokar-53, she appeared as Jai jaiwanti and finally she was named Ameeta by Vijay Bhatt.
Kavi Pradeep (6 February 1915 – 11 December 1998), born Ramchandra Narayanji Dwivedi, was an Indian poet and songwriter who is best known for his patriotic song Aye Mere Watan Ke Logo written as a tribute to the soldiers who had died defending the country during the Sino-Indian War. He used a pen name as Miss Kamal, B.A. for a few films.
These are well known, but today I will tell you 2 pen names. Hardly anybody knows that Anil Biswas gave music to film ‘Begunah’ (1949) in the name of Haribhai. His co-MD in this film was Shyamu – none other than C Ramchandra. This information is given in the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema by Rajadhyaksha on pages 67 and 190.
Film Caravan-1944 had the cast of Arun Ahuja (father of actor Govinda), Kamala Chatterjee, Rani, Premlata, Kesari and others.
The heroine of this film Kamala Chaterjee had a very short film career as she died very young. She was the wife of writer/director Kidarnath Sharma.
Kamala Chatterjee was an actress, supporting actress, known for movies like Vish Kanya (1943) Tansen (1943), Shankar Parvati (1943), Adab Arj (1943), Bhanwara (1944), Caravan (1944) & Dhanna Bhagat (1945).
Kamala Chatterjee born in Chandranagar, Bengal Presidency, undivided India, now in West Bengal, she was the daughter of a military man and of the Bengali family, five girls, including the late Sulochana Chatterjee, later she worked in Hindi movies, and one boy, used to travel along with their parents to wherever their father was transferred.
From Calcutta they moved to Jubbulpore, now Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh and it was there that Kamala did her schooling. She also took an active part in school dramatics. After some time the family was shifted to Bombay (Mumbai) & here Kamla was spotted by Sohrab Modi, a friend of their father’s and given a role as a child star in Modi’s picture “Jailor”
(1938).
Kamala Chatterjee was the wife of renowned filmmaker Kidar Sharma. They had a son Arun Sharma. Kamala Chatterjee died of heart failure on 10 January 1946. (Thanks to S. Sarvaiya ji).
The story of the film Caravan-1946, in short is…..
There is a Gypsy caravan, led by an old Nayak-Sheroo. He decides to hand over the reins of the caravan in the hands of his son-Shankar, who is slightly literate and very good looking. Naturally all the eligible girls around surround him to get his attention. He has to win the Chief’s post by doing something brave and full of valour.
The caravan finds a ‘Gori Mem’-Marie(played by an Anglo indian- Sylvie St. Clair), half dead in the way. They revive her and the responsibility of finding her relatives falls on Shankar, since he is somewhat literate among all. The lovebird-Shanno(Premlata) of the caravan gets jealous of Marie, who gets cosy with Shankar.
The confusion is removed after a few reels and in the end Marie goes away and the Hero/Heroine (and the audience of the theatre) live happily ever after !
Let us now enjoy the 81 year old duet by Bhola (aka Bulo C.Rani) and Amirbai Karnataki….
Song- Roko na tum caravan ko(Caravan)(1944) Singers- Bhola 9Bulo C Rani), Amirbai Karnataki, Lyricist- Swami Ramanand Saraswati, MD-Bulo C Rani
Chorus
Lyrics
aaa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
roko na tum caravan ko
roko na tum caravan ko
jaane bhee do
jaane bhee do
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
koowat banegee raahat
koowat banegee raahat
aane bhee do
jaane bhee do
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
parvat ho ya jungle ho
hum aage badhhte jaayenge
hum aage badhte jaayenge
parvat ho ya jungle ho
hum aage badhhte jaayenge
hum aage badhte jaayenge
raat jahaan ho jaayegee
hum dera waheen lagaayenge
raat jahaan ho jaayegee
hum dera waheen lagaayenge
raat jahaan ho jaayegee
hum dera waheen lagaayenge
jaane bhee do
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
roko na tun caravan ko
roko na tun caravan ko
jaane bhee do
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
duniya kya hai
ek sarai
hamne to ye jaanaa hai
hamne to ye jaanaa hai
duniya kya hai
ek sarai
hamne to ye jaanaa hai
hamne to ye jaanaa hai
?? ko chhod
bastee nayee basaanaa hai
?? ko chhod
bastee nayee basaanaa hai
jaane bhee do
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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