Archive for the ‘Actor-Singer song’ Category
Nit leke prem ki maalaa
Posted on: May 7, 2024
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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Blog Day : |
5772 | Post No. : | 18298 |
“Asiai Sitaara”(1937) was directed by Haribhai Desai for Harshad and Jagtap, Bombay. The movie was distributed by Wadia Movietone.
“Asiai Sitaara”(1937) had master Vithal, Jenabai Pawar, Ibrahim, Veenadevi, Krishnaswami,Minoo the Mystique, Vasant Pehelwan, Master Dhulia etc in it.
This costume drama movie had eight songs in it that have become extremely rare to find. One song has been covered in the past.
Here is the second song from “Asiai Sitaara”(1937) to appear in the blog. This song is sung by Jenabai Pawar. Pt Anuj is the lyricist. Music is composed by Master Mohammad.
Only audio of this rare song is available. It is clear from the starcast that this song was picturised on Jenabai Pawar herself.
From her powerful voice, it appears that Jenabai Pawar was a trained singer. With this song, she makes her debut in the blog as a singer.
Song-Nit leke prem ki maala (Asiai Sitaara)(1937) Singer-Jenabai Pawar, Lyrics-Pt Anuj, MD-Master Mohammad
Lyrics
taat bichhure
hriday ke
dhannath bichhure
humse bichhudo des
hey ae aao aao
nit leke prem ki maalaa
japti priy naam tumhaaraa
nit leke prem ki maalaa
japti priy naam tumhaaraa
ro ro din haay bitaaye
per bhuwannaath na aaye
ro ro din haay bitaaye
per bhuwannaath na aaye
jharat nayan se ansuwan kee dhaaraa
jharat nayan se ansuwan kee dhaaraa
aao
aao
aaao
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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5762 | Post No. : | 18287 |
Today’s song is a song sung by Kishore kumar in his inimitable style, from the film Dilli Ka Thug-1958.
1958 was the year when so many musical films came. One could see the excellence of lyricists and the art of the Music Directors making those songs popular. In those days the active lyricists were Shakeel Badayuni, Sahir Ludhianvi, Shailendra, Majrooh, Hasrat Jaipuri, Bharat Vyas, Rajendra krishna, Prem Dhawan, Kaifi Azmi, Pradeep to name a few.
Composer kalyan ji debuted as an independent MD, for the film ‘Samrat Chandragupt’, in which a song written by Nirupa Roy was used. Iqbal Qureshi entered films with ” Panchayat”. Anand Bakshi debuted with ‘Bhala Aadmi’ and continued for another 45 years, becoming one who wrote maximum number of songs for Hindi films.
This was also the year in which, due to a misunderstanding, the long standing bond between Rajendra krishna and C.Ramchandra was broken and it became an additional reason for C Ramchandra’s downfall from his successful musical career. In this year 3 Qawalis became Hits. First was ‘Sadhana’s ‘ Aaj kyun humse parda hai’. The other 2 qawalis were from B and C grade fils. ‘Jungle Princess’ had the first ever qawali’ Adaayen teer hain’, which was a competition between Males and females. The third one was a real surprise. Film ‘Al Hilal’ gave ” Hamen to loot liya hai milke husn walon ne”, composed by Bulo C Rani.
Nargis- Sunil Dutt got married on 11th March and Shashi Kapoor- Jeniffer got married on 2nd July. Old time actors Gope and Yaqub expired. Devika Rani got Padmashree.
Some of the popular and Hit films were Aakhri Dao-Madan Mohan, Aji Bas Shukriya – Roshan, Amar Deep-C.Ramchandra, Chalti ka naam gaadi, Kala pani, Sitaron se aagey and Solva Saal – S.D.Burman, Dilli ka Thug-Ravi, Howrah Bridge, Phagun and Ragini- O.P.Nayyar, Lala Rukh and Phir Subah Hogi- Khayyam, Madhumati-Salil Chaudhari, Parvarish-Dattaram, Sadhana-N.Datta, Yahudi-Shankar-Jaikishen etc etc.
Dilli ka Thug-1958 was prodominently a Kishore Kumar film.
Kishore Kumar came to Bombay to become a singer, but he was forced by the circumstances to become a comedy actor. For Kishore Kumar, his dream of becoming a singer was looking bleak. Instead of singing, he was getting offers to do comic roles in films. It was only Dada Burman who dared to cast Kishore as the Playback singer for Dev Anand. The first ever song he sang for Dev Anand was ” Mere labon mein chhipe”-Baazi-51. However, it was not until his song in Munimji-55 ” Jeevan ke safar mein raahi” that he proved he was a singer first and actor next. Out of all 12 songs of Munimji, only this song was the most popular and hummable. In Funtoosh-56,Dada gave him ” Dukhi man mere”.By now Kishore was out of Saigal’s shadow. The song clicked, but not Kishore, because in that period he had heaps of acting offers and there was no time for concentrating on singing. He settled for singing his own songs and those songs for Dev which Dada gave him occasionally.
When Kishore kumar was trying very hard to establish himself in the film industry, at least as a comedy hero-if not a singer, it was Dada Burman who helped him by giving him songs in almost every film of his in the 50s.
Dada was an experimentalist and had judged Kishore very well. He knew that Kishore was a talented artiste, though without formal training in music. In the days when the music was serious and classical oriented, there were no takers for Kishore except Dada Burman. Kishore had a plain voice and had nothing else except his spontaneity in front of the mike to help him.
S D Burman was a path breaker. There are few instances of Dada going against the tide and winning ! The trend in the film industry was to use one singer for one actor in one film. Like, Mukesh for Raj Kapoor, Kishore for Rajesh khanna or Rafi for Dilip or later on for Shammi kapoor etc. Dada did not subscribe to this theory. He would use the singer depending on the mood of the song and situation of the song in the film. No matter if he has to use more singers for one Hero in One film.
Thus, Manhar, Kishore and Rafi sang for Amitabh in Abhimaan and Rafi, Kishore and Manna Dey sang for Dev Anand in Manzil. He had tried Kishore on Raj Kapoor in Pyar-50. In Sagina, Kshore sang for Dilip Kumar.
Kishore Kumar is the only singer in the world to have sung songs for three generations of actors from one family-TWICE !
He sang song “Bainya chhodo” for Mumtaz Ali, father of Mehmood-for whom Kishore sang many songs and in film Yehi hai Zindagi, Kishor sang for Mehmood’s son Lucky Ali.
He sang for Raj Kapoor in Pyaar-50, then he sang many songs for his son Rishi Kapoor. In the 2008 film, ” Bachna ae Haseeno”- Kishore Kumar song- Bachna ae Haseena was lip synched by Rishi Kapoor’s son, Ranbir Kapoor.
Despite the outstanding success of ”Padosan”-68, Kishore remained where he was- neither an actor nor a singer. The turning point came in 1969. S D Burman was composing music for ‘Aradhana’. He had already recorded 2 duets of Rafi and then Dada Burman fell seriously ill. He handed over the reins of music of this movie to his son R D Burman. Dada had already made the tunes. R D had only to make the recordings. Fresh from the success of Padosan and the songs of Kishore in that film, R D decided to record 2 solos and 1 duet with Lata in Kishore’s voice. Dada was not at all in a position to even protest and R D had never preferred Rafi over Kishore.
Kishore recorded the songs and ”the rest is History” as they say. In the 21st year of his film career, finally, Kishore had achieved what he had been dreaming of. Now every other composer wanted only Kishore and not Rafi. R D Burman had quietly brought a revolution in HFM, hoodwinking all, even his own father ! On his part, Kishore too had matched Rajesh Khanna’s screen presence with vitality and freshness in the songs of Aradhana. The success of Aradhana-not only its songs, but also a successful popular film with the most ordinary plot ever, was so much that people forgot that Hemant Kumar too had used Kishore Kumar for Rajesh Khanna in 1969 only itself in film Khamoshi, for the song” Voh shyam kuch ajeeb thi”. But this classic song from Hemant Kumar was swept away in Aradhana floods.
With ‘Aradhana’, Kishore’s second Golden period started-1970 to 1975, from 1970 to 1985, it is called Kishore Yug in HFM, but the melodious songs which he sang during the 6 years, i.e. 70-75 were really his best. Even after that Kishore did give some good songs, but,as he himself said in an interview ” the real music ended with 1975. Later on it was only factory production on line”. During 1970 to 1985 he sang more than 1800 songs in 764 films. You can imagine the quality of songs in later years.
Kishore had waited for 21 years to become a Singer, and he did become one, he sang only for 18 years !
it is a coincidence that one of the actors in Film Dilli ka Thug had also come to films to become a singer- and he had recorded some songs too- but ended up as an actor. The name may be unexpecte for most readers. He was IFTEKHAR !
Sayyadana Iftekhar Ahmed Shareef was born in Jallundhar on 26-2-1922. His father was a big gun in a private company at Kanpur, so his education upto Matriculation took place in Kanpur. Then he went to Lucknow to do a Diploma in Painting. He was very fond of singing and wanted to become a singer like the legendary Saigal. Naturally , he went to Calcutta to gain entry into singing . There he met Kamal Dasgupta who was impressed with his personality and mannerisms.
He not only recorded 2 of his songs, but also recommended his name as an actor to his production company. In 1944, Iftekhar was taken as an actor in the film Taqraar, opposite actress Jamuna. Next year, he did Ghar-45 and also Rajlakshmi-45- in which Talat Mehmood also acted and sang songs. During this period he fell in love with a Jew Girl- Hanna Joseph, who stayed in his building. Iftekhar broke his earlier engagement to Sayeeda from Lucknow and got married to Hanna, after converting her to Islam. Sayeeda never married in her lifetime after this break up. He got 2 daughters.
After 1947, his family had migrated to Pakistan, but he chose to remain in India. By that time he had done 2 more films, namely, Aisa Kyun and Tum aur Main. He decided to shift to Bombay due to riots in Calcutta in 47-48. In Bombay, he had no work and faced a lot of problems. His wife had to do a job for sustenance. Iftekhar was recognised and helped by Ashok Kumar. He was given a role in the film Muqaddar-50. Being a good painter, Iftekhar taught Painting to Ashok Kumar. In the next 20 years, he did 70 films.
Then came the film Ittefaq-1969, in which he did the role of a Police Officer. This film changed his life and there was no looking back. Films like Zanjeer, Deewar etc further augmented his image and he was well entrenched. He bought a house, car etc. His daughters got married. Iftekhar acted in 318 films in all.
After his younger daughter’s death, Iftekhar was a broken man. He fell ill and within a month’s time, he died on 1-3-1995.
It is written in many places on the Internet, that Iftekhar was the brother of actress Veena. It is NOT true. His only sister Shameem got married and migrated to Lahore, in 1947, where she died recently. Veena’s brother Iftekhar was a different person who got embroiled in the love affair of actress Suraiya. ( adapted, with Thanks, from http://www.beetehuedin.blogspot.com in addition to my own notes.)
With today’s song video, film Dilli ka Thug-1958 becomes an YIPPEE film, having all its songs covered here. Enjoy….
Song-Tera yoon nazar churaa ke jaanaa haaye haaye (Dilli Ka Thug)(1958) Singer- Kishore Kumar, Lyricist- Shailendra, MD- Ravi
Lyrics
chal re fakeere
chal ri amiran
takataka takbak
chal re fakeere
jibi chak jibi chak
dheere dheere
bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi
hrrf mere
ae
o bandariya
o bandariya apne bandar se jhagadna hai bura
ik zara si baat par
aise bigadna hai bura
arrey tera yoon nazar chura ke jaana haaye haaye
yoon shuru hua hai yeh fasaana haaye haaye
tera yoon nazar chura ke jaana haaye haaye
yoon shuru hua hai yeh fasaana haaye haaye
rooth ke kahaan chali
o meri champakali
kab talak phiroongaa main
is tarah gali gali
tere bina mere dil ki
dil mein rahi jaaye
haaye haaye
yoon shuru hua hai yeh fasaana haaye haaye
tera yoon nazar chura ke jaana haaye haaye
yoon shuru hua hai yeh fasaana haaye haaye
dil chura ke chal diye
waah kya kamaal hai
ae tussi
ae tussi
ai tussi great ho ji ee
dil chura ke chal diye
waah kya kamaal hai
chor jaisi harkaten
mor jaisi chaal hai
dil bhi churaaye aur aankh bhi dikhaaye
haaye
haaye
yoon shuru hua hai yeh fasaana haaye haaye
tera yoon nazar chura ke jaana haaye haaye
yoon shuru hua hai yeh fasaana haaye haaye
berukhi se iss tarah
jaate hain toh jaayiye
haahaa haahhaah
berukhi se iss tarah
jaate hain toh jaayiye
haath na maliye janaab
honth na chabaaiye
bekadar ho pyaar kya hai
tum na samajh paaye
haaye haaye haaye
yoon shuru hua hai yeh fasaana haaye haaye
tera yoon nazar chura ke jaana haaye haaye
yoon shuru hua hai yeh fasaana haaye haaye
Ghar apna ye kursee apnee
Posted on: April 4, 2024
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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Blog Day : |
5739 | Post No. : | 18261 |
Today’s song is from a film which is almost 90 years old – 300 Days and after-1938.
1938 was an interesting year in the early life of the Talkie films. The film making studios had firm footing with a studio system and they tried a variety of subjects in their films. In the 88 Hindi films produced in 1938, one finds almost every Genre of film subjects, except perhaps the usual Folk stories and Historical themes. Comedy, Tragedy, Fiction, Jungle stories, Costume, Socials, Musicals, Mythologicals, you name it and you had it. Content and technical expertise had improved as films on famous novels were made.
Well known studios like Imperial, Sagar, New Theatres, Prabhat, Ranjit, Bombay Talkies, Praksh, Vishnu Cinetone, Huns Pictures, Wadia Movietone, Saroj Movietone etc. were very active bringing out 3 to 4 films each. Huns and Prabhat continued bilingual films in Hindi and Marathi, while New Theatres made Hindi and Bangla films. Many new actors debuted. Many new actors matured and the old scrap from silent films slowly disappeared giving way to new entrants. The Imperial film company, which had the honour of making India’s first Hindi Talkie film – Alam Ara in 1931, downed its shutters in 1938. The last remaining Southern language without a talkie, Malayalam, produced its First Talkie film BALAN in 1938. Film Industry celebrated its Silver Jubilee -from 1913 to 1938 and several programmes were held all over India.
Let us take a look at some of the films of 1938….
ABHAGIN – Debut film of actor Chaman Puri (eldest brother of Madan puri and Amrish Puri).
ADHIKAR – Music Director Timir Baran Bhattacharya. After Independence, he was invited to West Pakistan and East Pakistan to give music to their films. Film Adhikar was on the importance of how bringing up makes a person.
BAGHBAAN – Debut film of Ram Avtar.
BAHADUR KISAN – First directorial venture of Master Bhagwan. During this film’s making he developed a lasting friendship with C.Ramchandra, who assisted Meer Sahab, the M.D.
BHABHI – Renuka Devi’s second film and first with Jairaj.
BILLI – Based on P.G.Wodehouse novel ” Damsel in Distress.”
BHAMHACHARI – Debut film of Minakshi Shirodkar. She appeared in a swimming suit, first time in Hindi films. It created a sensation.
DHARATIMATA – Complete film was shot outdoors. Saigal and Pankaj Mullick created havoc with this musical film. The song ” Duniya rang rangeeli baba’ is still popular.
DIVORCE – Minerva’s film on Husband – Wife relations.
DUNIYA KYA HAI – Lalita Pawar’s production. Based on Tolstoy’s ” Resurrection”.
GRAMOPHONE SINGER – Sagar’s musical with Bibbo and Surendra. Zohrabai sings first time for Anil Biswas.
GOPAL KRISHNA – Hit film from Prabhat. Trick scenes were superb.Ram Marathe as Krishna,lifting Govardhan Parvat on a finger produced clapping from audience for several minutes.
HIMALAY KI BETI – Bhavnani production with Enakshi Rama Rau-his wife.
JAILOR – Minerva’s film on a Psycho-Neurotic person. Remade in the 50’s again.
MERA LADKA – Story of an unwed mother. Marathi and Hindi versions from Prabhat.
MR. X – Stunt film with Rattanbai , from Prakash.
NIRMALA – Bombay talkies. Devika rani- Ashok kumar. After this film, the Germans In Bombay talkies, including director Franz Osten were arrested by the British as Nazis and jailed in Igatpuri during the Second World War.
PROF. WAMAN, M.Sc. – Ranjit presents a Sci Fi fiction film about travels into the future.
SAATHI – Durga Khote and Mubarak produced in Hindi and Marathi (as Sawangadi).
STREET SINGER – Saigal’s musical feast from New Theatres.
VASANT BENGALI – Last film from Imperial film co., after 109 Silent films and 52 Talkie films in several languages. Just one year ago, i.e. in 1937 Madon Theatres of Calcutta- once a giant in film production, had closed down with their last film ‘Zinda Laash’.
Today’s film 300 DAYS AND AFTER – 1938 is one film, which I had seen in Hyderabad, may be somewhere in 1949 or 1950 or so, or may be a little later-not very sure.
This film was based on or in today’s language ”inspired” by MGM’s ” A Billionaire’s story” in which Edward Arnold and Mary Nash had acted under the Direction of the legendary Howard Hawks.
This was the first comedy film of Sarvottam Badami, the director.
Badami was born in Bangalore and worked as a Car mechanic ,though he was attracted towards films. He was called to Bombay to organise and help in the sound recording of a Tamil film from Sagar Movietone. Seeing his interest in films and the knowledge of languages, he was offered the chance to complete the direction of a half made Tamil film. He grabbed the opportunity and succeeded. His first few Hindi films were social like Chandrahas, Grihlaxmi and Dr.Madhurika.
“300 days and after” was his first comedy film. When he did a good job of it he got Aap ki Marzi-1939 and Ladies Only-39. After this film Badami left Sagar and started his own Sudama films and went back to social films again.
The film 300 days and after was from Sagar Movietone. The cast of this film was Motilal, Sabita Devi, Miss Bibbo, Yakub, Sankata Prasad(elder brother of character artist Kanhaiyalal), Pesi Patel etc.
Sudhir (Motilal) is a bachelor billionaire, doing nothing and enjoying life to the fullest with wine, women and gambling. As a result, his health starts falling prematurely when he is just 25-26 yrs only.
One day he falls down and a Doctor is called. After many tests and inspection of everything his family doctor tells him that because of his wayward living and uncontrolled lifestyle he is suffering from many ailments. If he treats them now, he may get all those again and again. The only remedy is Sudhir should do hard manual work, exercises and lead a simple living, which, the doctor says, Sudhir will never be able to do.
Sudhir is angry. He challenges the doctor that he will leave all his wealth, go out in the world, do physical work and earn money for himself. The doctor takes a bet with him and the deal is Sudhir should go out for 300 days without using a single paisa from his existing wealth for himself. Sudhir is ready for this.
Next day Sudhir goes out with few ordinary clothes, little money and a strong will to face the big bad world.
The film is full of funny situations when Motilal gets different jobs and does not know how to do them. First he tries to work as a Vegetable vendor, but he does not know the names of any vegetables.
He even takes some fruits as vegetables to sell. Next he tries to work as an assistant in a Barber shop, where he shaves off half of a customer. He tries to work as a car driver and a Tram ticket collector also.
Finally, he joins as a worker in a Soap factory, where he has to sometimes drive Seth’s wife -Ramola devi(Bibbo), who tries to entice him. Sudhir starts liking a typist girl in the factory Sharada(Sabita Devi). Sharada teaches music to Ramola, wife of Seth Laxmi Das. Motilal takes her everyday to the tuition. They start loving each other. Motilal stays with a kind hearted Vegetable vendor woman as a tenant. She tends to him , feeds him well and takes his care as her son.
Suddenly the Factory must close down due to some loss. All workers are worried. Motilal secretly sends his own money to Sethji as an anonymous partner. The Factory is saved.
Now in this jumble, 300 days come to an end. Surprisingly Motilal finds himself absolutely fit, healthy and understands the meaning of true life and Love. He goes back to the doctor to claim his bet money, which he donates to a school.
Sudhir marries Sharada and brings the kind vegetable vendor lady as his family member to live with him forever.
Motilal was one of my favourite actors. He was what I call “The accidental actor”. The story goes that Motilal came to Bombay to appear for a test to join the Navy, but he fell sick and missed it. After recovery, he went to see a film shooting and was spotted from the crowd by the director, who offered him a role in a film. Thus started his film career. He is also one of the rare actors, who started career as a Hero directly, without any struggle.
There are few more such “accident” stories for actors, actresses, directors and even singers. Some of them are….
Ashok Kumar was a lab technician in Bombay Talkies, where his sister’s husband, Shashadhar mukherjee was already working. When Devika Rani eloped with the handsome Hero najamul hasan, Ashok kumar was selected as his replacement as a hero.
Actor Ranjan was picked from a Bus queue in Madras by a producer and director and offered him a film role. Similar stories are for Pran, E.Billimoria, Nirupa Roy and Geeta Dutt. In the case of Nirupa Roy her husband had approached a studio to get a film role, but instead of him, his companion wife Kokila was offered a film role. Her name was changed to Nirupa Roy. Without getting any film roles, her husband changed his name to Kamal Roy himself !
Motilal was one of the 3 Natural actors of Hindi films. The others were Ashok Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar.
Born in Shimla on 4 December 1910, Motilal Rajwansh came from a distinguished family. His father was a renowned educationist, who died when Motilal was one year old. He was brought up by his uncle who was a well-known civil surgeon in Uttar Pradesh. At first, Moti was sent to an English school at Shimla and later, in Uttar Pradesh (UP). Thereafter, he shifted to Delhi where he continued with school and college.
After leaving college, Motilal came to Bombay to join the Navy, but he fell ill and could not appear for the test. Fate had other choices charted out for him. One day, he went to see a film shoot at Sagar Studios, where director K. P. Ghosh was shooting. Motilal, even then, was quite the man about the town and he caught Ghosh’s eye. Motilal described this event in his inimitable style,in one of his interviews….” The director Ghosh Babu looked towards me and said,” please come here”. I first thought he was calling someone standing behind me. I looked back and moved to one side. Nobody came forward, but Ghosh Babu came to me and pointed his finger at me and said, ” Yes, I am talking to you. Please come here.” I went with him .” In 1934 (aged 24), he was offered the hero’s role in Shaher Ka Jadoo -1934 by the Sagar Film Company. Sabita Devi and Motilal’s first movie as a pair in the famous Sagar Movietone, the movie Lure of the City (aka Shaher ka Jadoo) released on 29 th September 1934 at the Imperial Cinema, Bombay.
Mehboob Khan was earlier selected for the lead role and was later replaced by Motilal. This was actor Motilal’s debut film and Motilal – Sabita made the best pair in the Sagar Film Company. They acted together in many other movies under the banner of the Sagar like, Silver King -1935, Dr Madhurika -1935, Lagna Bandhan -1936, Jeevan Lata -1939, Kulvadhu -1937, Kokila -1937, Three hundred days and after -1938 and later at Sudama Films in Ap Ki Marzi -1939 and Minerva’s Prarthana -1944. He worked with Mehboob Khan in Jagirdar -1937 and Hum Tum Aur Woh -1938 under the Sagar Movietone banner, in Taqdeer -1943 for Mehboob Productions, and Kidar Sharma’s Armaan -1942 and Kaliyan -1944. He also acted in S. S. Vasan’s film Paigham -1959 (Gemini Studios), and Raj Kapoor’s Jagte Raho -1956. In 1965, he also acted in the Bhojpuri film Solaho Singar Kare Dulhaniya.
Perhaps the role for which he received the most critical appreciation was that of the gentleman crook in S. S. Vasan’s adaptation of R K Narayan’s book Mr Sampat -1952. He is most remembered for his role as “Chunni Babu” in Bimal Roy’s Devdas -1955, for which he won his first Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. Actor Naseeruddin Shah once described him as one of three all-time best actors of Hindi cinema, others being Balraj Sahni and Yakub.
Motilal was very suave and polished, and moved in high society, though towards the end of his life he was in financial difficulty. Although a thorough gentleman, he enjoyed gambling and races, and died almost penniless on 17th June 1965.
Motilal was an excellent Pilot and owned a small aircraft. He rarely travelled by train and always liked to fly. His family life was happy. His wife was a doctor.
He was in a relationship for several years with the actress Nadira. He was later involved with actress Shobhna Samarth after she separated from her husband, and he played Samarth’s real-life daughter Nutan’s father in Hamari Beti, Shobhana’s launch movie for Nutan. He also played her guardian in Anari, though this time the role had a villainous touch to it.
Motilal and Ashok Kumar were popular stars at the same time. Ashok Kumar was employed by Bombay Talkies and Motilal was employed by Ranjit. It is said that Sardar Chandulal paid Rs. One lakh to Motilal in those days. Motilal was a gambler. Once Chandulal Shah paid his debt of 75000 rupees which Motilal had lost in gambling, just to keep Motilal with Ranjit ! It is surprising that Ashok Kumar never worked with Motilal’s Heroines-Shobhana Samarth or Khursheed and Motilal never worked with Ashok Kumar’s heroines- Devika Rani or Leela Chitnis !
Actor Chandra Mohan treated Motilal as his son. During the last days of Chandra mohan, once Motilal had gone to meet him. Chandra Mohan was drinking from a costly foreign Whisky bottle, but he did not offer it to Motilal. Motilal was feeling bad and then Chandra Mohan said, “I know you must be feeling bad that I am not offering you this Whisky, but trust me it is not whisky- I am drinking Bewada (country liquor) from this bottle and I don’t want my son to drink this dirty stuff ! ”
Motilal was the winner of Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for Devdas -1955 and Parakh -1960. He is credited with being among Hindi cinema’s first natural actors.
He also directed the film Chhoti Chhoti Baatein -1965, but died before its release. At the 13th National Film Awards, it won the award for Certificate of Merit for the Third Best Feature Film and he posthumously won the Certificate of Merit for the Best Story Writer. ( adapted from some information from Vithal Pandya’s book-Asli Nakli Chehere, wiki, Star portraits, nett4you, the book Sagar Movietone, and Shirish Kanekar’s book- Yaadon ki Baaraat, with thanks and my notes.)
Today’s song is a very rare song. I thank shri Syed Zafar Shah, for making this song available to me from his huge record collection. Initially I had requested him for this song in July 2023. That time he was shifting his collection from one godown to another one. He promised me that after all the rearrangements he will give me the song. It took him more than 6 months, but he remembered it and he on his own informed me after uploading this song for my use. He is a very kind soul and one of the rare breeds who selflessly makes rare songs available to music lovers freely. Thanks a Million, Zafar ji.
The song is typically sounding like the 1930’s decade but is sung nicely by Motilal, with good music from Anil Biswas. Enjoy….
Song- Ghar apna ye kursi apni apna sab saamaan (300 days and after)(1938) Singer- Motilal, Lyricist- Zia Sarhadi, MD- Anil Biswas
Lyrics
Ghar apna ye kursi apni
apna sab saamaan
haan
ghar apna ye kursi apni
apna sab saamaan
tu meri aur main tera mehmaan
main tera aur tu meri mehmaan
tu mera
main teri
main tera
tu meri
mehmaan
ha hahahaha
ghar apna ye kursi apni
apna sab saamaan
ghar apna ye kursi apni
saara saamaan hamaara hai
aao baithho
karen ham aap ki sewaa
aao
baithho
karen ham aap ki sewaa
kursi khaao
table khaao
kursi khaao
table khaao
ghar ke ham maalik hain
ghar ke ham maalik hain
hamen jaanat hai darbaan
hamen jaanat hai darbaan
haan aan aan
ghar apna ye kursi apni
apna sab saamaan
ghar apna ye kursi apni
apna sab saamaan
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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Blog Day : |
5733 | Post No. : | 18255 |
Today’s song is from the film Hospital-1943.
The film was directed by Sunil Mujumdar. Music was by Kamal Dasgupta, who was one of the pioneers in making NFS popular all over India through many singers from Bengal. The cast of the film was Kanan Devi, Agindra Chaudhari, Heeralal, Tulsi Chakraborti, Poornima, Manorama and many others.
When we talk of Calcutta or films made in Bengal, we generally think of New Theatres only. You will be surprised that there were at least 20+ film companies and studios, before and after New Theater started and some of them even made Hindi films too. Since the beginning of British Rule in India, Calcutta was the Capital of India. In the year 1911, the British shifted the Capital to Delhi. Till then Calcutta had a mixed population. people from all parts of India lived there. However business minded and hard working Gujarati and marwadi communities ruled the business of all types, including the film industry in Calcutta, much before the establishment of New Theatres. Sharmishtha Gooptu, the well known film historian has written this about the beginning of film business in Calcutta….
” Marwari and Gujrati businessmen had been quick to appreciate the scope for profit in the fast-growing cinema industry. One of the first to invest in the industry was Lalji Haridas, a businessman from Kathiawar, who founded M/S Lalji Hemraj Haridas in Calcutta, a firm dealing in piece goods. In 1918 he secured the Bengal agency for the Kohinoor Film Company of Bombay, and became an agent for Sharda Pictures in 1926. In 1930 he was managing Jupiter Cinema in Calcutta. With the advent of the talkies, he secured the distributing rights of, among others, Bombay’s Wadia Movietone, Paramount Film Company, and Shree Vishnu Cinetone. In 1936/37, Haridas managed the Bharat Laxmi Theatre in Calcutta. By 1937-38, he was one of the leading distributors of Indian films in Eastern India, Burma, and the Far East, with offices in Calcutta, Rangoon, and Singapore respectively. In 1938, Lalji Hemraj Haridas were the sole agents of Wadia Movie tone, Paramount, Indian Liberty Pictures, Shree Vishnu Cinetone, Jaybharat Movietone, Diamond Pictures, Daryani Productions, and Wishvakala Movietone for Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, and Assam.
Similarly, Bajrang Lal Khemka, one of the first among the Marwaris to go into the film business, had been a dealer in piece goods, jute, and Hussein; an importer of sugar and motor spare parts; and invested part of his profits therein in the fast expanding film industry. In 1932, soon after New Theatres was formed, Khemka started the East India Film Co. In 1937 he launched the Metropolitan Pictures in Calcutta. Soon he owned cinema houses in various parts of the country.
Radha Kisen Chamria of Radha Film Co., Babulal Chowkani, proprietor, Bharat Laxmi Pictures, and exhibitor/distributors H. M. Chamria and Chandanmal Indrakumar were other Marwari business magnates who claimed a plum share of profits accruing from Bengal’s film industry. These businessmen were close competitors of the Bengali bhadralok, men like B. N. Sircar; Anadi Bose, proprietor of Aurora Film Corporation; P. N. Ganguly, proprietor of Kali Films; Sir P. C. Tagore, chairman of the board of directors of the Film Corporation of India Ltd.; or producer/distributor Prafulla Ghosh, proprietor of Prafulla Pictures formed in 1936.
Aurora, for instance, though one of the leading “Bengali” distributors in Calcutta was evidently operating on a much smaller scale than Lalji Hemraj Haridas. Compared to the latter’s holding of sole distribution rights of eight Bombay concerns, Aurora, in 1938, was distributing for New Theatres Ltd., Radha Film Co., Bharat Laxmi Pictures, and Kali Films. Further, Aurora was not distributing for New Theatres in the most-significant eastern region, as revealed by Dossani Film Corporation’s claim of being the sole distributing agent for Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, and Burma for New Theatres Ltd.Until the mid-1920s, there was no evidence of Bengali Muslims’ involvement with the cinema. The first involvement came in 1927 when members of the family of the Nawab of Dhaka made an experimental short film, Sukumari. In 1929, the same group embarked on the project of a full-length film, released as The Last Kiss in 1931. These initiatives apart, Bengali Muslim involvement in the film industry, through the 1930s was confined to solitary figures like Kazi Nazrul Islam and Abbasuddin Ahmed. Though later initiatives like the Chalachhitra Darshak Samiti (1939) and Bengal Tiger Pictures (1941) were patronized by some Muslim elites like Fazlul Haq and Humayun Kabir, they were marginal projects, and Bengali Muslims, by and large, remained detached from the film industry, so much so that Dhaka had no organized film industry until after independence. ”
Today’s film was made by M.P.Productions, Calcutta. Bajranglal Khemka, owner of the East India Film Company established Metropolitan Pictures Production co. in 1937. Film Hospital-1943 was made in Calcutta with all Bengali artistes. It is very difficult to get detailed information on Bengali actors as it is only available in Bangla languages, mostly. However, I could get information about the film’s Hero Ahindra Chaudhari, from The Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema by Ashish Rajadhyaksha. Here it is….
Ahindra Choudhury, born on 6th August, 1896, was a legendary theater actor and director of the Bengali stage who also enjoyed a long career in Bengali cinema.
Ahindra Choudhury’s theater debut was for the Art Theater at the Star, in Aparesh Chandra Mukhopadhyay`s “Karnarjun” i.e. “Karna and Arjun” in 1923. Interestingly, his film debut preceded his stage appearance by a year. His first film appearance came in the year of 1922 in the silent film ‘The Soul of the Slave’ (Dir. Prafulla Ghosh; produced by the Photography Syndicate of India). He continued to regularly feature in lead as well as character roles in significant films of important directors such as Madhu Bose etc till the 1950s.His two-volume autobiography is titled “Searching for my Lost Self” (Nijere Haraye khunji), which is full of important information about and insight into professional Bengali theater of the early twentieth century.
Actor born in Calcutta. Major Calcutta Theatres stage star launched with the key role of Arjun in epochal production of Karnarjun at Star Theatre (1923). Stagework in e.g. Iraner Rani, Bandini, Chirakumar Sabha, Mishar Rani etc. had an impact comparable to that of Sisir Bhaduri, who had a similar career. Early films at Madan Theatres, usually by Jyotish Bannerjee who continued to direct him into the talkie era, included stage successes like Mishar Rani and Karnarjun. At Madan also filmed scenes from his stage plays in early sound experiments. In 1928 attempted, unsuccessfully, to start the Ahindra Film Studio at Ultadanga, North Calcutta. Then directed some Telugu films for Aurora (Ansuya, Vipranarayana). Was a regular genre actor in Bengali cinema, notably in films by Sailajananda Mukherjee, P.C. Barua and Modhu Bose, until he retired in mid-50s. Wrote a two-volume autobiography, Nijere Haraye Khunji (1945). His collection of theatre and film memorabilia forms the Ahindra Choudhury Archives at Chetla, Calcutta. He died on 4-11-1974.
HOSPITAL-1943 was a film depicting a different atmosphere and a novel story matter, which made it a film worth a look. Added to it, the melodious music by Kamal Dasgupta and haunting songs by Kanandevi made the film a successful one at the Box office.
The film,a M.P.Production was directed by Sunil Muzumdar who was basically a writer.He used to write stories,Dialogues and Screenplays of films.Even in this film,he joined hands with Pt.Bhushan in Dialogue writing ,with Manmath Ray in its story and with Premendra Mitra in writing the screenplay. Lyrics were by Pt.Madhur and Pt.Bhushan.
Jayant is the son of Dr.Deen Dayal.He is educated but a vagabond and always in need of money. Once Deen dayal tells him that unless he gets married and does something for a living,he will not get any money.Dr.Deen Dayal is a widower and has established a hospital in a village for the benefit of poor people,in the memory of his departed wife.He goes to the Hospital from time to time.Jayant is introduced to Pratima(Kanan Devi) by Sandeep, her distant cousin and a friend of Jayant.
one day Jayant proposes to Pratima to act as his wife,only for a day, so that he can fool his father and extract some money from him.Pratima,after lot of cajoling,agrees to do so and they go to Dr.Deen dayal.The father is very happy to see his daughter in law.He not only compliments Jayanta for his choice but also gives him lot of money. The work having been achieved, Pratima wants to go away, but the Doctor would have none of it. He forces her to go with him to the village Hospital.
Dr.Bhatt, his assistant is a hidden enemy of Deendayal and wants to throw him out to usurp the hospital.He suspects that Jayanta and Pratima are not married.He employs detectives and confirms this.In the meantime Jayant and Pratima start loving each other.Pratima also finds out that Dr.Bhatt has misappropriated Hospital money for Medicines.She exposes him before he exposes her and the Doctor is removed from the Hospital. By now, Deen dayal also has found out that these two are not married. He gets them married.
Today’s song is a duet sung by Kanan Devi and Jagmohan Sursagar. HFGK does not mention the male singer’s name. However, Sunil Trivedi ji of Surat who was a family friend of Jagmohan Sursagar has informed that Jagmohan himself told him that this song was sung by him. Sunil ji’s comments to this effect are available on this Blog. Enjoy….
Song- Ae ronewaale hansne ke din door nahin hain(Hospital)(1943) Singers- Kanan Devi, Jagmohan Sursagar, Lyrics-Pt. Madhur, MD- Kamal Dasgupta
Both
Jagmohan Sursagar + another male voice
Lyrics
Man ke haare haar hai
man ke jeete jee ee ee ee eet
raat dhale
din hot hai
ye duniyaa aa aa aa ki reet
ae ronewaale
hansne ke din door nahin hain
jo aaj hai mazboor
kal majboor nahin hai
ae ronewaale
hansne ke din door nahin hain
jo aaj hai mazboor
kal majboor nahin hai
ae ronewaale
hansne ke din door nahin hain
jo aaj hai majboor
kal majboor nahin hai
bahti nahin hai zindagi bhar
dukh ki dhaara
door nahin hai
door nahin hai
bahti nahin hai zindagi bhar
dukh ki dhaara
majboor nahin hai
majboor nahin hai
gahra jo samandar hai to uska bhi kinaaraa
gahra jo samandar hai to uska bhi kinaaraa
aakhir to kahin hai
aakhir to kahin hai
aakhir to kahin hai
ae ronewaale
hansne ke din door nahin hain
jo aaj hai majboor
kal majboor nahin hai
duniya mein maraj bhi hai
ae ae ae ae ae ae
dua bhi hai dawaa aa aa aa bhi
duniya mein maraj bhi hai
dua bhi hai dawaa bhi
duniya mein maraj bhi hai
dua bhi hai dawaa bhi
baadal mein jahaan rahti hai bijlee to hawaa bhee
baadal mein jahaan rahti hai bijlee to hawaa bhee
paanee bhee wahin hai
paanee bhee wahin hai
paanee bhee wahin hai
ae ronewaale
hansne ke din door nahin hain
jo aaj hai majboor
kal majboor nahin hai
Dilkash sazaa ye deeje
Posted on: March 28, 2024
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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Blog Day : |
5732 | Post No. : | 18254 | Movie Count : |
4946 |
‘Gulmohar’ (2023) was produced under the banner of 3 film production companies – Star Studios, Chalkboard Entertainment and Autonomous Works and was directed by debutant Rahul Chittella. The cast included Sharmila Tagore, Manoj Bajpayee, Simran, Suraj Sharma, Kaveri Seth, Utsavi Jha, Santhy, Jatin Goswami, Gandharv Dewan, Chandan Roy, Anurag Arora, Devika Shahani, Shriharsh Sharma, Talat Aziz, Vinod Nagpal, Danish Sood, Tanvi Rao, Abhinav Bhattacharjee, Tripti Sahu, Nargis Nandal, Varun Narayan, Kanishk Seth, Puja Sarup, Deepak Bagga, Kavita Seth, Angad Sharma etc. Amol Palekar made a guest appearance in the film. The film was released on OTT platforms on March 23, 2023.
The story of the film is about Batra joint family staying in their family bungalow ‘Gulmohar’ in Delhi for decades. The family is required to vacate the bungalow after sale for its redevelopment and are in the process of shifting to apartments. At this point of time, each family wants to be independent leading to the potential break-up of the joint family. The matriarch of the family is shifting to Puducherry for her own reason. The family has only 4 days to stay together in Gulmohar until the Holi festival. During a get together party, many secrets of the family come out creating some discord among the family members. It is now a testing time for the family on the secrets of their past, creating the tensions for the present and the future uncertainties for the family as a single unit.
The film is available for viewing only on one of the OTT platforms. The story of the film is as under:
Batra family consists of Kusum Batra (Sharmila Tagore), the matriarch of the family, her son Arun Batra (Manoj Bajpayee), his wife, Indu (Simran) and their son, Aaditya Batra (Suraj Sharma), his wife, Divya (Kaveri Seth) and their daughter, Amrita (Utsavi Jha). Arun Batra runs a family business started by his father which is doing very well. They all stay together in their Gulmohar Bungalow in Delhi which Arun’s father had bought 30 years back so that all the family members stay together. Arun’s wife, Indu is a perfect housewife who takes care of the family without any hiccups.
Under pressure from a builder, their bungalow has been sold for redevelopment and the family is in the process of shifting to a hotel as a stop-gap arrangement before they think of shifting to an apartment. It appears that it was at the instance of Sudhakar Batra (Amol Palekar), the uncle of Arun that builder has pressurised Kusum to sell their Gulmohar Bungalow as he is bitter about Kusum who persuaded his brother (and her husband) to move to Delhi. The bitterness between Kusum Batra’s family and Sudhakar Batra has been continued for a long time. Nonetheless, Arun has financially helped his uncle, Sudhakar for the higher education of his grandson.
The film actually starts with Kusum Batra, the matriarch of the family hosting a get-together, being the last one in Gulmohar, for the family members and her close friends during which she reveals two things. First, the family would shift from Gulmohar after 4 days, that is, after Holi celebrations so that the entire family leaves Gulmohar with good memories. Secondly, she would be shifting to Puducherry where she has already bought a house. With Arun’s son, Aaditya having already decided that he and his family would live independently, with his mother’s revelation, Arun is tremendously disturbed but refrains from reacting to his mother’s decision.
Arun’s son, Aaditya wants to become an entrepreneur on his own strength without the help of his father. However, he is not able to get the investors. He is looking for a separate house on rental, but he is not able to afford a high rental. His wife, Divya suggests him not to give up on his dream of becoming an entrepreneur and suggests him to take the financial help from his father who is willing to support him.
During the packing of the moveable items from the bungalow, Indu finds a file containing a will written by Arun’s late father. She hands it over to her husband, Arun. After reading the will on which he finds his mother’s signature also, he calls a meeting in Gulmohar in which he invites his uncle, Sudhakar Batra (Amol Palekar) and his son. He reads out the contents of the will which states that after his death, his brother, Sudhakar Batra and his son would be the owners of the bungalow. Kusum can stay in one part of the bungalow till her last after which that portion of the bungalow will also devolve on Sudhakar and his son.
Arun feels very bad about the will, not because he was not one of the beneficiaries of the will but because his late father has regarded him as his adopted son. He has always regarded his mother and father as real parents even after he came to know about his adoption. Kusum invites Sudhakar and hands over the property papers to him. While drinking water from a glass, Sudhakar accidentally spills the water on the property papers obliterating the signatures etc. Watching the spilling of water on the will, Kusum says to him that whatever has happened is good for the family.
There is another secret getting out in the open. Aaditya’s daughter, Amrita who is a budding singer, returns home from the song rehearsal after getting upset with her boyfriend. After some time, Deepika from her singing band visits her. The fact is that both Amrita and Deepika are in love with each other, and their closeness is witnessed by Kusum who, instead of reprimanding them, starts telling her own story of her college days when she was in love with Supriya who later become a popular singer.
Devasted by his father’s will, Arun leaves Gulmohar and checks into a hotel. Indu comes to the hotel to meet him. During the conversation, Arun tells her that he has located his real father and has visited the area a number of times but did not meet him. He runs a tea shop. On the insistence of Indu, Arun meets his father for the first time without revealing his identity. He tells him that like any father, he also wished to provide the best for his son but felt incapable of providing what his newborn son deserved to get during his life span. At this juncture, Arun realises as to how lucky he was to be adopted by Kusum and her husband.
On the last day before the final shifting, Batra family meets for the last time in Gulmohar on the day of Holi celebrations. Indu convinces Arun to return home for Holi celebrations. The Batra family celebrates their last Holi in the Gulmohar with every member of the family enjoying the Holi celebrations leaving their worries behind. The film ends with Avinash (Talat Aziz) telling Kusum who is getting ready to leave Gulmohar for Puducherry that Supriya the popular singer is also staying in Puducherry after her retirement. Amrita who is listening to the conversations, looks at her great grandmother, Kusum who winks at her. Now, it dawns on Amrita as to why Kusum has chosen Puducherry to stay independently.
The film is an emotional family drama in which inter-personal relationship forms a core issue. The changes in cultural ethos of the three generations of the family add to the complexity in a joint family system. Despite the crumbling of joint family system, the film stresses the importance of family bonding even during the inter-personal stresses. There are sub-plots in the story like lesbian relationship and romance of two house-keeping staff more as a by-product of the changing scenarios in the high society.
All the main actors have given their best performances. However, it is Manoj Bajpayee who stands tall with his stellar performance in the film. Kudos to debutant director, Rahul Chittella who is also the screenplay and dialogue writer, for making the film engrossing to watch. I also liked the tagline at the end of the film which says:
घरोंदे जो हम बनाते हैं
रिश्ते जो इनमें बसते हैं
The film had 7 songs of which names of the lyricist are available for 5 songs – Shellee (4) and Hasan Kazmi (1). There were 5 music directors – Sidharth Khosla (1), Sidharth Khosla-Alan Demoss (3), Talat Aziz (1), Maadhavan Bhattacharjee (1) and Mukhtiyar Ali (1). I am presenting the first song from the film, ‘dilkash sazaa ye deeje’ to appear on the Blog. The song is written by Shellee (real name: Shailender Singh Sodhi) which is set to music by Sidharth Khosla. Talat Aziz sings for himself. The orchestration of the song is soothing.
This is the opening scene of the film depicting a get together of the family members and a few close friends of Kusum (Sharmila Tagore) in their bungalow, Gulmohar. Avinash (Talat Aziz) is a family friend who renders a ghazal in the get together. It is interesting to note that while Avinash is singing and family members seem to enjoy the party, the undercurrent is a bit tense within the family members. Kusum is worried as to how to break the news that she is going to shift to Puducherry. Arun (Manoj Bajpayee) is disturbed by the decision of his son, Aditya (Suraj Sharma) and his wife, Divya (Kaveri Seth) with their daughter, Amrita (Utsavi Jha) to live separately. Aditya also has a worried look after watching the message on his mobile because for his start-up business, he is not getting investors. Even maid servant and her fiance, a security staff of Gulmohar shows worried look. Everyone is afraid of their secrets which eventually comes out as the film’s story progresses.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Dilkash sazaa ye deeje (Gulmohar)(2023) Singer-Talat Aziz, Lyrics-Shellee, MD-Sidharth Khosla
Lyrics:
dilkash sazaa ye deeje..ae
jurm e haseen haay keeje
dilkash sazaa ye deeje..ae
jurm e haseen haay keeje
hai kabse mureed tumhaare
nazaakat ye uspe ishaare
younhin naaz uthaayen
qurbaan huye jaayen
inaayat yahee bas keeje
dilkash sazaa ye deeje..ae
jurm e haseen haay keeje
dhai aakhar preet kaa hai jo
atar mein liptaa mehkaa mehkaa
tumsaa ho koi yaa mujhsaa deeewaana
har ek gharonde mein jaadoo saa chehkaa
younhi muskuraayen
har pal jiye jaayen
ye sohni si zehmat to keeje
dilkash sazaa ye deeje..ae
jurm e haseen haay keeje
dilkash sazaa ye deeje..ae
jurm e haseen haay keeje
pyaar wo kissa aisi kahaanee
rukti na jiski sadiyon rawaanee
dar ho ghar ho
jeewan safar ho
har shay mein milti jiski nishaanee
ye lamhe haay yaadon ke saaye
tohfe mohabbat ke leeje ae
dilkash sazaa ye deeje ae
jurm e haseen haay keeje
hai kabse mureed tumhaare ae
nazaakat ye uspe ishaare
younhi naaz uthhaayen
qurbaan huye jaayen
inaayat yahee bas keeje
dilkash sazaa ye deeje..ae
jurm e haseen haay keeje
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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Blog Day : |
5731 | Post No. : | 18253 |
Today’s song is from the stunt film – Hunterwali ki Beti-1943.
This is perhaps the only film in a Hindi cinema,so far, where the same actress has done the role of a young woman in a film and again did the role of her daughter in the same film. There are some Hindi films which double roles have been done by a few actresses, of mother and daughter in the same film. What makes today’s film different is its Title.
The film’s Heroine – Fearless Nadia- debuted as a Heroine with the film – Hunterwali in 1935 and in today’s film, she had the same name-Hunterwali in the early part and the name of – Hunterwali ki Beti, in the later part of the film as her daughter. The daughter’s name in the film is Madhuri. In 80% of her films, she had the name Madhuri. Perhaps it was her favourite name !
The film was made by Homi Wadia’s Basant pictures. The cast of the film was Nadia, John Cavas, Sayani, Sardar Mansoor, Rajkumari, Shyamsundar, Ranibala and others. The music was by Channalal Naik, an old time composer, whose last films as a composer was later in 1943-Watan Farosh. Lyricist was A.Kareem. he was a multi talented artiste.
There were few artistes in the Film Industry who were ‘all- rounders’. These artistes achieved excellence in many departments of film making. A. Kareem was one such artiste. He was brother of Music Director Ghulam Mohammed. He was an Actor, Producer, Director, Composer, Lyricist, writer, s/play and dialogue writer and a Costume designer ! In my opinion, he can be compared with only Badri Prashad, who was Actor, Producer, Director, Composer, Singer, Character artiste and a Choreographer too !..
In the early era, there were many such artistes who did many things-sometimes out of necessity or compulsion or to sustain jobs. But they were known for ONE main activity. Similarly A. Kareem was known as a Lyricist. He started his career with Aaj ki Duniya-40 as an actor and a Lyricist. He also acted in Jagat mohini-40, Meri Khwaish-041, and Circus ki Sundari-41. He wrote s/p and dialogues, with P L Santoshi for films Circus ki sundari-41 and Bombay Calling-42. He composed music for 5 stunt films like Kashmir ki kali-46, Toofani Teerandaz-47,Atom Bomb-47,Dhoomketu-49 and Maya Mahal-49. He had composed 35 songs.
He directed 13 films like Kalakar-42,Talash-43,Badmash-44,Jeewan swapna-46,Parbat ki Rani-48,Rangeele Musafir-50,Josh-50,Gazab-51,Char chand-53. Maharani-57,Mehfil-57,Tilasmi Duniya-62 and Mehbooba-65.
As a Costume designer he worked for Naya Daur-57, Dil apna aur Preet Parayee-60, Mere Mehboob-63,Kaajal-65, Main vohi hoon-66 and Dastak-70. As a Lyricist his most famous song was Talat’s “Hai ye vohi aasman, aur vohi zameen, par meri Taqdeer ka ab vo zamana nahin ” in film Chaar Chaand-1953. He wrote 146 songs in 20 films.
The story of this film was…
In the kingdom of queen Madhuri everything was peaceful. She was very strict with evil doers and used a Hunter to punish them. So she was known as Hunter wali Rani. This peace was broken when her cousin Pratap not only invaded the kingdom, but also imprisoned Madhuri. Her small daughter Kishori was saved by the loyal sardar Ishwar Singh who escapes with the child, eluding the forces of Pratap. After 15 years, it is Kishori who dons Hunterwali’s uniform and supports the poor and punishes the cruel. She is trained by Ishwarsingh, whose son Vijay falls in love with her. Pratap sends forces to capture her. They catch Vijay and tie him to the Railway track, from where a riding Hunterwali ki beti alias Kishori rescues him.
To get Kishori, Pratap announces the hanging of Queen Madhuri in his Black Fort. Kishori, Vijay and their accomplices enter the fort, rescue the queen and capture Pratap and his aide Ajit. The Queen is reinstated on the throne, Kishori and Vijay get united and Pratap and Ajit get Life imprisonment sentences.
The film was directed by Batuk Bhatt. He had also directed Muqabala-1942, mouj-1943 and Sudhar-1949. The name sounds unknown, but it was a Pseudonym of the veteran action film director Nanabhai Bhatt. Taking such names, for whatever reasons, is not new in the Hindi film industry. I am not talking of the names various actors and actors took in their career, but others who carried a dual identity. Here are some of the 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. 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 Hussai Dehalvi, Shaukat Dehalvi, Shaukat Ali, and Shaukat Haider. These are well known, but today I will tell you 2 pen names for the FIRST time on the internet ! 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.
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. How many names can a person have ? 2 – 3 – 4 ? 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.
Director Nanabhai Bhatt ( 12-6-1915 to 24-4-1999). He was a director in many films. He directed mostly Mythological and stunt films only. Nanabhai was born as Yashwant ( pet name – Batuk) at Porbandar. Since he was the younger one he was called Nanabhai ( opposite to Motabhai-elder brother). This name continued till the end. His father was a doctor. After Matriculation, he went to Mumbai in 1934, where his elder brother Balwant Bhatt was working. Balwant started with Imperial,shifted to Sagar and now was with Prakash pictures of Vijay and Shankar Bhatt. He got Nanabhai a job as Sound Recordist. Soon he graduated as Production Executive. He also wrote several screenplays.
In 1942 he directed “Muqabala”, for Homi Wadia, as Batuk Bhatt. Homi Wadia became his good friend. When Homi established his own Basant Pictures, Nanabhai joined him and directed his “Hunterwali ki Beti”-43, with Nadia again. He also did mauj, Jee Haan, Chaalis Karod etc. He directed about 50 films of various genres like Stunts, Mythologicals, crime, social, costume etc.
Nanabhai’s first wife was Hemlata. He also married Shirin banu, his Heroine of few films. To circumvent the Bigamy law, he married her in a Temple and that too in the presence of Hemlata ! He had 3 children from Hemlata and 6 from Shirin. Mukesh and Mahesh Bhatt are from Shirin. His children and grandchildren married in different religions.Thus his big family was an example of Secularism ! In addition to 9 children Nanabhai also produced 20 films under his own Deepak Pics and Gautam Chitra !
FILMOGRAPHY OF NANABHAI BHATT: 1942: Muqabala; 1943:Hunterwali Ki Beti; Mauj; 1945: Chalis Karod; 1946: Maa Baap Ki Laaj; 1947: Meerabai; 1949: Shaukeen; Veer Ghatotkach; Sudhaar; 1950: Hamara Ghar; Janmashthami; Veer Babruwahan; 1951: Lakshmi Narayan; Daman; Lav Kush; Ram Janma; 1952: Apni Izzat; Baghdad; Sinbad the Sailor; 1954: Toote Khilone; Watan; 1956: Kismet; 1957: Mr X; Ustad; 1958: Chaalbaaz; Son of Sinbad; 1959: Bazigar; Daaka; Kangan; Madam XYZ; Naya Sansar; 1960: Lal Qila; Police Detective; Zimbo Comes to Town; 1961: Teen Ustad; 1962: Baghdad Ki Raatein; Rocket Girl; 1963: Alapiranthavan; Bhootnath; Cobra Girl; 1964: Samson; 1965: Adhi Raat Ke Baad; Bekhabar; 1966: Shankar Khan; 1967: Arabian Nights; 1968: Jung Aur Aman; 1974: Jeevan Rekha; 1975: Balak Aur Jaanwar; 1976: Dharti Mata; 1981: Gajara Maru; 1982: Jaya Parvati Vrat.( Thanks to Harish Raghuwanshi ji and Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema for some information.)
Now enjoy today’s song video….
Song- Main tumse milne aaunga aaj aadhee raat ko (Hunterwaali Ki Beti)(1943) Singers- Shyamsundar, Ranibala, Lyricist-A. Kareem, MD- Chennalal Naik
Lyrics
o goree
o goree
main tumse milne aaungaa
aaj aadhee raat ko
aadhee raat ko
aaj aadhee raat ko
teree galee main dheere se
teree galee main dheere se
seetee bajaaungaa bajaaungaa bajaaungaa
aaj aadhee raat ko
aadhee raat ko
aaj aadhee raat ko
so jaayegee jab
so jaayegee jab saas nanadiyaa
kholoongee chupke se
kholoongee chupke se
apnee kothhariyaa
karke ishaaraa bulaaungee
karke ishaaraa bulaaungee
main aaungaa
main bulaaungee
aaj aadhee raat ko
aadhee raat ko
aaj aadhee raat ko
paas aao
un hoon
aaj aadhee raat ko
aadhee raat ko
aaj aadhee raat ko
tum upar atariyaa pe aanaa
tum upar atariyaa pe aanaa
mohe phoolon ka gajra pahnaanaa
mohe phoolon ka gajra pahnaanaa
tum bhool na jaanaa
man lubhaanaa
bhool na jaanaa
man lubhaanaa
aanaa
aaungaa
aaj aadhee raat ko
aadhee raat ko
aaj aadhee raat ko
Aap kyun kyun aap kyun aayenge
Posted on: March 25, 2024
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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Blog Day : |
5729 | Post No. : | 18249 |
Today’s song is from the First film of Nargis as a Heroine – Taqdeer-1943.
1943 was an year in which the II world war was in full swing. Both sides were almost equal. The effects of the war on India were… it faced the infamous Bengal Famine, caused by the war profiteering. Controls on film production were tightened by the Government. I.P.T.A. became operative with its first staged p0lay ‘ Nibanna’. Film Kismet became one of the biggests Hits ever. V.Shantaram’s Rajkamal Kalamandir debuted with Shakuntala, as did Mehboob with his film Najma. Government made showing of Newsreel before any film mandatory. Film Raj Nartaki’s english version The Court Dancer was exhibited in the USA, first time for an Indian film.
1943 produced 105 Hindi films, the highest number during the war years, 1939 to 1945. Many landmark and musical films appeared in this year giving a respite to the war torn audience of Indian Cinema. Let us take a look at some of these films.
Film Bhaichara had music by the only other “Sursagar” musician – Himangshu Dutt ( the more well known being the singer Jagmohan Sursagar).
C.Ramchandra had his first musical hit with film Bhakta Raj, made by Jayant Desai productions.
Film Gauri from Ranjit became Monica Desai’s first Hindi film in Bombay. It was a very successful film with songs by Khemchand Prakash, based on Bangla Folk tunes.
Kanan Devi gave some sweet songs in the film Hospital, under Kamal Dasgupta’s baton.
Bombay Talkies film Hamari Baat was the last film in which Devika Rani acted. Anil Biswas was the composer.
Music Director Khurshid Anwar brought Gauhar Sultana from Lucknow to sing some songs in the film Ishara. Naushad'[s musical film Kanoon had some good Suraiya and Shyam duets.
Film Kashinath was Nitin Bose’s last film in New Theatres, after he developed differences with B.N.Sircar.
Anil Biswas gave his career best musical Hit film ” Kismet”- the longest running film from Bombay Talkies.
Nurjehan’s musical film Nadaan was popular with songs from composer K.Datta. Director Mehboob made his first film Najma, under his own banner Mehboob productions.
Yet one more musical from Naushad- film Namaste.
At last a musical hit for composer S.N.Tripathi- Panghat from prakash Pictures. Rajkumari Shukla sang her only Hindi song in this film;. (the film was remade as Chitchor-1976).
Film Paraya Dhan had music by Bengal’s famous musician Gyan Prakash Ghosh. Deena Pathak sang her only 2 songs in this film as Deena Sanghavi.
Ghulam Haider makes merry again with Shamshad hit songs in film Poonji from Pancholi, Lahore.
One more superhit film – Ram Rajya from Prakash Pictures had very good songs from composer Shankar Rao Vyas. Saraswati Rane gave 2 melodious songs. Yashwant Joshi and Yashwant Nikam sang the famous song ” Bharat ki ek Sannari ki katha”. Ram Rajya had also a distinction as the only Hindi film that was seen by Mahatma Gandhi, on 2-6-1944.
( before this Gandhi had seen ” Mission to Moscow-43′ an English film, in Wardha, according to The Hindu (Kathmandu Ed.) dt.8-2-2010). The film had early songs by Manna Dey also.
Naushad in full swing with his third Musical Sanjog, where Suraiya gave playback to Mehtab, the Heroine.
Vasant Desai gave excellent songs in the hit film Shakuntala by V.Shantaram.
Kanoon- another hit from Naushad.
Mera Khwab- MD Ghulam Mohammed’s Debut film
Najma- Mehboob Khan’s first film, on Muslim society.
Nurse- Gyan Dutt gave an excellent song of Rajkumari-‘ Vo gaye nahin’.
Prithvi Vallabh- A big budget costume drama made by Minerva, based on the story of K.M.Munshi. It had songs by Minakshi Shirodkar.
Tansen- Saigal’s first film in Bombay. Khurshid matches him song by song.
Taqdeer- Nargis aka Baby Fatima debuted as an adult. However her name comes third in the credits, after Motilal and Chandramohan.
In the beginning of 1943, when Mehboob Khan was in a hurry to give finishing touches to the first film of his own Mehboob productions- Najma, Jaddanbai came to see him. She was very friendly with Mehboob. The purpose of her visit was to request Mehboob to make a film with her daughter Nargis (Baby Fatima/Baby Rani) as a Heroine. Mehboob was sceptical as Nargis was only 14 year old and it would be like buying a lottery ticket, if he made a film with her. Jaddanbai was very persuasive and she even offered to partly finance the film. She was sure that with Mehboob launching her daughter she would have a bright future. Finally Mehboob agreed.
Nargis was called in and Mehboob talked to her alone. She was confused and afraid to become a Heroine. Mehboob convinced her saying that he would lose a lot of money if she refused. Nargis agreed after this.
Film Taqdeer-1943 was a Mehboob Production film,directed by Mehboob, Music by R.Gaznavi,and Lyrics by Mahrul Kadri.There is one song in the film written by Agha M.Shirazi(who also acted in the film) and one song by Anjum Pilibhiti also.There were 10 songs in the film, 2 chorus songs,4 solos of Shamshad begum and 4 duets of Shamshad and Motilal.
The cast of the film was Chandramohan, Motilal, Nargis, Jilloobai, Kayam Ali, Ansari, Shirazi, Laddan etc. The Story was by Ghulam Mohd. and screenplay and dialogues were by Agha Jaani Kashmiri.
It was a lightweight comedy about Justice Gangaprasad(Chandramohan) and a Theatre owner Seth Badriprasad(NM Charlie),who lose their daughter and son in Kumbh Mela( This is where this trend started for future films,especially Manmohan Desai type films) respectively. The children are found but exchanged and Gangaprasad brings up Baby(Motilal) as a rich playboy and Badriprasad raises Salma(Nargis) as a dancer in his Theatre.They fall in love,causing a problem of class Difference.This is revealed when their identities are revealed. Funny thing is Gangaprasad’s wife(Jilloo bai) raises Motilal thinking that he is a Girl.The scene when it is revealed that he is a Boy,is very hilarious.
There is a song in the film,’Meri Mata Bharat Mata’,in which Nargis is shown holding a sickle and a cloth bundle, with waving fields behind her. This reminds us of her role and posters of ‘Mother India’-1957(also a Mehboob production.)
Here are some Titbits….
Baby Fatima (Nargis) was only 14 when she became Heroine of this film.
When Mrs. Mehboob was doing her makeup and wrapping her up in a Saree, she was mugging up the dialogues.
She was also very happy, when told that all her songs will be sung by Shamshad begum.
She had to wear high heels to match the height of her first hero,Motilal.
Taqdeer was a Hit film.
In the history of Hindi Cinema, Mehboob Khan’s name would be written prominently as one of the great directors, who rose from scratch to a height attained by few other directors.
Born as Ramzan Khan in 1907 in Bilimora, Gujarat, Mehboob was from a Gujarati Muslim family. He never got a formal education in his young age, but he was keen on two things-5 times Namaz and seeing films. His father being in Police Department, films were free for him. One day he ran away to Bombay to become an actor. However his father found him out and brought him back. He was immediately married off, with a belief that he would improve.
Two years after marriage and one child, he ran to Bombay again and worked in Imperial film co. as an extra for Rs.30 pm. This too after he worked without any pay for 5 months due to the mistake of the clerk ! He worked in crowd scenes and sundry roles-without a dialogue, of course, starting as one of the 40 thieves of Alibaba. He worked in several films uncredited. His first, big and credited role came in the film “Shirin Khushru”-1929.
In 1927, after the Talkie film “The Jazz Singer” was shown in US, the world started making Talkie films. India too jumped into the bandwagon. In 1931, Imperial-competing with Madon Theatres of Calcutta- wanted to make a Talkie and started work fast. Mehboob Khan was almost finalised as the Hero. Even his costumes were made ready, but he was destined for something different, and Master Vithal was made the Hero of India’s first Talkie. Ardeshir Irani’s safety valve of minimizing the risk of the first venture by selecting the existing popular Hero, scuttled Mehboob’s dream. Somehow Mehboob was unlucky on quite a few occasions in his bid to become a Hero in films. First, he missed his chance in Torney’s silent film, when E.Bilimoria became the Hero, secondly he was replaced by Master Vithal as a Hero in India’s first talkie “Alam Ara’-1931 and lastly he was replaced by newcomer Motilal in ‘Shahar ka jaadu’ as a Hero. Mehboob understood that he was not made out to be an actor.
Meanwhile, Imperial started a new company,’Sagar Movietone’, along with Dr. Patel and Chiman Desai. Some artistes and techies were shifted to Sagar-including Mehboob- from Imperial. Mehboob continued to work in 12 silent films. Here, he met Faredoon Irani, Cinematographer and they became thick friends. Irani was with Mehboob till the end.
During this period, Mehboob wrote a film story and convinced the owners to allow him to direct this film. Owners were hesitant, naturally, to allow this young extra actor to direct a film. Lastly a deal was struck, that Mehboob and Faredoon should be allowed to shoot one reel film. If they like it, continue or else, scrap it and recover money from these two chaps. After one reel shooting the owners realised that they had struck Gold in the process and Mehboob completed his first Directorial venture ” Al Hilaal “-35. The film was a great success and Mehboob ‘chal pada’. Mehboob went on to direct 7 more films for Sagar. All his films were successful.
From film Jageerdar-37 Mehboob and Anil Biswas pair teamed up for 8 films-till Roti-42.
When Mehboob was making arrangements for his next film, Alibaba, the sudden news that Sagar is closing down hit them. Mehboob Khan contacted Imperial to allow him to shoot for his film in their studio, which Ardeshir gladly permitted. The film shooting proceeded til Sagar became National studios. Mehboob made 3 important films of his career in National studio, namely Aurat-40, Behan-41 and Roti-42.
When National studio also closed down all workers came on road. However, Mehboob decided to start his own company. One Mr. Lalaji of Manoranjan Distributors of Delhi promised capital. National studio was renamed as Central studio by the owner, K.K.Modi-elder brother of Sohrab Modi. He allowed Mehboob to use the studio till his own studio came up. Mehboob took a place nearby to start his office. In this period there was a rift between Mehboob and Anil Biswas and they separated for ever-albeit bitterly.
Mehboob wanted a Logo for Mehboob Productions. He selected a sher written by Agha Jani kashmiri for film “Al Hilal”….” Muddai lakh bura chahe to kya hota hai, vahi hota hai jo manjur e Khuda hota hai”. It was recorded in the voice of Rafiq Ghaznavi with appropriate prelude music and sound of lightening and clouds. He also took Sickle and Hammer for the Logo, and clarified that because he respected workers and certainly he was not a communist.
His first film Najma-43 ( his daughter’s name was Najma), with Ashok Kumar and Veena was a Hit film. It was followed by Taqdeer-43, Humayun-45,Anmol Ghadi-46, Elaan-47, Anokhi Ada-48, Andaaz-49, Aan-52, Amar-54 and his Magnum Opus Mother India-57. After the high of Mother India, Mehboob aimed to fly even higher with Son of India (1962) but the film was a total misfire and, in fact, his weakest film.
Mehboob was not an ordinary film maker. Though he was uneducated, he was a Genius with socialist beliefs. Even his Banner showed Sickle and hammer Being a Socialist and sold on Nehruvian philosophy, his popular films had a common theme- ”The oppressed poor V/s The oppressor Rich”. In films like Aurat, Roti, Aan and Mother India etc one can see this theme clearly. He made blistering attacks on Capitalists and their lust for money. In films like Andaz, however,he supported traditionalism, rejecting Platonic relationships.
In films like ” Elaan”-1947, he dared to challenge the existing shortcomings in Muslim society. He took a look at Indian Muslims from inside. Sometimes the film went into forbidden areas when he suggested Koranic reforms as the way out of the ills of Muslims, like illiteracy and backward thinking. This invoked anger from the Fundamentalists and the film was banned for 3 months, but he re-released the film without any changes or revisions.
The urbane director K.A. Abbas once referred to Khan Mehboob as the “great rustic” of Hindi cinema. Indeed, a certain mythology developed around Mehboob—that of the man with popular roots. This image owed much to stories about his origins (the small-town boy who worked his way up through the Bombay studios), and to certain films which dwelt on the travails of the poor and the destitute, such as Aurat (Woman) and Roti (Bread). In fact, however, Mehboob’s output as director was quite varied. After he founded his own company, Mehboob Productions, in 1943, he made historical works (Humayun) and fantasy spectaculars (Aan/Pride). Even films such as Anmol Ghadi (Priceless Watch) and Anokhi Ada (A Special Charm), which appeared to address the class divide, were variations of the triangular love story, the favoured convention of the Hindi cinema.
In these films social representation becomes incidental to the basic plot because the narrative spaces of a simple rural life or of urban destitution are constructed in an idealised rather than in a realistic way. The lighting style of such scenes show them as composed of smooth studio surfaces, and there is an indifference to the more squalid details of characterisation. The emphasis lies in the fullness of melodramatic sentiments—of loss and of romantic longing—which occasion the use of lushly orchestrated songs. All this is a pleasurable closing off of the cinema and its audience from social references, a tendency in Mehboob’s work best represented by his venture into the swashbuckling colour film Aan. Elements of this romantic mode are observable even in Mehboob’s “social” films. In Aurat and its later colour version, Mother India , rural life is often conveyed as a series of spectacularly choreographed scenes of harvesting, festivals, and the romantic engagement of its characters. Andaz (Style) , on the other hand, invites the audience to soak in the luxuries of the modern, upper-class settings in which its characters live.
In this sense, Mehboob was not simply a popularly rooted “rustic” artist, but engaged in creations of high artifice and escapism. However, these elements were often integrated with quite powerful constructions of meaning. Aurat , for example, achieves an almost anthropological view of gender roles. This is accomplished not by the accuracy of its observations about rural life, but by using the grim struggles of rural life as a way of drawing out the role performed by Indian women. This provides the basis for the film’s main interest, the melodrama of the unrelieved suffering of a woman (Sardar Akhtar) on behalf of her sons (Surendra and Yakub). The subsequent version of this film, Mother India , is an interesting contrast. The focus is still on the suffering of the mother (Nargis); but this capacity to suffer is transformed into a distinctly mythical power which moves beyond her immediate family to inspire the whole village community. In both films the woman is the bearer of a patriarchal inheritance for her son, but Mother India may have represented a new, mythicised role model for women, one whose power often co-exists uneasily with its conservative functions.
Perhaps most interesting is Andaz, a drama, at least implicitly, of illicit desire. The story is about Nina (Nargis) who, while faithful to her absent fiancé (Raj Kapoor), relates vivaciously to an attractive young man (Dilip Kumar). The heroine is shown to be a naive innocent who cannot perceive that relaxed social relations between men and women can lead to misunderstanding, and this generates the tragic events that follow. Yet the narration moves beyond, or perhaps deeper into, its own fascination with the settings and mores of its upper class characters, introducing an interesting, fantastical ambiguity. Nina’s denials that she is attracted to a man other than her husband are put into doubt for the audience through scenes depicting the hallucinations and dreams that assail the heroine. In this way the “rustic” Mehboob was surprisingly well equipped to convey certain strikingly modern problems of sexuality and desire.
Mehboob had been neglecting health in spite of suffering Heart attacks. In May 1964, he suffered another attack but survived. His financiers were after him for repayment and he was worried. He called Rajendra Kumar and asked for a loan of 4 lakh rupees against his studio to be made in his name. Rajendra Kumar refused to take the studio and promised to give him the amount next day at 11 am, without any mortgage. In the evening, news of Nehru’s heart attack came. Mehboob became restless. Soon the death news came and Mehboob became grief stricken. Akhtar gave him sleeping pills, but he had to be admitted to Nanavati Hospital. He too died at 2 am on 28th May 1964. At the time of his death, Mehboob Khan was harbouring ambitions to make a film on the life of Habba Khatoon, the 16th century poetess-queen of Kashmir.
Mehboob Khan directed 8 films for Sagar, 3 films for National and 11 films for Mehboob productions.( based on information from Upperstall, “Mehboob Khan” by Shashikant Kinikar and my notes).
Today’s song is a video song in which you can see a young Nargis and Motilal. The song is sung by Shamshad begum and Motilal. Enjoy….
Song-Aap kyun kyun aap kyun aayenge (Taqdeer)(1943)Singers- Shamshad Begum, Motilal, Lyricist- Mahrul Qadri, MD- Rafiq Ghaznavi
Lyrics
aap kyun kyun aap kyun aayenge
aap kyun kyun aap kyun aayenge
meri aankhon mein ab tak wohi khwaab hai
meri aankhon mein ab tak wohi khwaab hai
dil usi roz se mera betaab hai
dil usi roz se mera betaab hai
kya ye barkha ke din
hmm hmm hmm
kya ye barkha ke din bhi guzar jayenge ae ae
aap kyun kyun aap kyun aayenge
aap kyun kyun aap kyun aayenge
dil ki majbooriyaan rang laane lagin
hichkiyaan yaad ban ban ke aane lagin
dil ki majbooriyaan rang laane lagin
hichkiyaan yaad ban ban ke aane lagin
dekho dekho
haan dekho dekho
dekho dekho ke hum aap hi aa gaye
tumne chaaha to phir roz hi aayenge
tumne chaaha to phir roz hi aayenge
aap kyun kyun aap kyun aayenge
aap kyun kyun aap kyun aayenge
hai ye sapna
hai ye sapna ke sach-much tum aaye yahaan
aan aan
hai ye sapna ke sach-much tum aaye yahaan
aan aan
dil ki aankhon se dekho ke hoon main kahaan
dil ki aankhon se dekho ke hoon main kahaan
mil na jaaye kahin
hmm hmm hmm hmm
mil na jaaye kahin ye zameen aasmaan
aan aan
tum kahaan main kahaan
tum kahaan main kahaan
aap kyun kyun aap kyun aayenge
aap kyun kyun aap kyun aayenge
aap kyun
Kis maarag se jaanaa musaafir
Posted on: March 21, 2024
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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Blog Day : |
5725 | Post No. : | 18245 |
Today’s song is from a stunt film Jungle Princess-1942.
This was a film with Tarzan’s story. The only difference here was that the ‘Tarzan’ was a GIRL ! The story behind this film is interesting.
The original story of Tarzan was written by Edgar Rice Burrows. It was written as a serial story in 1912 in the then popular magazine “The All Story”. It ran in 12 parts and all parts were published as a book “Tarzan of the Apes” In 1914. The book became a Best Seller and was translated in almost all European languages. When the Silent films started, the Tarzan story was picked up. The unknown fact is that this story was based on an actual true story. In 1868, a young English Nobleman – William Mildin was shipwrecked off the African coast. His 11 year old boy was saved and adopted by monkeys-Apes. After 15 years, some adventurers captured this boy, now a young man, and returned him to civilization.
The first silent film was made by MGM in 1918. Until 1929, 8 silent films were made on Tarzan. After the Talkie films started, the first film was also by MGM-“Tarzan-The Ape Man” in 1932. Johnny Weissmuller, a 5-time Gold Medal winner Olympian swimmer was in the role of Tarzan. Along with him, Maureen Sullivan, another swimmer was Jane. This pair did 12 films upto 1948. Later many films with different actors were made on Tarzan, the last being in 2006. The Tarzan story came on stage, Radio, T.V.,in animated form and as Video game.
In India, the first Indian avatar of Tarzan came as ” Zambo- The Ape man” in 1937, followed by ” Zambo ka beta” in 1939. I wonder why Indians are in a hurry to bestow sons and daughters to even fiction heros. Aladdin, Alibaba, Hatimtai and Sindbad were also not left out without a son or daughter ! After 1939, a film with the name Tarzan first time came only in 1963 with ” Tarzan aur Jadugar”. In a spate of Tarzan films, there were 21 Tarzan films till 1964 Another Indian avatar came in 1958 as ” Zimbo”. There were 6 Zimbo films till 1999.
Wadia Movietone was the premier studio making stunt/action films since 1933. It’s not that the Wadias did not want to make a Tarzan film. Their problem was that their STAR was a woman and she obviously could not do a Tarzan’s role. The imaginative Wadias found out a way and planned a film on a LADY TARZAN, who would just replace the male character. The rest of the basic story would be the same except a few changes to camouflage the blatant copy !
In an interview in 1990, Nadia describes how the film began-” One day JBH Wadia took me to a Circus having shows near our studios. He showed me 4-5 lions and said in your next film, you have to work with these,” I was scared to the bones and hurriedly refused point blank. He simply smiled and said ”just think about it “. When we were about to leave, I saw a small girl-about 8-9 years, enter one of the Lion cages and feed the Lion. I was stunned and thought, “If this small girl can do this, why can’t I ? I told JBH that I would do the film and work with the Lions too.”
Thus began the journey of one year training spent with the lions. Nadia became an expert in handling not only Lions, but also Tigers and Elephants.
The shooting of her famous “The Jungle Princess” started in 1941 and the film was released in 1942, around summer in India. This was a very ambitious, big budget Stunt film of Wadia Movietone-the Greatest Nadia film after “Hunterwali”-1935.
Cast of the film was: Fearless Nadia, Radha Rani, John Cawas, Sardar Mansoor, Baby Madhuri, Dalpat, Hari Shivdasani, Jal Khambata, Shahzadi, Mithoo Miya, M.K. Hasan, Jiji Bhai, Habib, Gulshan Sufi. The story was….
A merchant ship is caught in a powerful storm, and as the boat threatens to sink, Sir Mangaldas (M.K. Hasan) places a life preserver around his five year old daughter Lila (Baby Madhuri) just as she is swept out to sea.
The lone survivor among the passengers and crew, Lila finds herself washed up on the beach of a lonely jungle where she is befriended by a lion. Years go by and Lila, now known as Mala by the aboriginals, has grown into a young woman (Fearless Nadia) who rules over her animal kingdom and who has become the adopted daughter of the jungle King of Harambano (Hari Shivdasani).
Lila’s uncle Mohanlal (Dalpat) has decided to have the girl and her father finally declared legally dead so that he can become the heir to Sir Mangaldas’ estate. But then, word comes through that Lila might be alive! So a search party, led by Surendra (John Cawas), heads out to find her.
Traipsing through the jungle, Surendra comes face to face with a ferocious lion and kills it. Mala learns of this and has the group arrested for murdering her animal friend. Surendra is able to free them all, however, when he is allowed to fight a dangerous tiger as penance for his crime.Surendra falls in love with Mala, not realizing she is the girl he and his party have been searching for, in fact they have all been led to believe that Meena (Radha Rani), the king’s treacherous consort, is in actuality the missing Lila. Meena traps the group in the palace and forces them to accept her as Lila or die. Mohanlal agrees to this, but the rest decide to attempt an escape resulting in Mala being wounded and the king ordering the execution of Surendra and his cohorts. It is a pride of Lions which attack the soldiers and free Mala and the others. In the fighting Mohanlal and Meena die. The team of Surendra, Mala and others return to the city happily.
The story of Jungle Princess was written by Fearless Nadia who also acted as dance director on the film.
In the 1930s, just when the silent era was giving way to the talkies, there appeared on Hindi film screens a blue-eyed blonde who caused men to shame. Among the first of cinema’s audacious feminists, she challenged male dominance with such rousing lines as: “Don’t be under the assumption that you can lord over today’s women. If the nation is to be free, women have to be freed first.” This was in 1940, in a socialist-themed film titled Diamond Queen. The heroine was a 27-year-old upstart called Nadia.
Nadia leapt from windows, jumped off cliffs, swung from chandeliers, fought atop speeding trains, lived among wild lions and routinely lifted men and flung them like a wrestler. Above all, she acquired fame as a woman who cracked the whip. She did all this on her own, without any safety measures and health insurance. A messiah-like figure unfailingly coming to the rescue of the downtrodden and weak, Fearless Nadia was the female Robin Hood of her time.
Astride her pet horse, named Punjab Ka Beta for comic effect, the masked, whip-wielding Nadia was a sensation among filmgoers in the early era of Hindi cinema. A devout Catholic, born in Perth, Australia, Nadia or Mary Evans was voluptuous but athletic and “supple”, as she puts it. It is a matter of great debate how she found acceptance as a major Bollywood star in the conservative 1930s. It was a strange phenomenon, unparalleled in the history of Hindi cinema. Strange, because it involved a White woman breaking into a Brown male bastion. And strange also because it happened so early in the day, a time when the cinematic taste of British-ruled India was in infancy. Nadia was an experiment that somehow worked at a critical time in Indian cinema’s history.
“For the Indian public, Nadia was a visual disconnect from their reality. Maybe that’s why they cheered her on. I doubt if an Indian-looking woman would have been received in a similar manner,” surmises Roy Wadia, her great-nephew who was introduced to ‘Mary Aunty’s’ pictures as a young boy. And pictures, she made many.
Nadia was a creation of Wadia Movietone, a studio founded by Roy’s grandfather Jamshed Wadia that specialised in making stunt and mythological films. The studio made a fortune on the back of her swashbuckling stunts. It was quite by chance that she came into contact with the Wadias. Born of a Scottish father and Greek mother, she arrived in Mumbai, then Bombay, as a toddler. Her father, a soldier in the British army, was transferred to Bombay’s Elephanta Island in 1912. Shortly thereafter, the family occupied a small flat in Colaba. It is interesting to note that Nadia, who would endear herself to the masses as a stuntwoman, at first wanted to be a singer and dancer. At a young age, writes Dorothee Wenner in the actress’ German language biography Fearless Nadia, she ‘learned polkas and Scottish dances from her father and her first Greek songs from her mother.’
She went on to sing in church choirs in school, her real talent of swords-and-whips still years away. In 1915, her father’s untimely death at the hands of Germans during World War I prompted the family’s move to Peshawar. It was here that Nadia developed a soft spot for animals that found expression in her movies. Even as a girl, she was different. While girls her age played with fluffy soft toys, she kept a pony who became her best friend. The family was uprooted yet again when Mary and her mother decided to return to Bombay for good, barely after a few years of stay in Peshawar.
“I was fat and the best way to lose weight was to dance,” recalled Nadia, a plumper figure by now, well past her prime as she spoke in an interview for Roy’s brother Riyad Vinci Wadia’s documentary on her, titled The Hunterwali Story. Originally screened as part of a Nadia film festival in 1993, the documentary is a comprehensive look at her life and times. Since then, Riyad, too, has passed away.
As a young woman, Mary joined a troupe of the Russian dancer Madame Astrova. She had earlier tried her hand at a job in the Army & Navy Store in Bombay as a salesgirl and had at one point wanted to learn “short-hand and typing to get a better job”. Astrova’s troupe performed for British soldiers at military bases, for Indian royalty and for other crowds in dusty small towns and villages. She mastered the art of cartwheels and splits, which came in handy later during her film stunts. With circus experience under her belt, Nadia was ready for bigger things. It is believed that Mary changed her name to Nadia on astrological advice. An Armenian fortune teller had foretold her that a successful career lay ahead but she would have to choose a name starting with the letter ‘N’. Nadia was finally chosen because it was “exotic-sounding”.
Nadia’s fortunes did rise. The Lahore cinema owner Eruch Kanga spotted her in a performance and reported this to Jamshed and Homi Wadia, the Wadia Movietone brothers. An appointment was fixed and a nervous Nadia, togged up in a blue dress and sunflower-decked hat, took a tram from Wellington Mews in Colaba to the Wadias’ original studio in Parel.
The Wadia brothers, of an elite Parsi family, were shocked by how visibly Western she was. How can a White woman even think of becoming a heroine in Hindi films? When Jamshed told her that he had never heard of her before, she shot back: “Until now, I hadn’t heard of you either!” Impressed with her attitude, they decided to put her to the test. Initially, she was given walk-on parts in studio productions that were in progress at the time. Later, she was hired at a weekly salary of Rs 60. Once in the Wadia fold, she was instructed to learn Hindi.
“She always had difficulty speaking Hindi and had a very strong accent, but for some reason, the audience did not object,” says Roy. The Wadias, who were raised on a diet of American Westerns and who idolised Tom Mix, Francis Ford and Eddie Polo, started preparing to launch Nadia in a big way. And Hunterwali, the dramatic story of a princess trying to rescue her kidnapped father and salvage his empire, was considered perfect material for her launch. Inspired by Douglas Fairbanks’ Robin Hood, it was an unconventional, even radical, subject for Indian viewers. Jamshed Wadia wanted to model Nadia on American heroines like Pearl White, Grace Cunardand Helen Holmes. A progressive intellectual who entered film production despite his family’s objection, Jamshed Wadia was the brain behind her success.
“In the film’s publicity campaign, [he] hyped her as a stunt queen. For a long time, Wadia Movietone was known only for Hunterwali,” says Roy. The film opened at Super Cinema, in Bombay’s theatre hub of Lamington Road. Thrilled at seeing a White woman don a mask and crack a whip at her father’s tormenters, the male audience was left thirsting for more. Director Homi Wadia had landed a magic formula. And Nadia became Fearless Nadia, which, as Wenner mentions, was carefully ‘built into the publicity strategy.’ Through her career, her audience remained predominantly male, the working class to whom she provided entertainment, deliverance and catharsis in equal measure.
Hunterwali was only a prelude to a remarkable career. Emboldened by its success, in film after film, Nadia took up the cause of social injustice, education, women’s emancipation, corruption, land-grabbing and exploitation. With each film, her stunts became more daring and death-defying. “Homi made her do more and more outlandish stunts. She would be told to lift men up because of her strength and she would do it, without any fuss. She would just do a little sign of a cross on her heart like any devout Catholic and jump into the scene,” says Roy.
“I will try anything once,” she used to say.
The former editor of the film periodical Screen, BK Karanjia recounts visiting the sets of one of her films (possibly Diamond Queen). “To my considerable amazement,” he is quoted as saying in The Hunterwali Story, “she did every stunt in a sort of bindaas manner. She didn’t take herself seriously. She did not take her stunts seriously. She was never afraid, always laughing, whistling and joking.”
On a number of occasions, Nadia risked her life in the line of duty. “It came with the territory,” says Roy. In Hunterwali, she had to swing from a chandelier. She did the rehearsal perfectly but fell flat on her face from a great height during the final scene. Once, she almost got swept away in the strong currents of Bhandardara Falls near Bombay.
Her films usually had recurring stock characters, doing the same sort of stuff that viewers expected of them. There was the pet horse, Punjab Ka Beta, and the old faithful Gunboat, a sprightly dog. Her jalopy bore the name (again, rather comically) Rolls Royce Ki Beti. The villain was almost always the wicked Sayani, who in Homi’s words, “acquired a following of his own, famous as he was for scratching his jaws with an evil look in his eyes. His stock line, ‘Dekha jayega’ had become a catchphrase.” Typically, a Nadia film also starred John Cawas and Boman Shroff, two heavyweight bodybuilders who desperately sought acceptance as actors. There was also a ubiquitous father figure, a simpleton in dhoti, kurta and turban. How the blonde could pass off as an Indian villager’s daughter is beyond anyone’s comprehension.
Hunterwali was only a prelude to a remarkable career. Encouraged by the success of ‘Hunterwali’, films were made on the cause of social injustice, women’s emancipation, corruption, land grabbing and exploitation of the poor. She always played roles like King Arthur and Robin Hood.
Her films had a set of characters. There was her pet horse – Punjab Ka Beta, Gunboat the Dog and her jalopy was called Rolls Royce Ki Beti (later when Homi Wadia started Basant Pictures with her, there was Horse Rajput, Dog Moti and the car – Austin Ki Bachhi). In her films, usually the villain was Sayani (his stock line was “Dekha Jaayega”). John Cawas and Boman Shroff – the heavyweight bodybuilders usually played the Heroes.
Her stunts became more dangerous and death defying with every film. She did all her stunts herself, breaking her bones many times while performing them. From 1933 to 1968 she did about 43 films. Her pet name in many films (starting with ‘Hunterwali’) was Madhuri.
She had married and divorced early and also had a son. Later she was in love with Homi Wadia, but could not marry him due to the opposition of his mother. They married in 1961 after his mother died. She was 53 years old by then.
In her last days she was frequently seen in the lanes of Colaba in Bombay, taking her dogs for walks. In 1993, her great grand nephew Riyad Vinci Wadia made a documentary on her, in which she had appeared.
She was born on 8-1-1908 at Perth, Australia. She died on 9-1-1996 at Mumbai. (Adapted from various sources like an article by Shaikh Aiyaaz, blog cinemajadoo, book cinerang by Isak Mujawar, writings of Riyad Wadia, wiki and my notes.)
I met FEARLESS NADIA !
Nadia has a special place in my memories. Sometime in 1972, one of my friends, Mahesh Sharma, who lived in Colaba, Bombay, told me that he frequently sees Nadia in a Garden where he went for his morning walks. She lived near his apartments. Anxious to meet her and talk to her, I stayed with Sharma ji overnight. Next day morning, we both went to that garden. Sure enough, after some time Nadia entered the garden with two of her dogs. She sat on a bench and her servant took the dogs for their walks. Mahesh had a casual acquaintance with her. He greeted her and said ” this is my friend Mr. Deshmukh. He is your great fan”. I greeted her and recited names of her 10-15 films which I had seen. She looked suitably impressed. She smiled and we talked for a few minutes and left. Alas ! In those days, there was no Mobile phone, otherwise I would have had my photos with her as a prize possession. Anyway, I will never forget my meeting with her- the great Stunt Queen, The Fearless Nadia !
Let us now enjoy a song by Sardar Mansoor, from this film…..
Song-Kis maarag se jaanaa musaafir (Jungle Princess)(1942) Singer- Sardar Mansoor, Lyricist- Pt. Indra, MD-Madhavlal D.Master
Lyrics
kis maarag se jaana musaafir
kis maarag se jaana
na tumhen apni manzil ka poora pata thhikaana
na tumhen apni manzil ka poora pata thhikaana
kis maarag se jaana musaafir
kis maarg se jaana
tu kise dhoondhne aaya
kisne tujhe bulaaya
tu kise dhoondhne aaya
kisne tujhe bulaaya
kis par tu ho gaya deewaana
kis par tu ha gaya deewanaa
kaun tera deewaana
kaun tera deewaana
kis maarag se jaana musaafir
kis maarag se jaana
kya seekha teer chalaana
kya seekha teer chalaana
jo lage na thheek nishaana
jo lage na thheek nishaana
do pag seedhhi do pag tedhi aisi hai ye raah
idhar udhar jo laga dekhne wo hoga gumraah
idhar udhar jo laga dekhne wo hoga gumraah
na mitey(??) musafir khaana
na mitey(??) musafir khana
kis maarag pe jaana musaafir
Amar hai prem kee shakti
Posted on: March 13, 2024
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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Blog Day : |
5717 | Post No. : | 18236 |
Today’s song is from the film Gol Nishan-1936.
The first Talkie film came in 1931. The first year had just 24 films, but within a span of 3 years, the Talkie films crossed the century mark, with 121 films in 1934, 152 in 1933 and 134 in 1936. Making a film was a complicated process which needed a studio, the latest machinery and a lot of money. This was difficult for a single person and thus the Studio System got established. The studios ruled the industry and the film making. Films were sold on the names of the studios and the actors had secondary appeal to the audience.
There were three major film centres in 1936 – Bombay, Calcutta and Poona. In Bombay, studios like Imperial, Bombay Talkies, Sagar Movietone, Ranjit etc were big names. In Calcutta, New Theatres and East India Film Corporation were major players. Prabhat film company was famous from Poona. This was the position in 1936. Like any other industry, the film industry too needed an organisation of the big players, so that the workers had no upper hand on them. Accordingly, “Indian Motion Pictures Association” (IMPA) was established first in Bombay, followed by Bengal Motion Picture Association in Calcutta. Poona, being in the Bombay Presidency, did not have a separate organization.
1936 saw the formation of Huns Pictures by Master Vinayak and Baburao Pendharkar. The year was noteworthy for Prabhat Film company as one of its directors, Keshavrao Dhaibar had to leave the company, for marrying one of the company’s employee-actress Nalini Tarkhud and thus breaking the company’s rule not to marry an employee ! Much later, even V.Shantaram had to leave Prabhat when he married actress Jayashree, an employee of Prabhat !!
Let us now take a look at some important films of 1936….
The year was notable for the type of films it produced. The initial limitation of making films only on Mythologicals or folk stories slowly changed over to social issues and problems. As such, due to the British rule Indians had started following lot of western manners, dressing pattern and our traditions were giving way to modern ways of developing countries like the Europe or the America.
From Calcutta came 3 films of New Theatres, Manzil, Maya and Karodpati. Manzil was a love story of a rich boy and a poor boy loving the same girl. Maya was a story of a rich wayward girl and an orphan girl in her house loving the same boy. Karodpati was a comedy enacted by Saigal and Molina Devi.
Bombay Talkies had 4 films, but only 2 were note worthy. The first was Jeevan Naiya, which saw Ashok Kumar becoming a reluctant Hero (he was only a Lab-Technician) opposite Devika Rani. The other film was Achut Kanya – a film based on the ills of Untouchability.
The year 1936 was memorable because of films from Prabhat, which made the film Amar Jyoti, showing Durga Khote as a Lady Pirate. The film was made on Grand scale and in such a way that it was much ahead of its time !
The other important film was Sant Tukaram in Marathi. The film ran for one year in Bombay theatres. The role of the wife of Tukaram was done by an actress, who was a sweeper in the studio before this film, but she excelled in her role. Her name was Tanibai Davari. This was the first film to celebrate the Golden Jubilee at many places. It won the honour of ” One of the 3 Greatest films of the world” award at Venice Film Festival in 1937.
Sagar Movietone launched actor singer Surendra with the film Deccan Queen. The other film was Manmohan, which copied the film Devdas, by becoming a tragedy of a heart broken lover. Some other notable films were Sunehra Sansar by East India company, introducing Vijay Kumar from Shimla and K.N.Singh. K.N.Singh also debuted as a Hero in the only film Bandit of the Air from the same company. There were films like Jay Bharat from the Wadias, Passing Show from Prakash films and Said E Hawas from Minerva Movietone. Film Maa from Prafull Pictures used ” Vande Mataram” for the first time in a film. Film Shokh Dilruba had 150 kissing scenes (there was no restriction from Censors then). First Talkie Seeta Vivah from Orissa also came.
Today’s film Gol Nishan-1936 was produced by Navbharat Movietone, Bombay. This costume film was perhaps based on the famous story of Zorro by Johnston McCulley in 1919. It was based on a Mexican folktale. The immediate inspiration was from the silent film – The mark of Zorro-1920. In this film Zorro, the swordsman makes a sign of Z with his sword before leaving any place. In the Indian version, Gol Nishan, the masked Heroine makes a sign of a Zero, with her sword ! That is why the second name of this film was The mark of Zero. The cast of the film was Navinchandra, Gauhar Karnataki, Amrutlal, Brijmala and others.
The name Gauhar is a part of ” The Same Name Confusion”. We find a lot many Gauhars as singers or actresses, as following….
Gauhar Jaan of Sholapur-Singer
Gauhar Jaan of Patiala- Singer
Gauhar Jaan of Calcutta-Singer
Gauhar Sultana of Lucknow-Singer
Gauhar of the Parsi Theatre-Actress
Gauhar Mamajiwal-Actress and
Gauhar Karnataki- Actress
Gauhar Karnataki, heroine of the film Gol Nishan was the sister of the famous actress-Singer Amirbai Karnataki. Tabla player Hussain Khan, living in a small town Belagi, near Hubli, had 6 daughters. The first was Allamma(Ahilya),then Amirbai, next was Gauhar(Born in 1908), then a series of badi Munni,Chhoti Munni and Nanhi Munni. Son was Dastgir.
Being from a poor family, Amirbai and Gauhar(Gauramma) worked in a drama company called Vanivilas Natak mandali. Since Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum came under Bombay Presidency and were also near Sangli/Miraj and Kolhapur, the sisters were experts in Marathi too.
Brother Dastgir went on to study B.Sc and did a job in AIR, Belgaum. From the beginning only, Amirbai and Gauhar did not get on well with each other. Maybe professional jealousy. Gauhar got classical music training from a blind teacher Nilkanth Panchakshari Buwa. Great classical singer Mallikarjuna Mansur’s brother Basavanna wrote songs for Gauhar and also accompanied her on Harmonium.
Marathi singer actor Chaphekar took the sisters to Bombay for working in films. Gauhar and Chaphekar stayed as companions in Bombay for a few years. Meanwhile Gauhar got a daughter Ashamma. Her father’s name is not known. Ashamma remained with Gauhar till her death.
Gauhar started acting in Marathi and Hindi films. She acted, sang and also composed her own songs, but no records were brought out.
Gauhar was mesmerised by the famous Marathi singer actor BAL GANDHARVA. She first met him in 1937, in actor Himalayawala’s flat(Amirbai karnataki’s cruel Husband). It is widely believed that Gauhar used Black magic to attract Bal Gandharva to her. As expected he fell in her love and Gauhar joined his Balgandharva natak mandali in 1938. After her arrival into the mandali, all senior artistes left the company as they were afraid of Gauhar’s black magic.
From 1938, Gauhar remained with Balgandharva till she died in 1964. Balgandharva’s wife died in grief in 1940 and Gauhar married Balgandharva in 1951.
She acted in films like Raas vilas-32, Kala Pahad and Sohni mahiwal-33, Kala vagh and Shak karta Shivaji(M)-34, Pyar ki Maar-35, Bansriwala, Gol Nishan and Graduate-36, Kala Bhoot and Chabuk swar-37, Vijay Danka-38, Hawai khatola and Swadesh sewa-46. Chabuk sawaar-37 was a stunt film a-la Fearless Nadiya style wherein she did some stunts and fencing too. (Thanks to lifekidhun, warren senders, wiki and HFGK for some information used above.)
Gauhar is mentioned as Gauhar Karnataki or Gauhar from Bijapur in the HFGK. She must have sung at least 100 songs but since there were no records, there is no information. As her many films were C grade, no redords were issued even for them. However she has sung many Marathi natyageet and Bhajans. There can not be any comparison with her sister Amirbai since Amirbai was in a higher league and her records were also made. She had many composers and singers to sing along.
Here is some rare information of the film’s hero- Navinchandra…..
Navinchandra’s full name was Navinchandra N. Joshi. He was born in 1907 at Jambusar and belonged to a Gujarati Bramhin family. When he was studying Intermidiate, his dream was to do M.Sc. and become a Professor. He was very much interested in body building and was a weight lifter. He was expert in Long jump, High jump and Malkhamb too, along with yogasanas. This made his body solid. Fair and handsome physique was noticed by one of the seniors in his Gym and he was taken to Bombay to meet produced director Indulal Yagnik. He offered him a Hero’s role in a stunt film. Thus Navin entered the film line with first silent stunt movie “The fall of Pawagarh”-1928. It was produced by Indulal Yagnik and directed by Nagendra Mujumdar. His first Heroine was Iris Crawford. He worked in more than 20 silent films and was famous as the Hero of Stunt and action films.
His first Talkie film was Kala Pahad-1933 in which his Heroine was Gauhar Karnataki ( sister of Amirbai Karnataki and wife of Marathi stage artiste Bal Gandharv). The film was made by Sharda Movietone and directed by Baburao Apte (brother of actress Shanta Apte). Navinchandra acted in 33 talkie films, mostly stunt and action films. When the attraction of stunt films waned, he stopped getting roles, because stunt films were not being made now on roll. His last film was Jadui Putli-1946.
His age also caught up with him and he stopped getting films. He started doing small uncredited roles like an extra. The last information about him was when he was working as a Production manager in Imperial Film company, where now the studio was rented to other producers for shooting their films, by Irani’s heirs. One peculiar thing about Navinchandra was that except for the film’s required costume, he was always seen in Dhoti and Kurta only.
Today’s song was sung by Gauhar Karnataki. Lyrics were by Dr. Dhaniram Prem. Music Director’s name is not given in HFGK also. The songs sounds typically like a Natyageet, i.e. stage drama song. That was the trend in those times.
Enjoy this 88 year old song….
Song- Amar hai prem ki shakti(Gol Nishaan)(1936) Singer- Gauhar Karnataki, Lyricist- Dr. Dhaniram Prem, M.D.- Not known
Lyrics
aa aa
amar hai prem ki shakti
amar hai prem ka gaana
amar hai prem ki shakti
amar hai prem ka gaana
na koyee bhool saktaa hai
??? prem ka ??
na koyee bhool
jagat ke prembandhan pe
ae ae ae ae
ae ae ae ae
jagat ke prembandhan pe
bandhe hain
jagatswaami bhi
jo nirgun se agun ban pade
pade iss lok mein aanaa
jo nirgun
na jeeta hai koyee isse
na jeetegaa koyee isse
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
na jeeta hai koyee isse
na jeetegaa koyee isse
sabhee devon se badhkar
prem ka hi devtaa jaanaa
sabhee devon se badhkar
bithhaayee prem mandir mein hai
jiskee mooratee hamne
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa
aa aa
bithhaayee prem mandir mein hai
hai jiskee moortee hamne
usee ko devta samjha
usey Parmaatmaa maanaa
amar hai prem ki shakti
amar hai prem ka gaanaa
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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Blog Day : |
5710 | Post No. : | 18228 |
Today’s song is from an old film Paak Daman-1940.
Actually, I need not have written ” from an old film”, because my name is now firmly connected with old films only. This is in spite of my posts on a fair number of films and songs from 1970 to 2016 also. However branding and the label has stuck to me pucca.
We in India, love to brand everything. For example, Dilip Kumar was branded as’ Tragedy King’, as in his initial career, he had done tragedy roles and in 7 of his early films, he had ‘died’ at the end. However, he had also done a variety of roles including comedy roles in films like Aazad, Ram aur Shyam and many other social, comedy, historical, emotional, musical and other genres of films. But till he died, he carried the branding of ‘Tragedy king’. The same fate for Meena kumari as ‘Tragedy queen;, though she was a versatile actress and had done some comedy roles too.
Branding puts limits to performance. Those actors who are labelled as Comedians are never given serious roles and serious actors never get light comedy roles. For example, no one dared to give comedy roles to actors like Nazir Hussain, who was reportedly famous for refusing films if there were no weeping roles or dialogues like’ tumne apni khandan ki ijjat mitti mein mila dee’ etc.
Having expertise in doing something exceptionally well is one thing and forcing a label on the artiste is another story. The same thing happened in the case of Sohrab Modi. He started his career as an actor on the stage dramas and he excelled in doing Historical roles, needing long and forceful dialogues. He was an expert in that. However, when he started his own company,’ Minerva Movietone’, his first film was a social film ‘ Atma Tarang’-1937. This film dealt with the issue of Celibacy (Bramhacharya) in a lighter vein. The film flopped. In its first show, there were only 25 people to see the film, obviously people could not visualise him in any other role except historical roles with long and forceful dialogues as on the stage. Compelled, for the rest of his career he did what he was branded as.
Sohrab Modi’s elder brother Rustom Modi was an enthusiastic actor on stage dramas, He, along with friend Ittefaq, set up ” Subodh Natak Mandali” – a Theatre company in 1923. He helped Sohrab in stage acting and soon Sohrab became popular. He acted as Jehangir (Hamlet) opposite Naseem Bano (Ophelia) in the drama ” Khoon ka Khoon”, one of the biggest Urdu stage Hits of the 1920’s decade. Next drama was ” Saeed E Hawas’ in 1927. This too was a Hit.
Rustom Modi set up ” Stage film company” in 1935. The 2 Hit dramas ‘Khoon ka Khoon’ (based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet) and ‘ Saeed E Hawas (based on King John) were made into films, shot as the entire drama, in 1935 and 1936. However these were flops and the audience did not like the presentation format.
Sohrab modi understood that Talkie films were a different issue and started his own “Minerva Movietone’, making social and historical movies and prospered in that. His brother-Rustom Modi, however, continued with his Theatre group doing stage dramas. The third brother Keki Modi looked after distribution of films and arranging dramas. He controlled a chain of 27 Theatres in 10 cities in India. Rustom Modi had his own set of actors and actresses. With these, he produced the film Paak Daman-1940.
Paak Daman was first made in 1931, the very first year of the Talkie films. Then it was made in 1940 and finally it was made in 1957. Paak Daman was a popular stage drama of the early 1900’s. There were many versions of this story with minor variations,like names and places etc. The Parsi Urdu Theatre version was written by Agha Hashra Kashmiri, then famously known as ” Shakespeare of India”. The Parsi Gujarati plays were written by various authors. Syed Yawar Ali penned the script for the ” Moon Parsi Theatre”. The Alfred Drama Company had their own version of the story. In 1932, a film called ” Paak Daman Raqaasa aka Innocent Rakkasa or innocent Dancer or निर्दोष नर्तिका ” was made by Elephanta Movietone, Punjab. But I guess it was not one of these versions, just like the 1957 movie.
Paak Daman-1931 with Rampyari and Hyder Shah was based on a Gujarati play and Paak Daman-40 was written by Agha Hashra Kashmiri for the Urdu Parsi Theatre. This was a small budget movie, with a not so popular star cast. The film budget was limited and they could not do the advertising in regular newspapers or magazines. So what they did was to distribute handbills from a bullock cart, with local bands from those towns where the film was to be shown.
The film was produced by Stage Film Company and was directed by Rustom Modi. The film was censored on 20th October 1940 and released first in Lahore. Most of the film cast was drawn from Urdu Parsi Theatre to save money. Actors like Mohd. Ishaq (as Jaandaar, the King), Abu Baker(as drunkard), K.Pawar(as Bhangedi), Sonaba(as Afimi), Mehboob(as Baldy), Faqir Mohd(as Guardian) and Krishnabai as Dancer, were taken along with regular actors like Ghulam Mohammed(as Safadar Jung), Firoz Dastur(as Jameel). The female cast was Meera Devi(as Razia), Menaka Hyderabadi(as Sayeeda, the Heroine) and Leela Hyderabadi( as Nadira). These female actors were stage actresses from Urdu Parsi Theatre in the 1930’s. They had played these roles so often on stage that all the dialogues were by heart to them. They had done small roles in films but went unnoticed, perhaps due to being uncredited.
The story of the film was…..
The king Jahandaar was a Noble and honest ruler. He used to roam about in his kingdom in a Fakir’s disguise. In his absence, his close courtier Safdar jung used to look after the kingdom. Safdar was a cruel and immoral person. He had deserted his own wife Nadira, after fully enjoying her chastity.
A young man named Jameel had used a girl Razia and abandoned her. She complained to Safdar Jung. Jameel was caught and sentenced to death. Jameel’s sister was Saeeda. Beautiful Saeeda goes to Safdar and begs for cancellation of the death sentence. Safdar asks her to spend one night with him as a gift in return for this favour. He gives her time to think and come back.
While returning, Saeeda meets the Faqir( king in disguise), who enquires what is wrong. Saeeda tells him all. King is very angry. He discloses his identity to Saeeda and asks her to find and bring Nadira. The three of them hatch a plot.
Next day, Saeeda informs Safdar that she is ready to do as he wants, provided there is total darkness and no talk in that period. He gladly agrees. In the darkness of night Nadira replaces Saeeda and Safdar spends time with her, thinking that she is Saeeda.
Next day Nadira appears in Darbar and asks Safdar to take her back. The Faqir also reveals himself and Saeeda tells the truth of the night. Safdar is stunned. The king orders Safdar to take back Nadira and leave the court-if not he will be executed. Jameel is released but has to marry Razia.
The cast of the film was Firoze Dastoor, Mohd. Ishaq, K.M.Pawar (he was the Music Director also), Menaka Hyderabadi, Leela Hyderabadi, Meera and others.
Today’s song is sung by Menaka Hyderabadi. The songs sound boring and non melodious, but they have historical value. Manaka Hyderabadi makes a Debut on this Blog as a singer and the song is atleast 84 year old. Obviously, the style would be unfamiliar and hence seem boring.
Song- Piyo piyaa to tumhen (Paak Daaman)(1940) Singer- Menaka Hyderabadi, Lyricist- Not known, MD- K.M.Pawar
Lyrics
Piyo piyaa to tumhen
haa aa aa
Piyo piyaa to tumhen
mai ka pyaala bhar bhar ke pilaaun
bali jaaun
bali jaaun
piyo piyaa to tumhen
aa aa aa
Piyo piyaa to tumhen
mai ka pyaala bhar bhar ke pilaaun
bali jaaun
bali jaaun
ye mai ka pyaala
jee haan
isi pyaale ko mere chaahne waale
raaj dulaare
chaah ke pyaare ae ae
hahahahaha
hahahahaha
isi pyaale ko mere chaahne waale
raaj dulaare
chaah ke pyaare
ae ae ae
rangwaale
rangwaale
piyo piyaa to tumhen
aa aa aa
piyo piyaa to tumhen
mai ka pyaala bhar bhar ke pilaaun
bali jaaun
bali jaaun
rangeen(?)
aab e hayaat
is ka ek ek qatra
dil par sabke gul bane
haa aa haa aa
aan aan aan aan
ae kaanta ?? bal ho
chaar(?) piye
koyal bane ae ae
ae ae
ae ae
gaayan waako ??
haa aa aa aa aa
gaa sakti ho
tum
gawa sakta hai
ye
ye pyaale ko mere
chaahne waale
raaj dulaare
chaah ke pyaare
ae ae ae
rangwaale
rangwaale(hahahahaha)
piyo piyaa to tumhen
aa aa aa aa
piyo piyaa to tumhen
mai ka pyaala bhar bhar ke pilaaun
bali jaaun
bali jaaun
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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