Archive for the ‘Kumar Sanu-Sadhana Sargam duet’ Category
Phool jahaan khilte hain
Posted on: December 21, 2023
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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In Hindi film industry, there are a large number of artists and technicians whose hard work contributes to the making of films. But a vast majority of them remain unknown to public at large. For example, if I want to know as to who played a particular musical instrument in prelude, interlude, or postlude music of a song which I liked, there is no way to know the names of the musicians in the film as they were not credited in the films’ credit rolls until the recent times.
In this article, I am presenting an unknown artist who was connected with the Hindi film music for nearly 5 decades. Most of us would have appreciated his works in Hindi film songs without knowing his identity because he had never been credited in the films. He is the man behind almost all the whistles one hears in many songs since 1974. He has played whistles in over 1600 films – both in the songs as well as a part of background music. There are some songs in which his whistling is remembered, like do deewaane ek shahar mein – Gharonda (1977), so gaya ye jahaan so gaya aasmaan – Tezaab (1982), ilu ilu – Saudaagar (1991), sapne mein milti hai – Satyaa (1998), chaand sifaarish jo karta hamaari – Fanaa (2008) and over one thousand more. He was a low-profile artist until the on-line media in the recent times made him known to the public. His name is Nagesh Surve.
A question that comes to my mind is what is so special about whistling by Nagesh Surve which other whistlers do not have. The answer is first, Nagesh Surve can whistle in accordance with the musical notations given by the music directors. Second, he has a God-given gift on his control over the breathing and pushing out the correct air pressure while whistling to generate variations to the sound of whistle as required without breaking the sound. Lastly, he is a Sangeet Visharad from Bhatkhande School of Music which gives him an added advantage of whistling as per the tenets of music. It is for these reasons that Nagesh Surve had almost monopoly in Hindi film music circles as a whistler since 1974 until his daughter, Rupali Surve has emerged as a professional whistler in Hindi film music in recent times.
The life-sketch of Nagesh Surve is not only interesting but it is a role model for those who wish to pursue a vocation in which one is seriously interested. Born in 1949 on Naag Panchami day (hence the name, Nagesh) in Shivaji Park area of Mumbai, his father was working in the secretariat of then Bombay State while his mother was a school teacher. None of his family members had any background of music. Nagesh was blessed with the neighborhood of persons in the music field. Pandit Ramprasad Sharma and music director, Vasant Prabhu stayed in his neighbouring buildings. Vasant Desai stayed on the third floor of his school building who would be ‘in-house’ guest at school functions. V D Savarkar who stayed in an adjoining building of the school used to visit his school for chatting with the students. At that time, Nagesh did not know much about Veer Savarkar. It was very much later he came to know that he had spent some time of his childhood with a great freedom fighter.
Nagesh used to visit Pandit Ramprasad Sharma’s house quite often to meet Pyarelal and his brothers with whom he used to play cricket. He observed that there were a good number of children who came to learn violin from him. Nagesh also join them and learnt violin from Pandit Ramprasad Sharma. Due to injury to his ring finger, Nagesh had to give up playing violin for a couple of years during which he learnt Sitar. During his school days, Nagesh often used to visit Shri Sound Studio where his classmate’s father used to work. His interest in music started with learning from Pandit Ramprasad Sharma. The frequent visits to Shri Sound Studio attracted him to the world of Hindi film music. He dreamt of becoming a music director.
After completing matriculation, Nagesh joined Bhavan’s College with music as his main subject. The college’s music faculty was attached to Bhatkhande Music University, Lucknow. Nagesh completed his Sangeet Visharad and joined as a violinist with Shankar-Jaikishan. Thereafter, he worked mostly as a free-lancer, working with Shankar-Jaikishan, S D Burman, R D Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Rajesh Roshan, Anand-Milind, Jatin-Lalit etc, playing mostly Sitar and Violin. Sometime, he had also played Taar Shehnai, for example, in ‘Chaandni’ (1989).
There is an interesting trivia as to how Nagesh became a professional whistler in the Hindi film songs. One day, a song recording session was cancelled. So, all the musicians and the arranger, Kishore Sharma who had assembled in the recording studio, decided on an impromptu picnic to Aarey Colony. All were walking in Aarey forest when Kishore Sharma, the music arranger with Kanu Roy heard Nagesh whistling. He found uniqueness in his whistling. He immediately decided that he would use his whistling in Kanu Roy’s song recording scheduled on the next day where Nagesh was to play violin. Thus, Nagesh began his career as a whistler in addition to being a musician.
Within few days after the recording of the song with his whistle, the news spread through musicians to other music directors that Nagesh’s whistling was very unique. Rajesh Roshan invited him to whistle for the song in ‘Julie’ (1975). The producer of ‘Gharonda’ (1977) wanted Jaidev to incorporate Nagesh’s whistle in all the three songs which became very popular. Thereafter, it became a trend to include whistling by Nagesh not only in songs but also in background music. In Heropanti (2014), Nagesh played the whistle in the song, ‘whistle baaja’ picturised on Tiger Shroff to the tune of a flute rendition in ‘Hero’ (1983), picturised on Jackie Shroff.
Nagesh’s greatest moment of his life was in 2006 when one of his friends took Nagesh’s recording of Raag Yaman Kalyan in his whistle and requested Ustad Bismillah Khan to listen. After his listening was over, Ustad ji was told that it was recorded in whistle. He was surprised because he thought that it was a flute recital. Nagesh has been experimenting with whistling some of the popular Hindustani classical raagdaari music. He says that there is some limitations in whistling because of its limited range. Whistling is not possible in low and very high octaves because low octaves will not produce the sound to the extent required and high octaves would break the sound of the whistle.
Nagesh had dreamt of becoming a music director. But in the event, whistling became his main profession. However, in 1977, he got a chance to compose music for a Marathi film, ‘Banya Baapu’ (1977). He gave music direction by adopting a new name, ‘Rishi Raj’. Despite the low budget for music in Marathi films, he used 80-piece orchestra in a couple of songs, thanks to the generosity of his musician-friends. The songs became very popular. Thereafter, he composed songs for about half a dozen Marathi films.
During the peak career of Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Nagesh had given background music to many of their films. However, he did not get credit. Those days, it was not the practice to mention the name of background music director as it was expected that the music director would also handle the background music. Nagesh is disappointed that despite whistling in more than 1600 films so far, he has never been credited on the films’ credit title as such while now a days even a tea boy on the set gets credited.
‘Zakhmi Dil’ (1994) was the only Hindi film for which Nagesh Surve was the music director under the pseudo name, Rishi Raj. The film was produced by Damodar Mudaliar and was directed by Raju Subramanian. The cast included Akshay Kumar and Ashwini Bhave in lead roles supported by Ravi Kishan, Anjali Mudaliar (debutant), Moon Moon Sen, Mehmood, Bindu, Dr Shriram Lagoo, Brij Gopal, Raza Murad, Sudhir Dalvi, Promod Muthu etc. It was a typical mainstream masala film which flopped at the box office.
I watched the film which was an absolute crap. The film is a love triangle with the one-sided involvement of a third girl. The gist of the story of the film is as under:
Jaidev (Akshay Kumar) and Gayatri (Ashwini Bhave) are childhood friends who love each other. However, their marriage plan is thwarted by Gayatri’s father, a landlord who wants her to marry a boy of his choice. They get separated. Akshay Kumar shifts to Mumbai and becomes a successful music director, owning a music company. Mala (Moon Moon Sen) is Jaidev’s lead singer.
Gayatri gives birth to her love child. One day, Gayatri with her child comes to Mumbai and visits Jaidev’s house. She meets Mala who falsely introduces herself as the wife of Jaidev. Gayatri is shocked and goes back to her village without Jaidev knowing that she had visited his house. Jaidev terminates the contract with Mala for her casual approach in her singing. Jaidev is scouting for a new singer, and he finds Vandana (Anjali Mudaliar) who turns out to be an excellent singer.
Jaidev falls in love with Vandana without her being aware of it. However, Vandana is already in love with Abhimanyu (Ravi Kishan) and visits him in Darjeeling. After returning from Darjeeling, both Vandana and Abhimanyu meet Jaidev. Now knowing that they both are in love, Jaidev plans to get them married. However, Jaidev’s business rival (Raza Murad) gets Abhimanyu killed and is planning to eliminate Vandana so as to affect Jaidev’s music company. In this plan, Jaidev’s ex-singer helps him.
Vandana is in a depressed mood. Jaidev reveals her that he had been in love with her and if she agrees, he will marry her. She agrees and they plan to get married. One day, Vandana accidentally meets Gayatri and comes to know the true background. However, Vandana prevents her from meeting Jaidev who is once again unaware of Gayatri’s attempt to meet him. On the wedding day, Vandana gets killed by Jaidev’s business rival. Jaidev is reunited with Gayatri.
‘Zakhmi Dil’ (1994) had 7 songs all written by Sameer which were set to music by Rishi Raj (Nagesh Surve). There is a trivia narrated by Nagesh which is the part of Bollywood politics. He was not invited to the premier of this film. Even film journalists were prevented from interviewing him on the eve of the film’s release. After the release of the film, he had got a couple of offers to compose music for Hindi films. But due to non-availability of song recording studios for month (due to monopoly of the top music directors), the offers went to other music directors. Those days, underworld had a strong grip over the Hindi film fraternity.
I am presenting the first song, ‘phool jahaan khilten hain’ from the film to appear on the Blog. The song is rendered by Kumar Sanu and Sadhana Sargam. This is the first song in the film in which Jaidev and Gayatri in their childhood rehearse the song with their teacher, Sudhir Dalvi outside the school and starts playing afterwards. This scene takes the transition from their childhood to adulthood and sing this song of mutual love. The song is picturised on Akshay Kumar and Ashwini Bhave.
Note: The life sketch of Nagesh Surve and his musical career is mainly based on his two-parts interview taken by Vividh Bharati which is available on a video sharing platform.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Phool jahaan khilte hain (Zakhmi Dil)(1994) Singers-Kumar Sanu, Sadhana Sargam, Lyrics-Sameer, MD-Rishi Raj (Nagesh Surve)
Both
Chorus
Lyrics (based on audio clip):
aa aa aa aaa
aa aa aa aaa
aa aa aa aaa
aa aa aa aaa
sa re ga
pa ga
sa re ga ma re
gaao
tum bhi gaao
re ga ma
dha ma
pa re ma ga
gaao
sab mil ke gaao
sa re ga
pa ga
sa re ga ma re
re ga ma
dha ma
pa re ma ga
phool jahaan khilte hain
premi wahaan milte hain
log yahaan jalte hain
chalo door chhup jaayen..en
nazar ham na aayen…en
phool jahaan khilte hain
premi wahaan milte hain
log yahaan jalte hain
chalo door chhup jaayen ..en
nazar ham na aayen..en
phool jahaan khilte hain
boloon main kuchh na boloon
bole mere kangnaa
tere siwaa saathhiyaa
bhaaye koi rang naa
yaad karoongi
main teri baaten
ho hoti rahegi ye mulaakaaten
doli leke aaja mere angnaa
doli leke aaja mere angnaa
phool jahaan khilte hain
premi wahaan milte hain
log yahaan jalte hain
chalo door chhup jaayen..en
nazar ham na aayen..en
phool jahaan khilte hain
maine kiya hai yahi faislaa
tujhse kabhi door rahna nahin
jo baat dil mein hai mere sanam
bairi zamaane se kehna nahin
saathh jiyenge
saathh marenge
ho pyaar kabhi kam
ham na karenge
mil ke na doori kaa dard sehnaa
mil ke na doori kaa dard sehnaa
phool jahaan khilte hain
premi wahaan milte hain
log yahaan jalte hain
chalo door chhup jaayen..en
nazar ham na aayen..en
phool jahaan khilte hain
premi wahaan milte hain
log yahaan jalte hain
chalo door chhup jaayen
nazar ham na aayen
phool jahaan khilte hain
[sargam]
haa aaa aaa
haa aaa aaa
haa aaa aaa
haa aaa aaa
haa aaa aaa
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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