Ab chaand na sharmaaye
Posted on: June 2, 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 from the film Raj Laxmi-1945.
This was a special film, because this was the First Hindi film in which Talat Mahmood sang his First Hindi film song, as a playback.
I like most of Talat’s songs. He had a totally unique type of voice, having a Vibrato, and his style was very soft.
He sang only one song ( for a Sadhu) in this film. The other song credited to Talat in HFGK is a private-NFS- song and is mentioned by mistake in HFGK, because it was on the ‘Palti’ side of his film song record. But due to this, 99 % Blogs, sites and even Youtube uploaders still mention that private song (Tu sun le Matwale) also as from the film Raj Laxmi-1945.
The film was made in Calcutta by M.P.Productions, so everyone connected to the film was from the Bangle cine world. The heroine was Kanan Devi and others in the cast were Chhabi Biswas, Natwar, Zahar Ganguli, Poornima, Iftekhar and others.
The Bengali names are an enigma to me personally – Chhabi Biswas is a Male actor but Chhabi Roy is an actress ! Asit Sen is an actor but Asita Bose is an actress. Make a mistake in spelling and you change male to female effortlessly. During my service period, I visited Bengal every month. I always got confused with their names. What is commonly a female name in entire India, is a male name here. Thus Kamal, Vimal, Pushpa, Mrinal, Mridul, Suman etc are all males. Another issue is Bangla alphabets do not have an alphabet with the sound of short A ( अ ). Therefore, the pronunciation of a simple name like अरुण becomes ओरुण. Mamata- ममता becomes मोमोता etc. S.D.Burman always called LATA as LOTA !
Whenever I write or talk about Talat, I always remember what happened when Late Rajnikumar Pandya ji went to Talat’s house in Bombay for his interview. (Late)Shri Rajnikumar Pandya ji, a senior writer on film personalities and author of several books, who had won Gujarat State Sahitya Academy awards FIVE times, had gone to interview Talat Mehmood in the late 90s.
After finishing the interview, he was coming out of the posh 7 storied ” Sunbeam” apartments, when he met one of his younger friends. He asked, “Came to meet Rati Agnihotri ? ”
Pandya ji was shocked. He had never dreamt anything like this. He simply said, ” No No, I came to meet a great personality. ”
” What,some other great person also stays here ? Who ? ”
“Talat Mehmood “.
Even after hearing the name, the friend’s face showed no signs of recognition.
Disgusted, Pandya ji said, ” Look here. Some time ago this was a beautiful Bungalow Sunbeam, belonging to Talat Mehmood. It was sold and this tower has come up. Rati stays in one of the flats, but Talat owns the Penthouse on the 7th floor. ”
The friend said,” but does he stay here ? I had heard that he is forced to do some small service somewhere.”
Irritatedly, Pandya ji said, ” Do you see this big car ? It is Talat’s car. He stays in his Penthouse. Every month he has 2-3 stage shows, plus Radio and HMV Royalties come every month. His income every month is in Thousands. These are great people. Look at Rafi’s bungalow there. Now it has become a shopping centre. Do you think they are on roads ? ”
Friend said, “But I had read somewhere that Rafi’s wife does Tailoring jobs for survival. ”
Just imagine Pandya ji’s condition. With great restraint, he said coolly, “This is how rumours spread. Rafi family’s income must be more than Talat Mehmood’s income. Rafi’s children are in the USA. Why will Rafi’s wife do menial jobs ? They are very well off. ”
But then it is not the fault of this one man alone. It is true that most actors and singers of the first generation of HFM died in penury and poverty, but the subsequent generations became more money savvy. They knew that film line life is for a few years only and they made provisions for their retired life. These days career periods have shortened even further, due to heavy output of actors and singers. These days artists last for a few years only and they wisely make provisions for their lives and are secure enough.
Some of the Bengali artists worked in Hindi films. The main problem of most Bengali people is to speak Hindi. However, we had some excellent Bengali artists and people in various departments of filmmaking who spoke very good Hindi. One such artist was Kanan Devi.
Kanan Devi, the melody queen and superstar of the 1930s and 40s, was a remarkable personality. An epitome of beauty, glamour and grace and the recipient of the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award (1976), Kanan’s life story (1916-1992) transcends that of Eliza Doolittle in “Pygmalion” and “My Fair Lady”. Her memoir “Sabare Ami Nami” (I pay my respect to everyone) provides a fascinating account of her transformation from an unlettered slum girl into a much sought after social celebrity. The most astounding aspect of her persona was her grit, determination and courage which led her to attain the pinnacle of fame and glory and thus become a legend and an institution in her lifetime.
Kanan was born on 22 April 1916 in Howrah, West Bengal. In her autobiography, entitled ” My Homage to all”, Kanan has observed that those she considered as her parents were Ratan Chandra Das and Rajobala, who lived together. After the death of her adoptive father, Ratan Chandra Das, young Kanan and Rajobala were simply left to fend for themselves. Her life story is a true tale of rags to riches. Some say she did her schooling (not completed) from Howrah’s St. Agnes’ Convent School.
A well wisher, Tulsi Banerji, whom she called Kaka babu, introduced Kanan when she was only ten to Madan Theatres/Jyoti Studios, where she was cast in a small role in Jaidev (1926), followed by Shankaracharya in 1927. She was known as Kanan Bala.
By now, she was known as a good singer. By 1929, she was recording several songs. In this year, Kanan Bala met handsome Hiren Bose and a new chapter in her life seemed to be blooming. Hiren Bose was highly educated and had earned titles of ‘ Vidya Bhushan” and ” Sangeet Ratna”. In the years 1928 to 1932, Hiren had joined HMV as a Music Director. Here he became a close friend of Kazi Nazrul Islam and Dhiren Das. Both Kazi and Hiren wrote lyrics for songs in HMV .
Around 1929, a new, young and attractive singer came to HMV. Her name was KANAN BALA. She came to record songs. Soon the handsome Hiren cast his spell on Kanan and she started considering him as her mentor in HMV. They were a quartet of friends, Kanan, Hiren, Kazi and Dhiren. In HMV Kanan recorded many songs set to tune or written by Hiren Bose. In 1932, this team left HMV, on the issue of Royalty and joined the newly formed Megaphone Recording company. Here too after 2 years, this team left Megaphone and joined Columbia recording company. By 1934,Hiren wrote in his autobiography- JATI SMAR (My memories)-later that he had lost interest in Kananbala. She was broken-hearted.
Kanan did at least five films with Madan Theatres productions, (1926–1932) Rishir Prem (1931), Jorebarat (1931), Vishnu Maya (1932) and Prahlad, playing even male leads in the last two. She then worked with Radha Films from 1933 to 1936, then with New Theatres from 1937 to 1941, with MP Productions 1942 to 1948 and finally set up her own label Shrimati Pictures, 1949 to 1965.
From silent film roles as a child artist, Kanan made the successful transition into talkie films and was noticed with Jorebarat (1931), Manomoyee Girls School, Khooni Kaun and Maa (1934).
Her films with Jyotish Bannerjee included Joydev (1926), Rishir Prem (1931), Jorebarat (1931), Vishnumaya (1932), Kantahaar (1935) and Manomoyee Girls School (1935). Her films with Prafulla Ghosh were Sree Gouranga (1933), Char Darvesh (1933), Maa (1934) and Hari Bhakti. Others with Radha Film Company were Kanthahar (1935), Krishna Sudama (1936), Bishabriksha (1936) and Char Darvesh (1933).
New Theatres’s P.C. Barua wanted her to play the lead in his Devdas (1935), but, due to contractual reasons with Radha, she could not act in the film, a factor she regretted all her life.
The films of New Theatres, owned by Biren Sircar, established her as a superhit singer and her films ran to packed audiences. She had to travel under constant protection, given her huge fan following. During her years with New Theatres, Calcutta from 1937, she played the lead in Barua’s Mukti (1937), which was perhaps her finest performance, making her the studio’s top star. Apart from Mukti, she did Vidyapati, Saathi (1938), Street Singer (1938), Sapera (1939), Jawani Ki Reet (1939), Parajay (1939), Abhinetri (1940), Lagan (1941), Parichay (1941) and Jawab (1942). She became known as Kanan Devi from this point.
She came in contact with the music maestro Rai Chand Boral, who not only coached and familiarized her in the Hindi accent, but experimented with many classical Western and Indian forms in his music. She received her initial musical training under Alla Rakha. She was employed as a singer at the Megaphone Gramaphone Company, receiving further training under Bhishmadev Chatterjee. She later learnt Rabindra Sangeet under Anadi Dastidar. Kanan remained the top star of New Theatres until she resigned her contract in 1941 and began to freelance in Bengali and Hindi films.
She worked with the biggest names in Indian cinema with K. L. Saigal, Pankaj Mullick, Pramathesh Barua, Pahari Sanyal, Chabi Biswas and Ashok Kumar.
M.P. Productions’ Jawaab was perhaps her biggest hit. Her song Duniya Yeh Duniya, Hai Toofan Mail was well received. She repeated the same feat in Hospital (1943), Banphool (1945) and Rajlakshmi (1946). Kanan Devi’s last Hindi film was Chandrashekhar (1948), with Ashok Kumar. In all, she worked in 20 Hindi films. She also sang 86 songs in 16 Hindi films.
In 1947, she went abroad to educate herself with the goings on in the western world of cinema. She was glad to visit Hollywood and meet legends like Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Robert Taylor and others. On her return she resumed her professional career and worked in some films before setting up her own Shrimati Productions. Kanan turned producer with Shrimati Pictures in 1949 and later launched the Sabyasachi Collective with the film Ananya (1949). Her own productions were mainly based on the stories of Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay.
Kanan married Ashok Maitra in December 1940. He was the son of the staunch Brahmo Samaj educationist Heramba Chandra Maitra. Despite their best intentions, the marriage could not withstand the severe condemnation by the then conservative society. Even the poet Rabindranath Tagore, who sent a token gift to the married couple received scathing criticism for blessing the couple. The main issue was that Kanan was not expected to be working in films after her marriage. She filed for divorce in 1945. Despite the pain of the divorce, Kanan expressed her immense gratitude towards her first husband for giving her social recognition through marriage for the first time in her life. To Kanan’s credit, she maintained excellent relations with Rani Mahalanobis, sister to Ashok Maitra and her husband, the famous social scientist P.C. Mahalanobis and with Kusumkumari Devi, Ashok Maitra’s mother, even after the marriage was severed.
Kanan married Haridas Bhattacharjee around 1949. Haridas Bhattacharjee was then ADC to the Governor of Bengal. He eventually left the naval service to join Kanan in her filmmaking venture and became a competent director. While raising their son Siddharth in Calcutta, she also formed and worked as the president of Mahila Shilpi Mahal, an organization to help senior female artists and other charitable and community causes, including those for the betterment of Bengali cinema.
It was quite an uphill task for Kanan Bala to transform herself into Kanan Devi in those days when women’s liberation was unheard of. She had to struggle and with her strong determination and independent personality, she virtually forced the society to shower their respect and esteem on her when she became a celebrity in her own right. In her old age, she fondly remembered her days at New Theatres, full of joy and laughter. She was deeply impressed with K.L. Saigal and she had the greatest regard for him.
Kanan Devi virtually stopped singing after 1947. Her last concert was at the India House in London when she was invited by Shri Krishna Menon, the High Commissioner, to perform on 15th August 1947. She mentioned it as the greatest moment in her life as a singer. Kanan inspired a whole generation of later day singers, the foremost being Lata Mangeshkar. She lived a full life both as an artist as well as a woman. A great devotee of Lord Krishna, during her last years she spent most of her time in worshipping her lord and reading Geeta for her self-realisation and inner peace.
Kanan Devi, as the first lady of the Bengali screen, received many honours for her contribution to Indian cinema. An honorary degree from Vishwabharati, the Padma Shree in 1968 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1976.
She died on 17 July 1992 in Bellevue Clinic, Calcutta when she was around seventy-six years of age. ( based on some information from an article by Pran Neville, book ‘My homage to all’ by Kanan Devi, muVyz, and my notes, with thanks.)
Here is an 80 year old song from today’s film, sung by a 29 year old Kanan Devi. Enjoy….
Song- Ab chaand na sharmaaye (Raj Laxmi)(1945) Singer- Kanan Devi, Lyricist- Suresh Chaudhari, MD- Robin Chatterjee
Lyrics
ab chaand naa sharmaaye
ab chaand na sharmaaye
mukhde pe
mukhde pe chaand naa sharmaye
ab chaand na sharmaaye
kaajal bhare nainon mein aen aen
kaajal bhare naino mein aen aen
kisee ka dil na kho jaaye
haan
kisee ka dil na kho jaaye
ab chaand na sharmaaye
mukhde pe chaand na sharmaaye
ab chaand na sharaaye
gaalon pe chhaayee laalee
chitwan hui matwaalee ee ee
gaalon pe chhaayee laalee
chitwan hui matwaalee
kisee per zulm na ho jaaye
kisee per zulm na ho jaaye
ab chaand na sharmaaye
mastee se chhaaya man hai mera
mastee se chhaaya man hai
tan pe khila chaman hai ae ae
tan pe khila chaman hai
kaliyan phool na ho jaaye
kaliyan phool na ho jaaye
ab chaand naa sharmaaye
kaajal bhare nainon mein aen aen
kaajal bhare nainon mein aen
kisee ka dil na kho jaaye
ab chaand naa sharmaaye
mukhde pe chaand na sharmaaye
ab chaand na sharmaaye
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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