Satguru mora rangrej
Posted by: Atul on: May 13, 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 Religious film Mahatma Kabir-1954.
The film was produced by M.S.Ahluwalia for his own New Premier Films, Bombay. It was directed by Gajanan Jagirdar and the Music Director was Anil Biswas. The cast included Surendra, Sulochana Latkar, Jagirdar, Randhir, Lalita Pawar, Rajkumar (Khatri), Eruch Tarapore, Heera Sawant and others. There were 4 guest artists including the brothers Madan Puri and Chaman Puri.
What is the difference between Religious and Mythological films ? Are they the same ? No, there is a difference. Films based on stories from Puranas ( which is a mix of imagination and History in symbolic way) are Mythological Films. Examples are ‘ Ganga Maiyya’ or ” Ram Hanuman Yuddha ” or ” Ram Rajya ” etc. Films based on Bhakti or Upasana , involving Historical stories,persons or happenings are Religious films. Examples are ” Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu”, ” Sant Tukaram” or ” Mahatma Kabeer” etc.
During the period between the 7th century to about the 17th century, viz. a period of 1000 years was a testing time for the people in India. Outside invaders attacked India, looted it and forced conversions. Small states in India fought with each other and the invaders took full advantage of it. The rich became richer, the poor poorer. Common people were beset with serious problems such as lack of education, caste system, superstition and such other social evils. They felt directionless.
It was here that the rise of BHAKTI MOVEMENT in India came as a welcome relief for the people in distress. It started in the 7th Century, initially in the south. The peak period of this movement was from the 14th to 17th Centuries. It was a religious movement of the medieval period that promoted the belief that Salvation was attainable by everyone. The Islamic Sufism also appeared around the same time. Both advocated that a personal expression of devotion to God is the way to become one with Him.
The movement spread from South to North. In the South, it was devoted to Shiva( Shankaracharya ), Vishnu ( Madhvacharya ), and other Avatars. In the North ,it was devotion to Rama and Krishna. Several saints and religious great souls propagated and helped the common people to remove the burden of rituals and Castes. They were given a simpler approach to God by these Saints who were also social reformers. Saints like Thyagaraja, Dnyaneshwar, Tulsidas and Chaitanya MahaPrabhu tried to enlighten people and united them with awareness of a common thread of Religion. Sant Ramdas, Tukaram, Gyaneshwar, Namdev, Ravidas, Basava, Sankardeva, Vallabhacharya, Annammacharya, B.Ramdass, Thyagraja, Surdas, Kabir, Meerabai, Guru Nanak etc were some of the major contributors to Bhakti Movement.
Due to illiteracy and ignorance, people found it difficult to understand religion. During this period Devotional literature was created in the vernacular languages. To influence people, even Miracles were performed.
The Bhakti Movement was India’s own way to combat foreign attackers, cruel rulers and the sleeping people of India. The movement from 1300 to 1600 AD produced many religious Saints and social reformers from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and from Assam to Gujarat. Indian culture is such that the advice given by a religious saint is more acceptable than that given by a social reformer. Thus, in this hour of need, India’s Saints tried to teach message of reforms such as removal of Untouchability, freedom from Varnashram lifestyles, importance of education, Women’s emancipation and other such matters,through their poems, dohas, Abhangs and writings as well as kirtans. They tried to make the masses wake up against the ill effects of social practices that were being observed those days.
Saints appeared in ALL areas of India,during this period. However,due to language problems, knowledge and information about Saints in other regions trickled down very slowly. States which shared the use of Devanagari script were aware about them in a better way. Thus,Maharashtra,Gujarat,Rajasthan and the Northern Hindi belt states exchanged their knowledge about their saints more frequently than other regions such as Bengal, the Eastern states or the southern states where the scripts were different. Andhra and Karnataka were closer as their scripts are similar, except perhaps the alphabet ‘K’. Tamil and Malayalam scripts have Dravidian origins and were not easily accessible for the rest of India.
Kabir Das ji is one saint who is revered equally by Hindus and Muslims as well as Sikhs. He belonged, in fact, to all Indian masses.
Kabir was born near Kashi (Varanasi) to a Hindu Bramhin widow, who deserted him, for fear of social boycott. He was found and brought up by a Muslim weaver couple-Niru and Naima. Vaishnava Saint Ramanand accepted him as his disciple. Unlike some other saints, Kabir did not become a Sadhu or a Fakir, but he married and led a normal life earning from his Loom works. He had 1 son and 1 daughter also.
Kabir campaigned against social discrimination and economic exploitation. He vehemently opposed dogmas in Hinduism and Islam. His language was straight from the heart, using common vernacular words, which appealed to the masses. He was against Murti-puja and believed in Bhakti and Sufi ideas. He was an illiterate person. His poems and Dohas were heard ,noted and written by his followers. His works are included in the Guru Granth Sahib of the Sikhs also. His dohas were in Awadhi, Brij and Bhojpuri languages. Through his philosophies, he spread the message of unity during his times. For him Ram and Rahim were the same.
While the authentic period of Kabir is 1440 to 1518, there are popular legends about him living for 120 years and after death, his body turning into Flowers.
More than anything else, Mahatma Kabir is remembered for the courage of his convictions. He was a religious reformer who slashed down the orthodox bigotism of Hindus and Muslims alike. He denounced with a touch of satire, the whole apparatus of piety of the temple and the mosque, the idol and the holy water scriptures and the priests, labelling them as cults that vainly tried to replace Reality with Ritual. And thus it was that while courting bitterness from the accepted monopolists of Faith, he tried to eliminate the bitterness that then existed between Hindu and Muslims of that day. The life story of Kabir saheb is surrounded by numerous contradictory legends, on which reliance cannot be placed. It is therefore not to be expected that any one version of his life could satisfy all such sections of people who claim to know anything about him.
The story of the film Mahatma Kabir-1954 was……
The story of Mahatma Kabir-1954 begins with the unfolding of a lotus as divine light penetrates through its petals. The infant that lay within, stretched out its chubby arms to Nooru and Naima, a weaver couple of Benares, who brought him up as Kabir, their foster son. But Kabir grew into a strange boy, dreamy and listless, curious of matters spiritual, until one day he saw in Swami Ramananda his destined teacher. Eager to meet his Guru alone, he lay upon the steps of the Ganges, where Ramananda was accustomed to bath. The master trod upon his body unexpectedly and exclaimed “Ram Ram”. Accepting this as a token of the mantra of initiation, and with inspiring words of the Guru, Kabir stepped forth in pursuit of his mystic mission.
As a youth, he found his opposition from the orthodox groups increasing in threatening proportions. His family was ostracised socially and economically, a calamity to which his foster father Nooru succumbed. All legends agree that Kabir, a simple unlettered weaver, relied on work as a means of living independently of any charity and earned his livelihood from the loom. The work of his hands helped him rather than hindered the impassioned meditation of his heart from the depths of which he sang the rapturous lyrics of divine love.
Kabir was constantly harassed by the Mahajan for the repayment of his foster father’s debt which on account of his economic boycott he was not able to repay. He was involved in a theft charge and presented before the Ruler of Kashi who ordered him to be whipped. The sentence was executed but Kabir smiled at the foolishness of those trying to punish him for the offence he had not committed, while the real offender on whom the lashes were actually falling cried in pain. The repentant Kashi Naresh honoured and feted Kabir and the entire ensemble shouted Kabirji ki jai. Returning home Kabir found his ancestral home attached by his Mahajan. People offered to pay off the debt but Kabir declined their offer. He thought that Ram was taking him closer to Himself by slowly removing the barriers of worldly possessions.
With the ancestral house gone, Kabir walked away to the ruins in the outskirts of the Kashi with his foster mother Naima and wife Loi. From there, this apostle of Universal Love, travelled through the length and breadth of the land and the countries beyond, spreading his gospel far and wide while his foster-mother and wife Loi suffered the privations of life. After many years he returned to Benares, where his ailing mother held her breath only to see him for the last time. Now Kabir was an old man, but much revered and still more opposed. This opposition culminated in his being presented before Sikander Lodi on a charge that he was not only an enemy of Islam but also a traitor to the throne of Delhi. Sikander referred the matters to the Kazi of Benares, who ordered him to be thrown into the Ganges tied hand and foot. The cruel sentence was carried out, while a vast multitude, thronging the Benares Ghats looked on with throbbing hearts and streaming eyes.
As expected, Kabir survives and Kazi and Sikander bow their heads in respect. Finally when Kabir dies, his body turns into flowers and Hindus and Muslims share it for their respective last rites.
We all know the famous actor and director Gajanan Jagirdar (real surname Jahagirdar. B. 2-4-1907/ D. 13-8-1988), but few know that he was branded ‘unlucky’. ‘Padosi’ (1941) was Jagirdar’s first film with Prabhat film company. By the time the film was complete Shantaram and his some friends left Prabhat making it crippled. Second time Jagirdar worked in the film ‘Ramshastri’ (1944) for Prabhat, the important partner Vishnupant Damle died and Prabhat almost collapsed. The third time Jagirdar worked for Prabhat in the film ‘Lokmanya Tilak’, the company was auctioned and closed down forever ! When Jagirdar worked for “Shahir Parshuram” of Mangal pictures, the company went bankrupt and closed down. In 1953, top production company Alhad Chitra employed Jagirdar for a tri- lingual film, ‘Mahatma’ (1953), not only the film flopped, it drowned the company and the Producer Datta Dharmadhikari came on the road. For survival he started a roadside kitchen !
Jagirdar started as a freelancer in the industry, in the film studios of Prabhat Films and Minerva Movietone and later acted and directed in a number of films post his accidental debut ‘Jalti Nishani’ in 1932. He was hand-picked by V Shantaram to act in ‘Jalti Nishani’ when actor DD Mane wasn’t able to say the Urdu dialogues on screen properly. And even though he was only 25, he enacted the part of a 75-year-old with aplomb.
Jagirdar began acting on the stage as a young child. As he grew older, he formed Arun Players, a theatre group which enacted plays like Harindranath Chattopadhyay’s ‘Returned from Abroad’ to Anton Chekhov’s ‘The Cherry Orchard’.
Not bound to any one studio, he worked as a freelancer for most of the major film studios of the time — from Prabhat Films to Minerva Movietone. At Prabhat, he began with writing the English inter titles for films. He also taught the Prabhat artistes Urdu dialogue delivery. He assisted Bhalji Pendharkar for a bit and directed a few films like ‘Begunaah’ (1937) for Master Vinayak’s banner Hans Pictures. Later, he moved on to work as a scenarist (screenwriter) for Minerva Movietone’s ‘Meetha Zahar’ (1938) and ‘Divorce’ (1938). He also worked with filmmaker PK Atre, both as actor and director in a few films.
For V Shantaram’s last film with Prabhat Films, the famed director took up the issue of communal tension in the country. Jagirdar played the Muslim character Mirza, while Mazhar Khan played the Hindu character, Thakur in the bilingual. ‘Padosi’ was a critical and commercial hit at that time.
‘Ramshastri’ (1944) was a landmark bilingual film on Peshwa Madhavrao’s chief justice and one of the last classics produced by Prabhat Films. The film went through three directors — Raja Nene, Vishram Bedekar shot portions of the film before Gajanan Jagirdar, who was playing the lead character Ramshastri Prabhune, took over to finish it. It is said that V Shantaram also directed parts of it.
In Asit Sen’s ‘Apradhi Kaun’ (1957), Jagirdar played a double role as two brothers Shrinath and Dinanath. It was a fantastic opportunity for the actor. As the wealthy Shrinath who has inherited all of the ancestral property, Jagirdar was cool and composed. Meanwhile, as the down-on-his-luck brother Dinanath, Jagirdar transformed himself and his body to differentiate the two. Jagirdar acted in 147 films, directed 17 films and wrote 13 songs in film ‘Sant Tulsidas’ (1934).
Prior to his career in films, Jagirdar was also a teacher and later also taught acting. He became the first principal of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in 1960, but resigned after a year. He wrote two autobiographies that were published in 1971 and 1986. Additionally, he also wrote a book on acting which explored Konstantin Stanislavsky’s method to the craft.
Here is a song from this film. Enjoy….
Song-Satguru mora rangrej (Mahatma Kabir)(1954) Singers-Anil Biswas, Manna Dey, Lyricist- Chandra Shekhar Pandey, MD- Anil Biswas
Lyrics
Satguru mora rangrej
chunar moree rang deenee
Satguru mora rangrej
chunar moree rang deenee
ae jee ho
chunar moree rang deenee
ae jee ho
chunar moree rang deenee
Raam e Raam ho Raam e Raam
maare Raam jilaawe Raam jee
maare Raam jilaawe Raam
Raam e Raam ho Raam e Raam
maare Raam jilaawe Raam jee
maare Raam jilaawe Raam
tujhe kuchh na milega jagat rijhaaye
Raam ko apne rijhaa le
tujhe kuchh na milega jagat rijhaaye
Raam milan kee pyaasee aatma
iskee pyaas bujha le ae
iskee pyaas bujha le ae
iskee pyaas bujha le
tabhee miley saancha bisraam
maare Raam jilaawe Raam jee
maare Raam jilaawe Raam
Raam e Raam ho Raam e Raam
maare Raam jilaawe Raam
maare Raam jilaawe Raam
jal thhal mein aakaash pawan mein
ek Raam kee maayaa aa
jal thhal mein aakaash pawan mein
ghhat ghhat mein bhee wahee Raam hai
bhed kahaan se aaya
bhed kahaan se aaya
bhed kahaan se aaya
mujh mein tujh mein
sab mein Raam
maare Raam jilaawe Raam jee
maare Raam jilaawe Raam
Raam e Raam ho Raam e Raam
maare Raam jilaawe Raam jee
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
bolo Raam
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