Archive for the ‘Song of 1933’ Category
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 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.
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Today’s song is not only unique and rare,but it is also one of the few real early songs of the Talkie Films. It is from film Vikram Charitra aka Rajkumar Thaksen – 1933. Thanks to Mr. Shalin Bhatt, who has uploaded this rare Gem, sung by Gauhar Karnataki.
When you see the title of the film, one feels that it is about King Vikramaditya, but when you see the other title Rajkumar Thaksen, you know that this is something else. When Talkie films started, it had profound influence of stage dramas, because that was the only accepted form of entertainment in India, till films arrived…Silent or Talkie. Parsee, Gujarati and Marathi theatre stories, Natya Sangeet and the artificial way of stage acting were things followed in early films,cent percent. Fairy tales, folk tales, Panchatantra stories and Traditional Grand ma stories started appearing as films, after some time.
When I first bought the 5 volume set of HFGK, I started going through the films of 1930s. I read this film title and I suddenly remembered the story of Raja Vikram and Rajkumar Thaksen I had read, when I was about 10-12 years young. That was one of my favourite stories and I felt it was a good competition to Arabian Night stories of Alibaba, Alladin or Sindbad. The Thaksen story had Indian background and felt closer to heart.
However, during the growing years, the tastes changed and the Thaksen story went into the background. Now, when I decided to write on this film song, I tried to recollect the story, but could not recall it fully or cohesively. Despite searching on the net for several days, the story eluded me. Suddenly, one day I bumped into a children’s story book ” Raja Vikram and Rajkumar Thaksen”. I simply can not put into words, how much joy I got after reading this story all over again !
The story of King Vikram, his queen Shashikala and Rajkumar Thaksen was first filmed in 1929, as Prince Thaksen, by Aryan Film company, Poona, in which the role of Thaksen was done by the handsome Nandram Pehelwan. This was a Silent film. In the Talkie era, the first film on Thaksen was this- Vikram Charitra-1933 by Sharda Movietone. In 1933 itself a sequel to this film was made as ” Rambha raniaka Stree Charitra” made by same company, with the same cast and team as Vikram Charitra. This was followed by another film ” Bhedi Rajkumar aka The Mysterious Prince aka Rajkumar Thaksen” in 1934, by Saraswati Cinetone, Poona belonging to R G Torney. After a gap, ” Vikram Shashikala ” was made in 1949, by Chitravani productions, Bombay featuring Master Vithal as Thaksen.
In short, film makers were attracted towards the story of Thaksen. What is this story all about. The story, in short, is thus described in the book….
Raja Vikram of Avanti Nagari was having 7 queens, but he loved queen Shashikala most and used to take her on tours with him. This made the other queens jealous and they conspired to teach her a lesson. When the king came to them, they unanimously complained against Shashikala that she criticised the king on his back. This enraged the king and he deserted Shashikala. She was kept far away in a fortress, surrounded by a water trench all around, with only one entrance. The queen was pregnant, but the king was not aware of it.
In due course, Shashikala gave birth to a handsome prince, who was named Raj Ratan. The king was duly informed, but he never came to see his son. As the Prince grew, he became an expert in the Bird’s and Animal’s languages. He also learnt how to disguise skilfully. Once he tricked even his mother and mother lovingly called him Thaksen ( one who cheats). This name became his name for all purposes.
One day Thaksen came to know about what Raja Vikram did to his mother and he prepared to take revenge. Despite mother’s request, he started for the capital.
To cut the story short, how he reaches the king, teaches him a lesson, saves the king from foreign aggression, how he falls in love with Rambha Rani etc has to be read from the original book itself. It is full of adventures, magic and stories of Thaksen’s valour. In the end, all is well and Shashikala is honourably recalled to the Capital by Vikram etc etc.
The film was made by Sharda Movietone and was directed by Harshadrai Sakerlal Mehta. The cast of the film consisted of Baburao Apte (as Vikram) and Madhav Kale (as Thaksen), along with Gauhar Karnataki, Dulari, Shivrani etc etc. Baburao Apte is the same as elder brother of actress Shanta Apte-about whom I wrote just last month. We do not know the names of the Lyricist or the Music Director, as HFGK is silent on these.
It is a well known established fact that in the early years, women artistes came from lower classes, singing families or Tawayafs and similar types. Most of these girls joined the film line in order to get a a rich Seth ji or a suitable husband and spend the rest of the life respectfully. There are many examples of such ‘ planned’ marriages in the early era. However, this process continued even in later times.
Film industry is one industry where men and women have to work together. Whether it is Actor-director or Singer-Composer, for the sake of work they have to spend much time together. No wonder then that Cupid does his work overtime. Sometimes there are mutual attraction and at times there are one sided fires burning. In most cases the one sided fire is extinguished in a very painful way, like what P L Santoshi faced with actress Rehana or the slap Sanjiv Kumar got from actress Nutan.
There were cases when love of Dilip kumar for Madhubala, died in the High court witness Box, when he gave evidence against her father in the ‘ Naya Daur ‘ legal case. Dev Anand’s love with Suraiyya ended happily for Dev Anand with him marrying Kalpana Kartik, but Suraiyya stayed “Unmarried”, in his ” yaad”, throughout her life. Here the villain was her so called ” Grand mother “, who actually was her own mother, as documented in the book “Stars from another sky” by Saadat Hasan Manto !
The successful 2-way traffic usually ended with a marriage. We can see marriages between producers and Actresses( Himanshu Rai-Devika rani and W Z Khan and actress Nina), directors and singers/actresses ( Nalini jaywant-Virendra Desai, Shaukat Hussain-Noorjehan, Geeta Dutt-Guru Dutt, Lalita Pawar-G.P.Pawar, Rattanbai-Hafiz Khan), Actors and Actresses ( Arun Ahuja-Nirmala devi, Snehprabha Pradhan-Kishore Sahu, Dev Anand-Kalpana Kartik, Dharmendra- Hema Malini, Rajesh Khanna-Dimple Kapadiya, Amitabh Bachchan-Jaya, Abhishek-Aishwarya, Kishore Kumar-Madhubala, Premnath-Bina Rai, Karan Dewan-Manju Desai, Marutirao Pehlwan-Tara Devi.)
There were some odd combinations like Satyendranath Athiah-Bhanu Athaiya (Lyricist-Costume designer),Lyricist-Singer (Amar Verma-Manik Verma), Singer-villain (Shakti Kapoor- Shivangi Kolhapure),Music teacher-student ( Roshan-Ira Moitra, Hemant Kumar-Bela Mukherjee, C.Ramchandra-‘Ben’ Ratan Thakur), and even a singer-Orchestra player (Vinita Amladi-Krishna Chakravarty) and lastly between singer-singers ( Jyoti-G M Durani, Gauhar Karnataki- Bal Gandharva). There were those pairs who were singers-actors ( Amirbai- Himalayawala,Rafiq Gazanavi- Anwari bai).
The interesting group, however,was that of Composer-Singers ( Sudhir Phadke-Lalita Deulkar, Asha Bhosle-R D Burman, Naashad-Premlata, Anil Biswas-Meena Kapoor, Pannalal Ghosh-Parul Ghosh, Khayyam-Jagjit Kaur, Ghulam Haider-Umrao Zia begum, Kamal Dasgupta-Firoza begum, Ninu Majumdar-Kaumudi Munshi).
The Heroine of today’s film- Gauhar karnataki was also one such artiste who did a ‘planned’ marriage. Her life story is interesting. 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 singing family,Amirbai and Gauhar(Gauramma) worked in a drama company called Vanivilas Natak mandali. Since Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum came under Bombay Presidency and 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. May be 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 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 swar-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 records 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.
Film Vikram Charitra-33 was written by C M Luhar, who became a well known director later on. There were 15 songs in the film. This song was recorded by Gauhar Karnataki in June 1934, according to the uploader. Since hardly any records of Gauhar Karnataki are available, this song becomes a rare song. let us enjoy this 85 year old recorded song. With this song, film Vikram Charitra-33 makes its Debut on the Blog.
Song-Raaja ke chaman se laayi manke ki maala (Vikram Charitra)(1933) Singer- Gauhar Karnataki, Lyrics- Not Known, MD- Not known
Lyrics
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
Manke ki maala
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
Manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
manke ki maala
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
Raaja ke chaman se
hamaara kaam hai
sabhi ne ??
sabhi ne ??
sabhi ne ??
sabhi ne ??
??
aa aa aa
jaise nihaar ??
jaise nihaar ??
jaise nihaar ??
jaise nihaar ??
manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
manke ki maala
Raaja ke chaman se laayi
manke ki maala
joohi manke ki maala
Raaja ki
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.
“Naqli Doctor”(1933) was directed by J J Madan for Madan Theatres, Calcutta. This movie had Miss Shaila, Miss Patience Cooper, Soorajram, Miss Rosie, Miss Susheela, Miss Badami, Maniklal, Rahim Bakhsh, G Mustafa etc in it.
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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.
“Karma”(1933) was directed by J J Freer Hunt for Himanshu Rai Indo International Talkies, Bombay. The movie had Devika Rani, Sudha Rani, Himansu Rai, Dewan Sharar, Abraham Sofire, Ghanshyam etc in it.
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Dil kabhi kahin na diya na liya
Posted on: November 15, 2015
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“Daakoo Ki Ladki”(1933) was directed by Moti Gidwani for Imperial Films Company, Bombay. The movie had Sulochana, D Bilimoria, Ghulam Mohammad, Hadi, Laxmi, Saiyyad Ahmad, Ghulam Rasool etc in it.
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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.
“Laal E Yaman” (1933) was the first movie of JBH Wadia that he produced under his banner of Wadia Movietone. The movie had Jaal Khambhata, Karim Jah, Feroz Dastoor, Master Mohammad, Sayani, Nazeer, B Khan, Baman Shroff, Padma, Mohini, Kamla, Mayuri, Miss Leela etc in it.
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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.
Yesterday (11 november 2015) was the festival of Deepaawali. Most people enter into the Deepaawali festive mood from three to four days in advance and the hangover of the festival lasts for some more days. I, being philosophical in my outlook try to treat all days as the same. But there are people around me who try to disturb my philosophical ways of living. 🙂
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Rab ki sab hai maaya
Posted on: November 10, 2015
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.
“Laal E Yaman” (1933) was the first movie of JBH Wadia that he produced under his banner of Wadia Movietone. The movie had Jaal Khambhata, Karim Jah, Feroz Dastoor, Master Mohammad, Sayani, Nazeer, B Khan, Baman Shroff, Padma, Mohini, Kamla, Mayuri, Miss Leela etc in it.
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Hardam parwar aas
Posted on: November 9, 2015
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.
“Laal E Yaman” (1933) was the first movie of JBH Wadia that he produced under his banner of Wadia Movietone. The movie had Jaal Khambhata, Karim Jah, Feroz Dastoor, Master Mohammad, Sayani, Nazeer, B Khan, Baman Shroff, Padma, Mohini, Kamla, Mayuri, Miss Leela etc in it.
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Khaaliq tore najariya
Posted on: November 8, 2015
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.
“Laal E Yaman” (1933) was the first movie of JBH Wadia that he produced under his banner of Wadia Movietone. The movie had Jaal Khambhata, Karim Jah, Feroz Dastoor, Master Mohammad, Sayani, Nazeer, B Khan, Baman Shroff, Padma, Mohini, Kamla, Mayuri, Miss Leela etc in it.
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Mashoor thhe jahaan mein
Posted on: November 4, 2015
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.
“Laal E Yaman” (1933) was the first movie of JBH Wadia that he produced under his banner of Wadia Movietone. The movie had Jaal Khambhata, Karim Jah, Feroz Dastoor, Master Mohammad, Sayani, Nazeer, B Khan, Baman Shroff, Padma, Mohini, Kamla, Mayuri, Miss Leela etc in it.
Read more on this topic…
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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