Archive for the ‘“Fisherman” song’ Category
Paani ke raaja machhariyaa ho
Posted on: March 11, 2021
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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Today’s song is from a film of the early 40s – Apna Ghar-1942. One song from this film was discussed about 5 years back here. That makes today’s song its second song. This film was made by Circo Productions, belonging to a professional- Chimanlal Trivedi. The film was directed by Debki Bose. This was his first Hindi film in Bombay after he moved from New Theatres, Calcutta, due to some differences.
Debaki Kumar Bose, Bengali and Hindi director was born in Akalpoush, Burdwan Dist., West Bengal on 25-11-1898.He was the Son of a noted solicitor, Madhusudhan Bose. Influenced by Sisir Bhaduri, his teacher at Bidyasagar College, Calcutta (1920), he left university to join the non-co- operation movement of Calcutta Congress (1920). He was caught and jailed. After coming out,his father threw him out. He started selling ‘Gamachhas’ on the road. He started and Edited journal, Shakti, from Burdwan (1927-8). One day he was seen and hired by Dhiren Ganguly as actor and scenarist for Dinesh Ranjan Dass’ Kamonar Aagun (1930), Devotee of Vaishnava evangelical movement. He joined British Dominion Films (1927) as scenarist, then director.
He became friendly with the Cinematographer Krishna Gopal, with whom he went to Lucknow where they made a film ” A shadow of dead”. The film flopped and Debki returned to Calcutta, but Krishna Gopal was held hostage by the producers till he paid their investment. Debki took a loan from P C Barua and paid that amount to get Krishna Gopal released.
He joined P.C. Barua’s Barua Pics (1930), then entered New Theatres (1932-4) together with Barua, directing the studio’s first hit, Chandidas, after 7 consecutive flops by New Theatres.. This was the First film in India,with Background music. Its cinematic validation of a major stage genre – the quasi-legendary biographical – helped lessen Bengali cinema’s dependence on the Calcutta Theatres for its themes as well as its literary, musical and acting talent. Early work known mainly for his free and inventive approach to established genres, esp. the mythological and the Saint film, creating a Bengali quality cinema (e.g. Aparadhi and Chandidas). He was the one who promoted film music as a mix of Rabindra sangeet and Indian Classical music. It helped New Theatres to make its film songs popular all over India.
He also made Pooran Bhagat-1933. Handsome actor Mijjan (Syed Hasan Ali Zaidi) was the Hero. When the film was ready and about to be released,communal riots started in Calcutta,between Hindu and Muslims. After the peace returned,New Theatres was worried about Mijjan’s name in this Mythological film. Debaki kumar Bose,who hailed from a rich Zamindar family,told Mijjan “dont worry. From today I give you half of my name-Kumar.” Mijjan’s name became Kumar and he went on to become a big actor. After this,Debaki Bose himself never used the suffix Kumar to his name,in his life.
He made Rajrani Meera in 1933. During this film making he had a quarrel with director Nitin Bose and he decided to leave New Theatres.
After this he Went to East India Film (1934-6) where he made the lyrical Seeta which launched Prithviraj Kapoor and Durga Khote as a star duo. Seeta became the First Indian film to be sent to the International film festival at Venice. Here the film won a Diploma too and thus Debaki Bose was the first Indian artiste to win an International award for his film. He then Returned to New Theatres (1937-41), on invitation of B N Sarkar, making the classic Bidyapati.
In 1942 he left Calcutta and came to Bombay. His first film here as a Director was Circo’s Apna Ghar, made also in Marathi as ‘ आपले घर ‘. This also he directed.
His independent Debaki Bose Prod. (1945) with stars from the Hindi and Marathi cinemas paved the way for other Calcutta cine artistes after the decline of New Theatres in the early 40s. Made Arghya, a documentary on the caste system, based on four narrative poems by Tagore to celebrate the centenary of his birth. Debaki Bose was not just a director,but he was an actor (3 films),a producer (1 film) and also a writer (14 films). He was given the Sangeet Natak Academy award in 1957 and a Padmashree in 1958. He was India’s star director.
He died on 17-11-1971 at Calcutta. In his career of 31 years he made 50 films,in Bangla,Hindi,Marathi,Tamil and English.
FILMOGRAPHY: 1930: Kamaner Aagun (only act); Panchasar (also act); 1931: Aparadhi; Shadows of the Dead; 1932: Nishir Dak (all St); Chandidas; 1933: Puran Bhakt; Meerabai/Rajrani? Meera; Dulari Bibi; 1934: Seeta; 1935: Inquilab; Jeevan Natak; 1936: Sonar Sansar/Sunehra? Sansar; 1937: Bidyapati/Vidyapati?; 1939: Sapurey/ Sapera; 1940: Nartaki; Abhinav; 1942: Apna Ghar/Aple Ghar; 1943: Shri Ramanuja; 1945: Meghdoot; Swarg Se Sundar Desh Hamara; 1946: Krishna Leela; 1947: Chandrasekhar; 1948: Sir Shankarnath; 1949: Kavi; 1951:Ratnadeep/Ratnadeepam; 1953: Pathik; 1954: Kavi; Bhagwan Shri Krishna Chaitanya; 1955: Bhalobasha; 1956: Chirakumar Sabha; Nabajanma; 1958: Sonar Kathi; 1959: Sagar Sangamey; 1961: Arghya (adapted from Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema,with thanks)
The cast of the film Apna Ghar-42 was Shanta Apte, Chandra mohan, Maya Banerjee, Jagdish Sethi, Jeevan, Nimbalkar, Mahesh Kaul, David, Gope etc.etc. This film was also made in Marathi and that also was directed by Debki Bose. Chandra mohan, who started his career with Prabhat’s film Amrit Manthan-1934 could not act in its Marathi Version as he did not know Marathi. His role was done by Keshavrao Datey, in the Marathi version. Chandra Mohan felt very bad and with some difficulty started learning Marathi and in a period of few months he became fluent in it. With this added qualification he acted in 3 Marathi film versions, including Apna Ghar, which was titled ‘ आपले घर ‘. Hats off to his determination. The other two films were Jwala-38 and Geeta-40 ( he had a double role in it). He used to speak only Marathi on the sets of these films.
From the day silent films started being made, till today, thousands of people must have joined this film industry as actors and in many other departments, from a Clapper Boy to a big producer. By one estimate about 7000 people had joined film industry between 1913 to 2000. I wonder how so many people joined an industry which did not provide any security, nor did it assure continuous earnings. Leave aside the stigma of working in” films” in olden times, but this industry neither had permanent jobs nor a fixed income or a Pension. Take a look at any film-Silent or Talkie-only a handful people were credited. Later in the Talkie films, this list became larger. One can see this in any volume of HFGK of 30s or 40s. But then, if you exclude the names which got repeated in films, the total list of actors may not cross 2-3 thousand, perhaps. Then there were nother department people also.
Barring the main and known actors, most other actors are not even identifiable for the general public. Names without faces! Such actors constitute the bulk of numbers in the industry. If you take a look at the cast of a film, more than half of names are unknown or known by only repeat value in many films. These names have no faces. Information about them is not available in any books. They remain only names, replaced by other names after few years. The extras or junior artistes who are seen on screens in many scenes, throughout the film are also members of the industry.
Like any other language, there are writers and authors in Marathi too, who write on old films and old actors etc from the vintage Hindi films. One such author calls himself ” Babu Moshoi “. His articles are published regularly in newspapers, magazines etc. He has written several books. His real name is Hemant Desai. Another such writer in Hindi and Gujarati is Vithal Pandya. I have many such books in my library. Through these books I get to know old actors and their information, sometimes. I get surprised at many names as I read about some names about whom I had never known. For example, do you know who did King Dashrath’s role in films Bharat Milap-42 and Ramrajya-43, or the role of Kanva Muni in film Shakuntala-43 ? Who was the actress in Kaushalya’s role in Ramrajya-43 or Ram Vivah-49 ?
This actor was I.T. Nimbalkar and this actress was Shanta Kothari (nee Shanta Kumari). These were artistes from Silent film era, spilled over the Talkie films. They started as Hero and Heroine, but shifted to character roles, as the time went by. In our film industry, such cases are not new. In fact such type of actors who remained practically unknown to later generations of audiences, were highly respected by film people during shootings. Their seniority and work was respected.
This is a very good practice in the industry, by directors and other actors to give respect to old timers. Raj Kapoor used to send his car to fetch Bhudo Advani for shootings of film Boot Polish scenes. Hrishikesh Mukherjee kept special chair for Master Shiraz, during the shooting of film Guddi. He also ensured to feature Shiraz in the film credits. In one of the film related functions, I have myself witnessed how Amir Khan, Anil Kapoor and others treated yesteryear actress Susheela Rani, with great respect. These are only samples to stress what I have said. Not every such matter is published but it is a special feature of the industry.
I try to gather information on such unknown and forgotten artistes and write on them. Not everytime I am successful, but I have written about many such actors, directors, MDs etc. Some of them are Omkar Devaskar, Zunzar rao Pawar, Ganapat rao Bakare, Shankar rao Vazare, Naseem Junior, Shamim Jr, Altaf, Urmila, Ranjana, Kusum Deshpande, Vasant rao Thengadi, Jamshed ji etc etc. Today, we will know more about one such old time actor who was prolific and worked in films of Bombay and Calcutta.
I.T. Nimbalkar aka Indurao T. Nimbalkar ( he was always credited as only ‘ Nimbalkar ‘ in all films) was born on 6-12-1893, in Kolhapur state. This was the time Kolhapur was slowly developing as Kalapur (hub of arts) and the seeds of film making were being planted there. Baburao Painter, one of the original film makers had started his ” Maharashtra Film Company” on 1-12 1917.
Baburao, Damle, Fattelal etc were taught painting By Anandrao painter, who was an extraordinary painter of those times. All these people, along with V Shantaram, Keshavrao Dhaiber and few more also joined Baburao painter’s Maharashtra Film company. True that, film making had started even earlier in Maharashtra, but Baburao painter is credited with making films a form of art and spreading it on a larger canvas of India.
Indurao Nimbalkar grew up in this atmosphere in Kolhapur. He passed his Matriculation exam and also did a diploma in Printing. Nimbalkar was six feet tall and had a good physique. He was expert in riding, swimming and wrestling. He did 1000 sit-ups every day. Shahu Maharaj, the king of Kolhapur encouraged all arts as well as development of lower castes. Arya Samaj had a ‘ Gurukul’ in Kolhapur. Impressed with Nimbalkar’s education and body, Shahu ji appointed him as Editor of the weekly ‘ Arya’ and secretary of Gurukul.
One day Baburao Painter, along with assistant V Shantaram visited his press and offered Nimbalkar a role in his proposed film Sairandhri. Shahu Maharaj also permitted and encouraged him ,so Nimbalkar joined the film line. He was already famous due to his fiery editorials and now people came to see his shootings too. However, due to money shortage, the film did not complete. ( It was later made in 1919, but with different cast. V Shantaram made coloured Sairandhri in 1933 with Nimbalkar again).
Nimbalkar acted in many silent films like Baji Deshpande, Khazanchi (directed by Moti Gidwani- England returned), Lanka, Kismet (directed by Baburao Patel) etc etc. After the closure of Maharashtra F. Co., Nimbalkar was invited by V Shantaram to do Vishvamitra’s role in its first Talkie film ” Ayodhya ka Raja” -1932, in Hindi and Marathi. After this, he did Jalti Nishani-32, Sairandhri-33, Maya Machhindra, Sinhagadh etc.
After this, Nimbalkar went to Calcutta on invitation and worked in films made by Radha Films, Laxmi Studios, Devdatta films and New Theatres. From 1934 to 1938, he acted in 12 Hindi films. He was provided a Bungalow, car with driver, servants etc. His son studied in local school there. Returning to Bombay he worked as an assistant director to Keshavrao Dhaiber for film ‘Nandkumar’, made by his Jayashree Films. Next 2 years he shuttled between Calcutta and Bombay. He did King Dashrath’s role in Prakash films’ Bharat Milap-42 and Ramrajya-43 in this period.
He was invited by V Shantaram for acting in his first film under banner of Rajkamal- Shakuntala-43. Nimbalkar did the role of Kanva Muni in it. He later also acted in Jeevan yatra, Subah ka tara, Parchhain, Teen batti char rasta, Toofan aur Diya, Z Z Payal baje. Earlier he did Aapki sewa mein, prarthana,Nal Damayanti, Seedha Rasta, Gokul, Apna Ghar, Maharathi karna, Seeta Swayamvar. He worked in Pyasa, Mera Naam Joker, Amar Prem etc etc. From 1928 to 1970 he acted in over 250 films.
His wife Sushila was also educated and looked after his home and children. She never visited any sets in her life time. Nimbalkar died on 17-1-1973 at Kolhapur. (Thanks to an article in book Chandraat-चांदरात by बाबू मोशाय ).
Today’s song is sung by Shanta Apte, an unknown male and Chorus. This could be one of the early Fishermen songs.
Song-Paani ke raja Machharia ho (Apna Ghar)(1942) Singers- Shanta Apte, unknown male, Lyrics-Pt Narottam Vyas, MD-Harishchandra Bali
chorus
Male voice + chorus
Shanta Apte + Male voice + chorus
Lyrics
Paani ke raja Machharia ho o o
mahariya ho
paani ke raaja
ho paani ke raaja
machhariya ho o o
mahariya ho
nadi pe jaana
jaal bichhaana
nadi pe jaana
jaal bichhaana
machhri pakadna patariya ho o
machhri pakadna patariya ho o o o
mahariya ho
Paani ke raja Macheria ho o o
mahariya ho
laayenge seepi
seepi ke moti
laayenge seepi
seepi ke moti
moti jadaau gagariya ho
moti jadaau gagariya ho o o
mahariya ho
chaandi ki hansulee
sone ke jhumke
chaandi ki hansulee
sone ke jhumke
laana rangeelee chunariya ho
laana rangeelee chunariya ho o o
mahariya ho
shaan se aayenge
cheezen bhi laayenge
shaan se aayenge
cheezen bhi laayenge
jaise bahaadur sipahiya ho
jaise bahaadur sipahiya ho o o
mahariya ho
roti khilaayengee
hukka pilaayengee
roti khilaayengee
hukka pilaayengee
tumhree sajaayen sejariyaa ho o
tumhree sajaayen sejariyaa ho o o
mahariya ho
raani ke raaja
hum paani ke raaja
tum raani ke raaja
This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
In Hindi movies, the lead pair would often find themselves in the company of a comunity of washermen, fishermen, vilage folks, jungle folks etc. One can be sure that this situation will invariably lead to a song situation in which the lead pair would figure prominently.
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