Daare jaa daare jaa daare jaa
Posted on: May 23, 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.
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In this article, I have picked up for discussion Gautam Ghosh’s film, ‘Yaatra’ (2007) which comes under the ambit of the parallel cinema. The meaning of the film’s title in the context of the story is ‘transition journey’. This is a complicated film. The audience is likely to get confused as to how much of the story in a novel narrated by the protogonist is real and fictional when he narrates the story to a fellow traveller, an upcoming film-maker. Some parts of the story are autobiographical in nature while some are creative imaginations and thus fictional in nature. The transition from fiction to fact in the novel is so blurred that the upcoming film-maker gets confused. In the end, the film-maker decides to give his own perspective of the story in his screenplay when he decides to make the film based on the novel.
“Yaatra’ (2007) was produced by Bipin Kumar Vohra and was directed by Gautam Ghosh who wrote the story and screenplay. He was also the Cinematographer, Editor and one of the two music directors of the film. The cast included Nana Patekar, Rekha, Dipti Naval, Nakul Vaid, Anandi Ghosh (daughter of Gautam Ghosh), Romit Raaj, Jeeva, Masood Akhtar, Bharti Devi etc. The film was premiered at Montreal World Film Festival on September 3, 2006. The film got CBFC Certificate ‘A’ on December 29, 2006, and had a theatrical release in India on May 4, 2007.
The story of the film is as under:
Dashrath Joglekar (Nana Patekar), a well-known writer stays with his wife Smita (Dipti Naval), his widowed mother (Bharati Devi) and teenage son and daughter. He is financially well-off and the family lives happily. Dashrath is a humble and soft-spoken person. His wants are limited only to the extent of minimum necessities of life. His only entertainment is listening to Hindustani classical music in the morning. He is on a medicine for his heart problem. Dashrath is cynical in nature. He believes that materialism has engulfed the Indians’ life more like a market (baazaar) where things gets exchange for money at the cost of cultural and moral values. He proposes to write his next novel ‘Baazaar’ covering these aspects of the Indian life.
Dashrath has published his novel, ‘Janaazaa’ (Funeral) which earns him a prestigious literary award. The award giving ceremony is to be held in Delhi for which he has been invited. He travels to Delhi by train rejecting the flight ticket from the management of the award ceremony. In the train, Dashrath’s fellow travellers in his compartment is Mohan Bhardwaj (Nakul Vaid), an upcoming film-maker who turns out to be his admirer. He is particularly impressed by the character of Laajwanti, a courtesan in the novel which has prompted him to make the film based on his novel, ‘Janaazaa’. Dashrath reveals that the character of Laajwanti was based on a real courtesan which he had met in his younger days sometime in the late 1960s.
The film goes in the flashback of the late 1960s where Laajwanti (Rekha), the mistress of Pulla Reddy (Jeeva), the aristocrat of Adilabad is entertaining him with his friends by way of a Kathak dance in his palatial house. He uses her for the entertainment of those in power for getting his works done. In one such programmes, Laajwanti presents a mujra where some of Pulla Reddy’s bureaucrat friends misbehave with her prompting her to abandon her dance halfway which is not liked by Pulla Reddy. As a punishment for her, he drags Laajwanti to a secluded place in the night where she is gang raped by the bureaucrats and left alone.
In the next morning, Satish (the role performed by Nana Patekar), a schoolteacher in Adilabad, finds her alone on his way to the school. He brings her to his house and gives her a shelter. His wife Sharda (role played by Dipti Naval) and two children gel with her nicely. She even teaches them Hindustani classical music. After some days, Pulla Reddy comes to know the whereabout of Laajwanti. He sends his goons to Satish’s house to get her released on the pretext that how he has given shelter to some one’s wife. They threaten that if Laajwanti is not released by the next morning, his house would be set on fire. Seeing ahead of problems for Satish, Laajwanti decides to leave Prakash’s house who accompanies to drop her Hyderabad. She joins a Kotha in Hyderabad as a courtesan.
At this point, the story comes back to the present time in the train. Mohan gives Dashrath his impression that the character of Satish in the novel appears autobiographical in nature to him, indirectly hinting that Satish in reality could be Dashrath, the author himself. Dashrath says that in writing novels, some reflections of the life of the author is inevitable. Some part could be real and some part would be fiction or even surreal based on the creative imagination of the author. For Mohan, one thing becomes clear to him that the character of Laajwanti as a Hindustani classical singer and classical dancer in Adilabad has changed to become Lajjo, as an entertainer in Hyderabad.
Dashrath takes Mohan to another flash back of the story in which the presence of Lajjo in the life of Satish becomes a source of discomfort to his wife, Sharda. Satish often goes to Hyderabad to watch her classical singing and dancing. Some time he stays back without informing the family. Sharda confronts Satish that as a teacher, it is not proper for him to spend time with Lajjo and also his children are growing. In disgust, Sharada says that it would have been better if the family had also shifted to Hyderabad so that at least he husband will return home.
The next morning, the train is nearer Delhi. Dashrath says that it is a long time, he has not met Laajwanti but her memories are haunting him even today. Mohan says that he can make a very good film based on this novel. Dashrath says that he has granted permission to him. But he asks him what would be his approach in the film’s script – fact or fiction. Mohan does not know at this point.
The Award ceremony takes place during which he delivers speech about the loss of the cultural direction of the society which is moving toward materialism and we are all in the grip of the market which has turned the love and affection as trading commodities. The discussion with Mohan about his novel’s story seems to have ignited Dashrath to meet Laajwanti after a long gap. He checks out of the hotel without informing the management of the award ceremony and the family and takes a flight to Hyderabad.
After some difficulties, Dashrath locates the Kotha of Laajwanti who is now known as Lisa. He is shocked to see her dancing in the midst of her young admirers to the Hindi film song, ‘kabhee aar kabhee paar laaga dheere nazar’ played on a cassette player. Laajwanti is also shocked to see Dashrath after a long time. He says that he has come to meet her to present his literary award trophy to her. He says that it is because of her, he could write the novel. She refuses to accept the trophy by saying that the trophy belongs to his family. Knowing his taste for classical music, in the night, she sings for him a Dadra for which she had to search for her sarangi player who now works as a labourer after the change of music taste of the current generation.
The management of the award ceremony as well as family has been searching for the whereabout of Dashrath but without success as he does not carry mobile. Laajwanti has already told Dashrath to go back to his house the next morning as his family would be worried. She says that he should not tell his family that after the award ceremony, he came straight to her Kotha. But Dashrath says that he would tell the truth to his family because Laajwanti deserves the credit for the award. She says that whatever he has written in the novel, people will think that it is a fiction. So why to complicate the matter by revealing the truth. He stays with Laajwanti in the night. However, in the night, he gets heart attack and a doctor is called who certifies him as dead. Laajwanti does not want the world to know that Dashrath, an award winning writer was found dead in a courtesan’s house. She arranges his ‘Janaazaa’ to be secretly taken out for funeral in a wooden cupboard.
Smita comes to know from the management of the award ceremony that as per the police report, he has taken the flight to Hyderabad. Smita, Dashrath’s wife visits Laajwanti’s Kotha at Hyderabad when the Janaazaa of Dashrath, camouflage in a closed wooden cupboard is being taken out. Laajwanti invites her in the room and they remain silent.
The film ends with Mohan’s monologue that he has completed the writing of the script of his film, ‘Janaazaa’ with more of fictions than the facts. He has changed the end of the film which will appear that when Dashrath visits Hyderabad to meet Laajwanti, he finds that many kothas of the place have vanished while widening the road. He could not get the whereabout of Laajwanti. He is now living with his family and with haunted memories of Laajwanti.
The only reason I watched the film very recently is because it has a number of songs moulded in Hindustani classical and semi-classical music. Though the film’s story is slow in progression, I found the film interesting to watch in one sitting mainly because of the inter-actions between Nana Patekar in the role of the author of the novel and Nakul Vaid in the role of an upcoming film-maker while narrating the novel’s story. Nakul Vaid’s alternative visualisation of scenarios of the story and the restrained and soft-spoken responses from Nana Patekar were quite interesting. The film’s ‘fact versus fiction’ in the story line lends some sort of a suspense as to how the film will end. Incidentally, it may be the only film I have watched of Nana Patekar in which his has given a wonderful performance completely devoid of his trademark angry and fast-speaking modes.
The film gives an opportunity to Rekha to replicate her role of courtesan in ‘Umrao Jaan’ (1982). Naturally, she has performed her role as per the expectations. Even though, she has done this role after 22 years of Umrao Jaan (1982) and was in her 50s, she has done the role in a graceful manner in her varied avtars – as a Kathak dancer, as a mujra dancer, as a dadra singer and also in a typical Bollywood dance genre apart from some of her emotional parts well.
Another positive point about this film is the cinematography by Gautam Ghosh. I liked his long gloomy landscape shot with a single tree symbolising Laajwanti when she was left alone on this vast landscape after her gang rape by the Pulla Reddy’s aristocrat friends who are in the high pedastal of the society. This is a master shot without any identifications of actors involved in the scene but can create poignant feelings on the audience for a helpless woman.
This is an abstract film and as such it is not easy to understand for the audience of the usual Hindi films. The film’s characters, Dashrath as a novelist and Satish as a teacher (both roles performed by Nana Patekar) in his novel are different persons. But there is a hint in his conversation with Mohan, the film-maker when Dashrath says that the character of Satish in his novel is his alter ego. He has also revealed to Mohan that he had met Laajwanti few times in his younger days and her memories are haunting him. So, Laajwanti is Dashrath’s muse who inspired him to write the novel, ‘Janaazaa’.
By the way, Nakul Vaid in the role of a film-maker may be representing the film’s director, Gautam Ghosh who may have faced similar situations while making films based on the novels of the well-known authors.
The film had 12 songs of which as many as 10 songs were woven in Hindustani classical/semi-classical music. This was quite natural as the protagonist in the story of the film was a courtesan of a bygone era. Most of the songs are partly played in the background except the songs picturised on Rekha. These songs were composed by Gautam Ghose (7) and Khayaam (5). A couple of songs have been edited out of the film’s DVD.
I present the first song from the film, a ‘bandish ki thumri’, written and composed by Kunwar Shyam (real name: Goswami Lalji Maharaj, 1850-1910). Gautam Ghosh has set the music for the thumri which is rendered by Shuvra Guha, a Hindustani Classical Vocalist from Agra Gharana. The Thumri is preceded by ‘tatkaar syllables’ rendered by an unknown male voice which match to the sound produced by the footwork of Rekha when she starts her kathak dance.
The context of the song is that Dashrath (Nana Patekar) is narrating the story of Laajwanti (Rekha), a courtesan in his novel. She was brought from Banaras and now she is the mistress of Pulla Reddy (Jeeva), an aristocrat from Adilabad. The flashback takes the story to Adilabad in the late 1960s where Laajwanti, is performing a Kathak dance for Pulla Reddy. The dance is choreographed by Saswati Sen, an acclaimed Kathak exponent and the disciple of Birju Maharaj.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Daare jaa daare jaa daare jaa (Yaatra)(2007) Singers-Shuvra Guha, Male Voice, Lyrics-Kunwar Shyam, MD-Gautam Ghosh
Lyrics:
taa thei
dir kit taa
thei taa
thei taa
thei taa
taa taa thei
taa taa thei
taa
taa thei
taa thei
aaa aa aa aa aa aa
daare jaa daare jaa daare jaa
aa aa aa aa
daare jaa daare jaa daare jaa
rang to pe waaree
tohe dekhoongee kaiso natkhat hai khilaadee
tohe dekhoongee kaiso natkhat hai khilaadee
nek so rang se liye mag ??
karat phirat hai barjoree
daare jaa daare jaa daare jaa
aa aa aa aa
daare jaa daare jaa daare jaa
Kunwar Shyaam toree itnee dhithaaee
Kunwar Shyaam toree itnee dhithaaee
laakh sahee aur sahee naa jaayee
aiso dekho naa suno langar
jaise tu hai Bruj mein maakhan ko chor
nek so rang se liye mag ??
karat phirat hai barjoree
daare jaa daare jaa daare jaa
aa aa aa aa aa
daare jaa daare jaa daare jaa
daare jaa daare jaa
daare jaa daare jaa…aa aa
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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