Chaman jal raha hai
Posted on: January 5, 2026
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 a social family drama- Bhai Saheb-1954. I have not seen this film, but as per Wiki and IMDB, the story revolves around a kind and talented man who works in Radio as a counselor for needy people and solves their problems by his means, which has a positive response. He falls in love with a sweet girl and wants to marry her but first he must complete the task of reuniting other individuals, leading to consequences. The story is not very attractive or different from normal love stories. As compared to the other musical and entertaining films of 1954, this film was actually nowhere.
The 50’s decade was called the Golden Era of HFM, not for nothing. Year after year, the films provided excellent songs, different film Genres, convincing stories, superb acting and Full Paisa Vasool Entertainment. In such a scenario an average music, beaten track stories, mediocre acting, poor direction and lustreless short lived songs had no chance of winning. Today’s film was one such film.
Just before this decade, the Genre of crime story films had already started being popular with films like Apradhi-1949 and Sangram-1950. In 1951 Baazi, in 1952 Jaal etc. continued this trend. The year of 1954 also began with Guru Dutt’s Aar Paar, with hit songs by O.P.Nayyar. Next was Taxi Driver from Navketan. It had foot tapping melodious songs.
Filmistan brought Nastik, which showed the change of a Nastik to being Aastik, Its songs were very good. Filmistan’s Naagin gave Hemant Kumar the necessary boost with hit songs. Minerva’s Mirza Ghalib showered good songs. It also won the President’s Gold Medal – the First for a Hindi film.
After Do Bigha Zameen-1953, Bimal Roy brought Naukari on the issue of unemployment. His other film was Biraj Bahu, an effective Tragedy film, based on Sharat Babu’s novel. Kamini Kaushal won her First and the only Filmfare award for Best Acting.
Film Amar from Mehboob Khan survived with good songs in spite of a weak story. Some films were made for children. Filmistan’s Jagriti, Munna– India’s second songless film from K.A.Abbas, Bimal Roy’s Baap Beti and H.S. Rawail’s Mastana were these films. All had good music too.
Satyen Bose made Parichay, Debki Bose’s last film in Bombay-Kavi, Mohan Sehgal’s Aulad were followed by Shantaram’s Subah ka Tara– last film before Shantaram and jayashree were divorced. To save the sinking studio Bombay Talkies from bankruptcy, its employees made the film Baadbaan, in which all artistes, technicians and others worked free of charge. However Bombay Talkies had to be sold to Tolaram Jalani. Today, its site in Malad is full of small Plastic factories.
Kala Maharshi Baburao Painter died in 1954. Dilip Kumar became a victim of depression due to his continuous Tragedy films in which he always died in the end, and he had to seek psychiatric treatment. The year 1954 also saw some films being made in colour partially heralding fully coloured films in a few years later.
The film Bhai Saheb-1954 was produced by Dalsukh Pancholi for his banner Pancholi Productions, Bombay. The film was directed by Ravindra Dave, who was working with Pancholi from their Karachi days and had migrated to India in 1947, along with Pancholi. After Pancholi’s sudden death in 1959, Dave worked for other banners.
Today,the name of Dalsukh Motiram Pancholi,does not ring a bell,but there was a time ,when he along with Roop K.Shorey,J.K.Nanda & K.D.Mehra was ruling the Lahore Film Industry,before partition.Born in Karachi on 7-12- 1906, Dalsukh studied Scriptwriting and Cinematography in New York. He inherited Cinema network built by Rewa shankar Pancholi in the period of WW-I. He expanded Empire Film Distributors-1922 into Empire Talkie Distributors in 1931. He became the biggest importer of American Films in Northern and Western India ( about 24 films in one year). Exclusive contract with RKO gave him access to Photophone Sound Equipment. He made some Documentaries like the Congress Session of 1931 at Karachi etc.
Dalsukh Sahab formed a film Company at Lahore ,in partnership with his brother Damodar M Pancholi in late thirties, built his studio Pancholi Art Pics in Lahore with 5 floors & made their first Punjabi movie Gul E Bakawali in 1938.The luck smiled over them & they made Yamla Jatt,-40,Khazanchi-41,Khandan & Zamindaar in 42,Poonji-43 & Dasi in 44.While he introduced Noor Jahan,Pran ,Om Prakash, Manorama & Jankidas into film industry,he brought Shanta Apte from Bombay,for his highly successful Zamindar,to act opposite Dr.S D Narang.His association & admiration for music maestro Ghulam Hyder,is legendary. Shamshad Begum ,once recalled that,when she came to know that remuneration of Ghulam Hyder has been raised,she hesitantly asked Seth Pancholi,for a raise too.He asked her,how much,she wanted.She used to be paid Rs.100/-,per song,now she asked Rs 700/-.Immediately Seth Ji said Okay.She was thrilled,until,the generous Seth said that if you would have asked for Rs.2000/-,I would have paid it to you.
It was 1947 & impending the partition, communal riots were taking place.Seth Pancholi left for Bombay ,only with the negatives of his newest movie Patjhad, which he was making (Sadly the movie could not see the light of the day & remained in cans).His studio in Lahore, was engulfed in fire ignited by hoodlums,after his departure.
Pancholi knew no other business except show business & he made a beginning with Nagina in 1951,which was directed by Ravindra Dave,his closest associate.In his next Aasman -52,he introduced O.P.Nayyar,as we all know.Pancholi Sahab admired Saigal & was mad after his voice.He could not work with him earlier, as Saigal chose Calcutta & then Bombay as his Karm Bhoomi & now it was too late.He insisted his MDs to use the voice of C H Atma for his movies Nagina & Aasman.
He made Lutera in 1955 & Farishta-58 was his last movie which was released in 1958.Due to financial constraints,his movies were made with in limited budget & the grandeur associated with him was missing.Although,he was president of IMPPA during 54-55,due to internal politics,he largely was, treated as outsider by the then established filmmakers ,who had their roots in Bombay.A film tycoon who carved a film empire at Lahore & made Khazanchi ,which celebrated golden Jubilee,breathed his last,as he got into his car,while returning from the office of his distributor,who refused to pay him the installment. Actor Janki Das,was with his mentor,when Pancholi Sahab uttered his last words “Janki Das ! Never put your children in films’.It was 10th october 1958 & Dalsukh Pancholi was of 53 years. He was driving his own car himself that time. He got an attack and stopped the car and died on his seat itself.
Actor Aditya Pancholi is his younger brother Rajan’s son. Dalsukh Motiram Pancholi made just 20 films ( including 2 Punjabi films) from 1938 to 1958. He directed only 1 film, Aasmaan-52. His protege Ravindra Dave directed 7 of his films. ( based on writings of Harish Raghuwanshi ji, M N Sardana ji, indian cine.ma and Ency.of indian cinema etc. with thanks).
The cast of film Bhai Saheb-1954 was C.H.Atma, Smriti Biswas, Purnima, Ratan Kumar, Jagdeep and others. The lyricist was Shailendra and the music was by Ninu Mujumdar. The film had an average run. Actually the main attraction was C.H.Atma,who was already famous for his Non Film Songs. There were 10 songs, 6 solos of C.H.Atma, 2 triades and 2 solos of Lata Mangeshkar. One of the singers in the Triad was Kaumudi Munshi. She was the wife of the music director Ninu Mujumdar.
Film industry is one industry where men and women have to work together. Whether it is Actor-director or Singer-Composer, for the sake of work they have to spend much time together. No wonder then that Cupid does his work overtime. Sometimes there is mutual attraction and at times there are one sided fires burning. In most cases the one sided fire is extinguished in a very painful way, like what P L Santoshi faced with actress Rehana or the slap Sanjiv Kumar got from actress Nutan.
There were cases when the love of Dilip Kumar for Madhubala, died in the High court witness Box, when he gave evidence against her father in the ‘ Naya Daur ‘ legal case. Dev Anand’s love with Suraiyya ended happily for Dev Anand with him marrying Kalpana Kartik, but Suraiyya stayed “Unmarried”, in his ” yaad”, throughout her life. Here the villain was her so-called ” Grandmother “, who actually was her own mother, as documented in the book “Stars from another sky” by Saadat Hasan Manto !
The successful 2-way traffic usually ended with a marriage. We can see marriages between producers and Actresses( Himanshu Rai-Devika rani and W M Khan and actress Nina), directors and singers/actresses ( Nalini jaywant-Virendra Desai, Shaukat Hussain-Noorjehan, Geeta Dutt-Guru Dutt, Lalita Pawar-G.P.Pawar, Rattanbai-Hafiz Khan), Actors and Actresses ( Arun Ahuja-Nirmala devi, Snehprabha Pradhan-Kishore Sahu, Dev Anand-Kalpana Kartik, Dharmendra- Hema Malini, Rajesh Khanna-Dimple Kapadiya, Amitabh Bachchan-Jaya, Abhishek-Aishwarya, Kishore Kumar-Madhubala, Premnath-Bina Rai, Karan Dewan-Manju Desai, Marutirao Pehlwan-Alaknanda).
There were some odd combinations like Satyendranath Athiah-Bhanu Athaiya (Lyricist-Costume designer),Lyricist-Singer (Amar Verma-Manik Verma), Singer-villain (Shakti Kapoor- Shivangi Kolhapure),Music teacher-student ( Roshan-Ira Moitra, Hemant Kumar-Bela Mukherjee, C.Ramchandra-‘Ben’ Ratan Thakur), and even a singer-Orchestra player (Vinta Amladi-Krishna Chakravarty) and lastly between singer-singers ( Jyoti-G M Durani, Gauhar Karnataki- Bal Gandharva). There were those pairs who were singers-actors ( Amirbai- Himalayawala,Rafiq Gazanavi- Anwari bai).
The interesting group, however,was that of Composer-Singers ( Sudhir Phadke-Lalita Deulkar, Asha Bhosle-R D Burman, Naashad-Premlata, Anil Biswas-Meena Kapoor, Pannalal Ghosh-Parul Ghosh, Khayyam-Jagjit Kaur, Ghulam Haider-Umrao Zia begum, Kamal Dasgupta-Firoza begum, Ninu Majumdar-Kaumudi Munshi).
Ninu (Niranjan) Majumdar was born on 9-9-1915 in a Gujarati Nagar Brahmin family of Baroda (Vadodara). Ninu was a pet name that he became famous for. His real name was Niranjan, which he later used as a pen name in his Gazals. His father, Nagendra Mazumdar made silent films. He was also a Music Director and Lyricist in his time. Ninu Majumdar’s name is variously written as Mujumdar, Muzumdar, Majumdar and Mazumdar.
After the early influence of Faiyaz Khan, Mazumdar’s search took him to various routes and he studied different kinds of music before he came into his own to become one of the first Gujarati Sugam Sangeet (light music) singers. He soon graduated to composing his own music and writing songs. Apart from classical music, the earlier influence was also of Ravindra Sangeet. This was at the time when Bengali language enjoyed prestige among Gujaratis of a kind that was comparable to the status of French among the English speaking nations. He grew out of it in a few years.
The more lasting influence on his music was that of folk songs and semi-classical music of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) like the Hori, Chaiti, Barkha Biraha as well asThumri and Dadra. He learned these during his stint in U.P. where he did farming for some years and also kept in touch through association with people like Satyendra Trivedi, a connoisseur of music and the “Thumri Queen”, Siddheshwari Devi, a family friend and his wife Kaumudi’s Guru.
Ninu’s ambition, even when he started his schooling in music at Baroda, was to become a music director in films. From 1937 onwards he participated in light Gujarati musical programmes. He also produced several features for All India Radio. From 1954, Mazumdar worked with all India Radio in Mumbai for over 20 years as Light Music Producer. He would have liked to take part in Hindi programmes too but the shortage of Gujarati artists forced him to concentrate on programmes in that language.
When in charge of music for the newly launched Vividh Bharati, that had to compete with Radio Ceylon without using any film music (film music was not played on AIR for several years due to conflicts over contracts and royalties), he successfully produced programmes inviting Salil Chaudhary, Kanu Ghosh and others from Bombay Youth Choir or IPTA and using voices of Manna Dey and other well known artists. Later when the issue of royalties was settled between the film producers and AIR, Mazumdar was the first to produce the popular Jaymala Programme by interviewing eminent persons from the film industry.
A career in films was also cut out for Ninu Mazumdar, as his father, Nagendra Mazumdar, was a dramatist and film producer. Nagendra was not much of a musician but he imparted his son training in music from the very early days.
Ninu found the field restricted, in a way in films, because of the need of working at a very fast pace and with a view to pleasing the majority among the public. Ninu tried to introduce a new trend in film music, that of, adding a classical touch by borrowing from the old masters like Surdas. These attempts met with considerable success in Gopinath, a picture in which Ninu had interest as a producer as well.
It was in films made in the forties that a young Ninu Mazumdar’s voice could be heard. He sang with Sardar Akhtar in “Uljhan”, with Amirbai Karnataki in “Paristan” and Meena Kapoor in “Gopinath”.
He provided music for Jail Yatra-47 and Gopinath-48, two of the earliest Raj Kapoor films. It is well documented by now that the Yashomati Maiyase Puche Nandlala song in RK movie Satyam Shivam Sundaram is a direct lift from Mazumdar’s Aai Gori Radhika in Gopinath.
He also composed music for several Gujarati Films like “Jeevano Jugari”, “Okha Haran”, “Sharad Poonam” etc.
He sang and penned quite a few of his songs. Amongst others who sang for him were Meena Kapoor, Shamshad Begum, Geeta Dutt, Suraiya, Hameetha Banu, Pradeepji, C.H.Atma, Ameerbai Karnataki, Raj Kapoor, Shankar Dasgupta, S.D.Batish, Lakshmi Shankar, Talat Mehmood, Siddheshwari Devi, Rajkumar, Nalini Mulgaonkar, Dilip Dholakia, Ajeet Merchant, Shobha Gurtu, Sarla Bhide, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosale, Manna Dey, Kishori Amonkar, Usha Mangeshkar, Leela Mehta, Premlata Naik, Kishori Ghia, Suman Kalyanpur, Kaumudi Munshi,etc.
Veteran composer Ninu Mazumdar passed away on March 3 2000. Some of his songs have become so popular that people often do not even remember who wrote or composed them. He gave music to 20 Hindi films – Black out-1942,Amanat, Masterjee, School Master, Kiran, Paristan, Rangila Dost, Main kya karun, Gudiya, Jail yatra, Gopinath, Kuch naya, Aflatoon, Pul, Raj ratan, Ram Shastri, Aazmaaish,Teen Tasweeren, Bhai Saheb-54 and Punam ka chaand-67. He sang 28 songs in 13 films and directed 1 film-Kuchh naya-48. His son Uday gave music to the TV serial ” Buniyaad” in the 80s.
Here is one of the 2 Lata solos from this film. Enjoy….
Song-Chaman jal raha hai (Bhai Sahab)(1954) Singer-Lata Mangeshkar, Lyricist-Shailendra, MD-Ninu Majumdar
Chorus
Lyrics
Chaman jal raha hai
lutaa aashiyaan
magar bekhabar hai
mera baaghbaan
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
miley hain dil to dard par
mili naheen jubaan
kahen to kaise
apne ranjo gham
kee daastaan aan aan
Chaman jal raha hai
lutaa aashiyaan
magar bekhabar hai
mera baaghbaan
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
na maano ya na maano (aa aa aa)
zindagee tujhee kee hai (aa aa aa)
bujhee shama (aa aa aa)
magar ye raushnee tujhee kee hai (aa aa aa)
tere liye huyee ?? ye dil
hasraten ?? jawaan (aa aa aa)
tu phere ??
nazar agar
hai iltija yahee (aa aa aa)
tu phere ??
nazar magar
hai iltija yahee (aa aa aa)
mita de apne haath se (aa aa aa)
tu apna ye jahaan aan(aa aa aa)
Chaman jal raha hai (aa aa aa)
lutaa aashiyaan (aa aa aa)
magar bekhabar hai (aa aa aa)
mera baagbaan
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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