Archive for the ‘Post by Sadanand Kamath’ Category
Nahin boloon nahin boloon
Posted on: April 6, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
TAMASHA (1952) was produced by Ashok Kumar and Savak Vacha under the banner of Bombay Talkies. When the film was conceptualised, both Ashok Kumar and Savak Vacha were contemplating leaving Bombay Talkies after handing over the management to the Workers’ Cooperative. Under the new management, three films – ‘Mashaal’ (1950), ‘Maa’ (1952) and ‘Tamaashaa’ (1952) were produced. Unfortunately, all these films did not get the commercial success plunging the Workers’ Cooperative into serious financial debt. Ashok Kumar, Dev Anand, Meena Kumari and many others tried to rescue it by offering to work free for its films. The trio – Ashok Kumar, Dev Anand and Meena Kumari and others worked for the banner while making ‘Baadbaan’ (1954). Unfortunately this film also failed miserably at the box office thus bringing down the curtains on Bombay Talkies Limited, the first listed company from Hindi film industry on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
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Hamri munder boley kaaga sakhi ri
Posted on: April 5, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
I had never heard the name of Hindi film BAABLA (1953) until one of the film’s songs raat ke raahi thhak mat jaana was posted on this blog a few months back. The information about this film on the internet is scanty. The director/s and the most of actors of the film appear to be from Bengali film industry. As per IMDB, the film had two directors – N B Agrami and Bibhuti Laha, the latter also was the Cinematographer for the film. The cast of the film included Paresh Banerjee, Manju Dey, Hiralal, Master Niren, Pahadi Sanyal, Sova Sen etc. The film was produced under the banner of M P Productions which had earlier produced films like ‘Jawaab’ (1942), ‘Hospital’ (1943), ‘Tum Aur Main’ (1947) etc.
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Ghadi ghadi poochho na jee
Posted on: April 4, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Anil Biswas seemed to be one of the most admired personalities among the Hindi film actors, singers and poets. It was said that his house used to be full of film personalities most of the time.He stayed in Dadar At that time which was a central point for visiting most of the studios such as Ranjit Studios, Famous Studios, Sri Sound Studios, Jyoti Studios etc. Some times I feel that his house was used for what is called in today’s parlance as a ‘networking’ place. As it was often said, music directors those days held each other in high esteem and did not mind sharing information of mutual interest. I think that in the initial stage of Lata Mangeshkar’s career, apart from her beautiful voice, Anil Biswas had a major share in shaping her playback singing career along with Master Ghulam Haider. Apart from grooming her in attaining perfection in playback singing, he introduced her to Raj Kapoor for songs in ‘Barsaat’ (1949) which was her first collaboration with Raj Kapoor. He may have probably introduced her to some more producers and music directors in the late 40s.
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Ramaiyya bin neend na aawe
Posted on: April 3, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
In the 30s and 40s, two groups of female actor-singers emerged prominently. The first group excelled in both acting and singing. Barring a few exceptions, they confined to playback singing on themselves. This group consisted mainly of Khursheed, Kanan Devi, Noor Jahan and Suraiya. The second group though started their filmy career as actor-singer in a smaller way, later they concentrated mainly on playback singing. This group comprised mainly of Rajkumari, Amirbai Karnataki, and Zohrabai Ambalewaali.
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Aayi milan ki bahaar re
Posted on: April 2, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
The admirers of both Anil Biswas and Mohammed Rafi are intrigued by the fact that Anil Biswas collaborated with Mohammed Rafi for far less number of songs – probably 10 in numbers. One possible reason could be that when Mohammed Rafi ‘s career as a playback singer was picking up, Anil Biswas’s career had already reached the zenith. During this period, he had Mukesh and Talat Mehmood for playback singing who were preferred over Mohammed Rafi by most of the then lead actors like Dilip Kumar.
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Naach re mayuraa
Posted on: April 1, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
During my younger days, Radio Ceylon (later Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation) and Vividh Bharati service of all India Radio (Aakashvani) were the two sources on which I used to listen to Hindi film songs’ programmes. I got to know only sometime in late 60s that Aakashvani stations were not broadcasting Hindi film songs prior to the setting of Vividh Bharati in 1957. Later I came to know that this policy decision was taken by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in 1952 when Dr B V Keskar, the then Information and Broadcasting Minister felt that Hindi film songs had become vulgar and westernised. It was decided that some songs having literary value such as those written by poets like Bhagwati Charan Verma and Pandit Narendra Sharma should be turned into songs and played on Aakashvani in place of Hindi film songs. It is said that some of such songs were composed by Anil Biswas. It was during this time that Lata Mangeshkar sang her first non-filmy song ‘yug ki sandhya krishak vadhu si’ written by Pandit Narendra Sharma and composed by Anil Biswas during. Unfortunately, this song’s disc was damaged during its first play on the radio and was thus lost forever.
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Aankhen keh gayin dil ki baat
Posted on: March 31, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Most of of the present generation of music lovers may not remember Shiv Dayal Batish ( S D Batish), the classical musician, vocalist, playback singer and music director. During his filmy career in 40s and 50s, he composed music for 19 films (including 2 films with his pseudo name of Nirmal Kumar) and sang about 100 songs. His music compositions for Hindi films are generally labelled as Lahore style of Hindi film music which was used by Lahore based music directors like Pandit Amarnath, Pandit Govindram, Master Ghulam Haider, Shyam Sundar, Khurshid Anwar etc. S D Batish was the cousin of other Batish brothers – Pandit Amarnath, Husnlal and Bhagatram. It is said that originally, the family surname was ‘Vats’ ( or Wats) which became ‘Vatish’ and then to ‘Batish’.
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Jaana na dil se door
Posted on: March 30, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
During 1948-50, Dilip Kumar-Kamini Kaushal was a much talked about lead pair having worked in ‘Shaheed’ (1948), ‘Nadiya Ke Paar’ (1949), ‘Shabnam’ (1949) and ‘Aarzoo’ (1950). All these films were successful at the box office. Then why is it so that this successful lead pair did not work together in any films after ‘Arzoo’ (1950)? There is a story behind it but before that let me share Kamini Kaushal’s profile in brief which I found unusual and interesting. Some highlights of her profile including the reason for not working with Dilip Kumar after ‘Arzoo’ (1950) are given below:
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Udaasiyon mein nazar kho gayi
Posted on: March 29, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Majrooh Sulatanpuri’s filmy career as a lyricist started with ‘Shah Jehan’ (1946) under the music direction of Naushad. In the same year, he also wrote lyrics for ‘Keemat’ (1946) for which Naushad was the music director. It was only after the success of ‘Andaz’ (1949) that Majrooh Sultanpuri got his foothold in Hindi film industry. Unfortunately, this success was short lived as he was arrested in 1949 for his anti-establishment poems. He was given an option of either to apologise or face two years of prison. He opted for the later. At the time of his arrest, he was writing lyrics for the film ‘Aarzoo’ (1950) and it was his first collaboration with the music director Anil Biswas. This film also became a hit and all the songs including the iconic song ae dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal became very popular.
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Shammi Kapoor had acted in over a dozen films as a lead actor in early 50s, most of which flopped at the box office. Chor Bazaar (1954) was one film. It was produced under the banner of All India Pictures and it was directed by P N Arora. The star cast included Shammi Kapoor, Sumitra Devi, Chitra, Om Prakash, Kammo, Amir, Cuckoo. Parshuram etc with a guest appearance by Wasti. This film had six songs all written by Shakeel Badayuni and set to music by Sardar Malik. I remembered the name of this film only because of an immortal song “huyi ye hamse naadaani teri mehefil mein aa baithhe” from this film which I had heard on my younger days on radio. Recently, I had seen this film on the VCD that I have with me. As usual with almost all VCDs of old films, the film lacks continuity in some places because of lots of cuts. I did not find one song ” Har dar ki thokerein hain” sung by Lata Mangeshkar in the VCD.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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