Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs

This article is written by Avinash Scrapwala, 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.

#the Decade of Eighties – 1981 – 1990 #
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(“The Musical Mehtas” – Neena Rajendra Mehta)

In my journey of listening of music and collection of cassettes there was a phase in 1986 when I was introduced to ghazals. I may have been listening ghazals from films but then I was not aware more about this genre and also of the many non-film ghazals already making their foray in the music industry. It was because of my boss who was from Punjab and a great admirer of ghazals that I got to listen to the so many gems from this genre. I was staying at Parli Vaijnath then. It would be appropriate here that I reproduce some part of the text (edited) which I had written earlier in my post for the song “Sarakti Jaaye Hai Rukh Se Naqaab Aahista Aahista” here on the blog which will give a background for today’s article too.

My first introduction to ghazals came about in 1986. Before that it was all songs, sad songs or slow songs for me. In 1985-86 I had taken up a job and my boss was a Punjabi from Chandigarh. He was fond of ghazals and I was fond of old Hindi film songs. My boss had with him a good collection of audio cassettes of ghazals by Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Jagjit Singh and others. I got to listen to ghazals of various singers like Anup Jalota, Pankaj Udhas, Ashok Khosla, Chandan Das, Talat Aziz, Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hassan and Jagjit Singh from my boss’s collection. Every new release then was awaited eagerly and grabbed as early as possible. It was all a new experience for me then.

There was one more name which was a ‘couple’ – singers of ghazals, of which the cassette was in my boss’s collection. I am sure it was. In between all these years I had forgotten this name but I am sure the hardcore ghazal listeners would never forget it. Few months back I came across today’s song and it reminded me of the ghazal listening era in my life which gradually had taken a backseat since long and faded out after emergence of internet and YouTube. Nowadays though we listen to lot of music it is not like those days when we used to play ghazals on cassettes and listen to them for long hours.

In September 1988 I was transferred to Koradi Site (near Nagpur) from Parli Vaijnath and from Koradi I was transferred to Kota-Rajasthan in November 1988 end. I stayed at Kota till 14^th August 1996. During my stay at Kota I had made many friends and it was our routine for many years to enjoy evenings over drinks, food and listening to ghazals. The majority of the music albums I had in my collection then were of Jagjit Singh-Chitra Singh. But before Jagjit Singh and Chitra, there was another ‘singer couple’ who pioneered the ‘ghazal singing by a couple’. They were known as Musical Mehtas. Yes, I am talking about Neena and Rajendra Mehta.

The era of Rajendra Mehta (1934 – 03.11.2019) and Neena Mehta (12.04.1942 – 26.04.2014) dates back to the time when I was yet to born. They started their journey of singing together in 1966-67. (I was born in 1968). Rajendra Mehta came from a Punjabi Sikh family of Lahore. After partition they came to India as refugees, and finally got settled at Lucknow around 1950. The young Rajendra Mehta was fond of singing, reading Urdu poetry and listening to poetry of celebrated poets. At Lucknow Rajendra got conducive environment of Urdu, the language he loved, and the music around. He also got a singing friend Bhushan Mehta who was in his neighborhood. In 1952 he got to listen to Talat Mahmood and Sudha Malhotra in Lucknow during their performance there. Inspired by all these he joined the Morris College of Music (now known as Bhatkhande College of Music/Bhatkhande Music Institute). Simultaneously he took a job in LIC along with studies, which was necessary to stay afloat. During his stay at Lucknow he participated in school, college and inter university competitions. He also became the ‘गंडा बंद शागिर्द’ of Yunus Malik there. Later he got transferred to Bombay in 1960. Before that he had been to Bombay in 1956-57 to participate in the Murphy Metro Contest for singers, where Mahendra Kapoor and Aarti Mukherjee were the winners of the contest then. Talat Mahmood whom he admired as complete singer was his idol. He revered Talat Mahmood like a father figure.

It was in Bombay at All India Radio where he meet Neena in 1963 and from there onward started their beautiful friendship which turned into relationship in 1966 (Dushehra) when their parents approved for their marital alliance.

Earlier their parents were reluctant to accept their relationship as both of them came from a different castes and family status. While Rajendra came from a middle-class Punjabi family, Neena was from a rich Gujarati family. Till their parents approval both of them keep meeting secretly. They got married in 1967-January. It was immediate after their engagement that the famous impresario Brij Narayan, who also the head of the Sur Singaar Sansad advised them to sing and perform together. Ghazal singing by a couple was not in custom till then and initially the Mehtas were criticized for this. They start with their first joint performance at the Shanmukhanand Hall Bombay.

Neena (Shah) Mehta came from a business family from Baroda who were settled in Bombay. Neena studied in Wilson College Bombay. There she participated in and had won the inter-college competition of singing four times in a row. She made her debut on radio program Ovaltine Phulwari, a weekly singing contest show, anchored by Ameen Sayani. The Ovaltine Phulwari later became Cadbury Phulwari. To pursue her passion of singing further she had started learning music under Ustad Hafiz Ahmed Khan, who was from Delhi.

By the time she met Rajendra she was already in singing of Gujarati Sugam Sangeet and Classical music. She had two brothers and a sister who are all artistes in their field except that her sister was a ‘fine-art’ artist. When Hafiz Ahmed Khan Saab got transferred from Bombay to Delhi she learnt under Govind Prasad Jaipurwale and Ustad Abdul Rehman Khan Saheb. It was Ustad Hafiz Ahmed Khan at AIR who asked Neena to record a ghazal with Rajendra at AIR. And from there the beautiful musical journey of Neena – Rajendra Mehta started together which turned into an everlasting relationship further. When Neena met Rajendra she did not have proficiency in the Urdu language, but their love helped her to get over this challenge too.

The Mehtas set a bench mark for them and never compromised on the standard of poetry. For them poetry came first, poets second. They sang most of Sudarshan Fakir, Bashir Badr, Sardar Anjum, Rajesh Reddy, and also of Shakeb Banarasi, Kumar Shailendra, Mumtaz Rashid, Kaifi Azmi, Jan Nisar Akhtar and Qateel Shifai. They excelled in singing romantic duets. They selected simple, meaningful poetry and romantic ghazals. Their concerts carry the traditional set-up with simple orchestra and set of musicians. Instruments like saxophone, oboe, violin, flute, tabla, dholak, electric guitar, were used in most of their concerts. In one of the interviews of Neena Rajendra Mehta available on YouTube, Rajendra Mehta mentions that they ensure that ‘koi bhi saaz ghazal ko pareshaan na kare, poetry ko disturb naa kare’. So, good poetry was always their first criteria. Rajendra Mehta often used to recite the couplets (sher’s) by Urdu poets in their concerts which added to the dignity of their concerts a lot.

The Mehtas maintained a low profile and they limited themselves to TV programs and musical concerts only. If you watch the interview of Neena & Rajendra Mehta on YouTube one can see how down to earth and simple this couple was. He speaks with full of gratitude for everything, the good things happened to him, the success, the failures, and also for the entire struggle he had gone through in his life.

(This interview is taken after completion of his sixty years. So, I guess this must be around 1994-1995).

In this interview he also expressed his pain on the commercialization of the presentation of ghazals taking over the traditional ghazal concerts and though they had to compromise in initial phase of their careers they later restricted themselves to their principles for appearing for public performances.

In this regard he mentions the following.

“Jab aap sab kuchh ban’ne ki koshish karenge to phir aap kuchh bhi nahin kar paayenge”

 On maintaining the purity and sanctity of ghazals he mentions,

‘tere gham ko teri chaahat ki tarah rakkha hai, is amaanat ko amaanat ki tarah rakkha hai, apni ghazalon ko bachaaya hai tamaashon se bahot, hamne is fann ko ibaadat ki tarah rakkha hai’

 On the limited success they got in their life Rajendra Mehta quotes the following in his interview.

“Shohratein har ek ke muqaddar mein kahaan hoti hain,”
“Tum ye har roz naya bhes badalte kyun ho”
– (Wali Aasi)

Rajendra Mehta’s had sung very few songs in films and later on he never went on for film singing further and neither Neena Mehta sung any film song ever. The first record (by HMV) for a non-film song of Rajendra Mehta was under the music direction of Yunus Malik ji in 1964 where he sang two ghazals. This was followed by his voice in two songs of the movie ‘Shaheed’ (1965). Later came another untitled album on HMV where he sang four ghazals composed by Jagjit Singh. The first joint record (on Polydor) of Neena Rajendra Mehta came in 1973 where they sung Punjabi songs composed by Surinder Singh. In 1977 their album ‘Nazrana’ was released on Philips records where they recite the lyricist Kaifi Azmi’s creations which were composed by Govind Prasad (Jaipurwale). In 1980 their album ‘Humsafar’ (Ghazals and Geets) was released on Polydor records which included the famous “Taajmahal Mein Aa Jaanaa” penned by Prem Warbartani. And later followed albums like ‘Rahi Pyaar Ke’ (1981)(Polydor), ‘An evening with. . .’ (1982) (Music India), ‘The Best of Musical Mehtas’ (1982) (Music India), ‘Naghmagar’ (1983), ‘A Live Concert’ (1984), ‘Rubaru’ (LP in 1986 & CD in 1991), ‘Aashiq-e-Ghazal’ (1990) all by Music India Ltd, and others. Going by the information available on discogs ‘Aashiq-e-Ghazal’ seems to be among their last albums released. Also there is one album to their credits in Gujarati titled ‘Prem Ni Bhakti’ (1972-Polydor) where music was composed by Purshottam Upadhyay. In between Rajendra Mehta sang a song for the movie ‘Parinay’ (1974) and for ‘Ghamandee’ (1980). The Mehta’s toured the world a lot and even performed in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were a regular fixture at the annual ghazal extravaganza – ‘Khazaana’ organized by Music India Limited.

Some of their well-known songs and ghazals are as follows;

• Taaj mahal mein aa jaanaa aa (Prem Warbartani)
• Musaafir ke raaste badalte rahe (Bashir Badr)
• Ek pyaaraa saa gaaon (Sudarshan Faakir)
• Shaam-e-aalam jab dard e judaai (Shakeeb Banarasi)
• Tum ko ham dil mein basaa lenge (Mumtaz Rashid)
• Fursat e kaar fakat chaar ghadi hai yaaron (Jaan Nisar Akhtar)
• Tum pareshaan na ho (Kaifi Azmi)
• Dhhal gayaa chaand gayee raat chalo so jaayen (Qateel Shifai)
• Suna hai maine ye jab se (Prem Warbartani)
• Alvida alvida alvida (Kumar Shailendra)

The Mehtas had a son Neeraj and a daughter Neera. Unfortunately they lost their daughter in 2008. Their son Neeraj is a well-known cinematographer based abroad. Neeraj have many international awards to his credit.

Neena Mehta passed away in 2013 and Rajendra Mehta followed her in 2019. That brought the curtain down on their worldly lives only to remain forever in the memories of many of their fans and ghazal connoisseurs.

Today I present a geet sung by this lovely couple of singers i.e. Rajendra Mehta and Neena Mehta which appeared in the movie ‘Yahaan Wahaan’ (1984).

The film was directed by for Rajat Rakshit. Usman Khan was the producer of this movie. It had Farooque Shaikh, debutant Surinder Kaur, Jagdeep, Aruna Irani, Deena Pathak, Col. Rajbharti, Piloo Wadia, Shabnam Kapoor, Rajesh Puri, Ghanshyam Tilawat, Chetan Ladiwala, Jagdish Chowdhary, Mahendra, Biloo Singh, Moiuuddin, Jawahar, Rumana, Munna, Naresh Kelwan, Naresh Sharma, Anoop Mishra and others. Rajendra and Nina Mehta had a friendly appearance in this movie. Story of this movie was written by Mohsin Warsi. Rajat Rakshit who directed this movie also wrote the screenplay. Editing of this movie was done by Waman Rao. This movie has five songs penned by Indeevar and music was composed by Kalyanji-Anandji. Suresh Wadkar, Alka Yagnik, Rajendra and Nina Mehta were the singers of the songs in this movie.

The lyricist of the today’s song Prem Warbartani was a renowned Urdu poet. He also wrote lyrics for Hindi films, however he could not get himself adjusted to the schemes in the business of Hindi Film Industry and left it forever and shifted to Chandigarh.

Prem Warbartani was born on 9^th Novemnber’1930 at Dinga (District Gujarat, now in Pakistan). This place Dinga is associated with the legend of Sohni-Mahiwal. Prem Warbartani was a non-traditional Urdu poet who also wrote in Punjabi and wrote for many Hindi films too. Going by the details available it seems that ‘Yeh Basti Yeh Log’ (1960 – unreleased) was the first Hindi films where he wrote lyrics. However this film was shelved and remains unreleased. From the information available so far the next movie in the filmography of lyricist Prem Warbartani is ‘Mall Road’ (1962) and there were more movies where his lyrics appeared and they are ‘Gul-e-Bakawali’ (1963), ‘Ek Din Ka Baadshaah’ (1964), ‘Haqdaar’ (1964), ‘Faisla’ (1965), ‘Son of Hatimtai’ (1965), ‘Teen Sardar’ (1965), ‘Jaadoo’ (1966), ‘Dil Ne Pukara’ (1967), ‘Teri Talash Mein’ (1968), ‘Aatma Aur Parmaatma’ (1981), ‘Film Hi Film’ (1983) and ‘Yahaan Wahaan’ (1984).

His ghazals appeared in three albums of Jagjit Singh viz. ‘A Sound Affair’ (1985), ‘Passions’ (1987) and ‘Jagjit & Chitra Singh In Concert’ (1988).

I could not find much information about Prem Warbartani about his early life and his journey into poetry and Hindi films and later his exit from Hindi films. However, we can sum up his life philosophy in his words as explained below;

apne jeene ki adaa bhi hai anokhee sab se,
apne marne kaa bhi andaaz niraalaa hogaa

 and

 bahut muktsar saa taaruf hai mera
na josh-e-junoon hoon na raaz-e-neha hoon
kitaabon mein mujhko kahaan dhoondhte ho
main chehron pe likhi huyi daastaan hoon

His poetic creations mainly came from reflections on his own life experiences, circumstances and struggles he had gone through his life.

In the later years (in seventies), after coming back from Bombay, he was staying in a rented one BHK accommodation in sector-8 at Chandigarh. At Chandigarh he used to participate in almost all mushaairaas held around. People would get lost into heavenly spirit when he used to recite his poetry on the stage. As told by Rajendra Chand in his memories about this poet – “His verses seemed to be coming straight from the heaven and touching to the heart of the listeners, whenever he read his poetry”. However his habit of alcohol and frustration got him disillusioned with this world. He also took to other drugs a lot. Under intoxication he would often misbehaved at home with his wife. His wife was the sister of Desh Prem Azad (the famous cricket coach who mentored Kapil Dev). She was a good soul and dedicated her life to her husband. She also learnt Urdu to read and understand the poetry of her husband. Prem Warbartani’s friends tried a lot to convince him to leave alcohol and drugs, and bring him back to normal life, but it had no effect on him. His disciples included peoples like Ved Diwaana, Manohar Lal Singh Ahuja Pareshan. Finally on 10^th October’1979 Prem Warbartani left this world.

Prem Warbartani’s collection of poems is published in Urdu (‘Khushboo Ka Khwaab’, ‘Mera Funn Mera Lahoo’ & ‘Mere Andar Ek Samandar’) and in Punjabi (‘Laal Khambhan Da Ghar’).

Now coming to the today’s movie, from what I have read on the sources this seems to be a light hearted comedy movie like the other movies of actor Farooque Shaikh. I have not watched this movie so I can’t say much about it here in this article for now. However, I would request knowledgeable readers to throw more light on this movie and its’ songs. The today’s song is the first song appearing in this movie. From the video of this song it can be easily guessed that the video is from one of their live performances and it has been added in the film.

[Sources of information on Mehtas and Prem Warbartani – Articles by Siraj Syed, Avijit Ghosh, Manish Gaekwad, Rajendra Chand’s memories of Prem Warbartani, Hindi Kavita, ‘bayaaz e badan’ (by Arif Tauseef), Namoos-e-qalam (Mad TV Global, Prem Warbartani’s books – Urdu Point]

With this post we welcome ‘Yahaan Wahaan’ (1984) on this blog.

Video

Audio

Song – Taj Mahal Mein Aa Jaana (Yahaan Wahaan) (1984) Singer – Rajendra Mehta, Neena Mehta, Lyrics – Prem Warburtani, MD – Govind Prasad Jaipurwale
Rajendra Mehta + Neena Mehta
[Other Voices]

Lyrics

jab aanchal raat kaa lehraaye
aur saaraa aalam so jaaye
tum mujhse milne
shamaa jalaa kar
taj mahal mein aa jaana
tum mujhse milne
shamaa jalaa kar
taj mahal mein aa jaana
jab aanchal raat kaa lehraaye ae

waah
kya baat hai
waah waah
kya baat hai
waah waah

ye taj mahal jo
chaahat ki aankhon kaa
sunehraa moti hai ae
har raat jahaan
do roohon ki
khaamoshi zindaa hoti hai
is taj ke saaye mein aakar
tum geet wafaa ka dohraanaa
tum mujhse milne
shamaa jalaa kar
taj mahal mein aa jaana
jab aanchal raat kaa lehraaye ae

tanhaayee hai jaagi jaagi si
maahaul hai soya soya hua
jaise ke tumhaare hothon mein
khud taj mahal ho khoya huaa
ho taj mahal ka khwaab tumhi
ye raaz naa maine pehchaana
tum mujhse milne
shamaa jalaakar
taj mahal mein aa jaana
jab aanchal raat kaa lehraaye ae

waah waah
kya baat hai
waah waah waah
waah waah
kya baat hai

jo maut mohabbat mein aaye
wo jaan se badh kar pyaari hai ae
do pyaar bhare dil roshan hain
to raat bahot andhiyaari hai
tum raat ke is andhiyaare mein
bas ek jhalak dikhlaa jaana
tum mujhse milne
shamaa jalaakar
taj mahal mein aa jaana
jab aanchal raat kaa lehraaye
aur saaraa aalam so jaaye
tum mujhse milne
shamaa jalaa kar
taj mahal mein aa jaana
tum
taj mahal mein aa jaana
tum
taj mahal mein aa jaana
tum
taj mahal mein aa jaana

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Hindi script lyrics (Provided by Avinash Scrapwala)
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जब आँचल रात का लहराए
और सारा आलम सो जाए
तुम मुझसे मिलने
शमा जला कर
ताज महल में आ जाना
तुम मुझसे मिलने
शमा जला कर
ताज महल में आ जाना
जब आँचल रात का लहराए

वाह
क्या बात है
वाह वाह
क्या बात है
वाह वाह

ये ताज महल तो
चाहत की आँखों का
सुनहरा मोती है ए
हर रात जहां
दो रूहों की
खामोशी ज़िंदा होती है
इस ताज के साये में आ कर
तुम
गीत वफा का
दोहराना
तुम मुझसे मिलने
शमा जला कर
ताज महल में आ जाना
जब आँचल रात का लहराए ए

तनहाई है जागी जागी सी
माहौल है सोया सोया हुआ आ
जैसे के तुम्हारे ख्वाबों में
खुद ताज महल हो खोया हुआ
हो ताज महल का ख्वाब तुम ही
ये राज़ ना मैं पहचाना
तुम मुझसे मिलने
शमा जला कर
ताज महल में आ जाना
जब आँचल रात का लहराए ए

वाह वाह
क्या बात है
वाह वाह वाह
क्या बात है
वाह वाह

जो मौत मोहब्बत में आए
वो जान से बढ़कर  प्यारी है ए
दो प्यार भरे दिल रोशन है
तो रात बहुत अंधियारी है
तुम रात के इस अँधियारे में
बस एक झलक दिखला जाना
तुम मुझसे मिलने
शमा जला कर
ताज महल में आ जाना
जब आँचल रात का लहराए
और सारा आलम सो जाए
तुम
मुझसे मिलने
शमा जला कर
ताज महल में आ जाना
तुम
ताज महल में आ जाना
तुम
ताज महल में आ जाना
तुम
ताज महल में आ जाना