Archive for the ‘Songs of 1940s (1941 to 1950)’ Category
- In: "Ganga" song | "Jamuna" song | Artist century song in blog | Calling the beloved | Century songs for the blog | Dance song | Duet | Geeta Dutt songs | Rare song | Shamshad Begam -Geeta Dutt duet | Shamshad Begam songs | Songs of 1940s (1941 to 1950) | Songs of 1950 | Yearwise breakup of songs
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Blog Day : |
4511 | Post No. : | 16060 |
Today (23 november 2020) is the 90th birth anniversary of Geeta Dutt (23 November 1930- 20 July 1972). I was aware of this fact yesterday itself, seeing that I had received several contributions for the occasion. Moreover, this date, which happens to be a monday, is also a day when I present my weekly series of Lata Mangeshkar songs sung in a particular calender year- a very research heavy project. So, my hands were full on sunday (22 november) preparing for all these articles to be published on 23 november 2020.
By late night on 22 november 2020, I had four articles ready, one for Lata Mangeshkar and three for Geeta Dutt, to be published on the morning of 23 november 2020. I had plans to post another article on Geeta Dutt (this one), as that article was going to be a special article on the occasion of Geeta Dutt’s birth anniversary.
I was not the only one who was busy on sunday. It turns out that our own Gajendra Khanna was also busy. A big Geeta Dutt fan and the administrator of Geeta Dutt site geetadutt.com, Gajendra Khanna had prepared a one hour long programme on the occasion and had left a link of the programme on our whatsapp group. I listened to this programme in the morning. As is his wont, Gajendra Khanna’s programme was extremely well researched and contained new, eye opening informations. It was through this programme that I realised that Geeta Dutt (nee Roy) had not made her debut in Hindi movies in 1946, but it was in 1945 in “Aadhaar”(1945). HFGK contains very sketchy information on this movie and mentions name of movie characters as singers. “Aadhaar” (1945) is her first Hindi movie as a playback singer. I notice that a song Aayi balloon waali aayi re in Geeta Dutt’s voice (alongwith S N Tripathi) is actually posted in the blog with correct attribution. That was thanks to information provide by geetadutt.com, ofcourse. HFGK mentions this song as sung by Shehzaadi. Shehzaadi could well be the name of the character who lip syncs this song in the movie.
This programme also contains some other interesting information about Geeta Dutt. For instance, she has sung over 90 songs in Gujarati. She has also sung in Bangla (her mother tongue), Marathi, Punjabi etc. What is very special is the fact that she sounds a natural in all these languages. For instance, Gajendra Khanna finds her Punjabi diction impeccable in her Punjabi language song that he played in his programme.
It is unfortunate that her married life turned out to be disastrous and such a god given singing talent like hers, that should have blossomed, instead got withered and finally got cut short prematurely, because of the after effects of her unhappy marriage with Guru Dutt.
Despite all the circumstances that impeded her after her marriage, Geeta Dutt has still left us with more than a thousand songs to savour. The blog has 899 songs so far and this article is being written to mark the 900th song of Geeta Dutt in the blog. I was wondering what song to showcase as her 900th song in the blog. Most of her well known songs, including iconic songs are already showcased in the blog. Many of the songs not yet covered either did not fit the bill, or their audio quality was not upto the mark, or the genre of the song did not suit the occasion.
I covered a song that I thought was a nice discovery. But a few hours later it was pointed out that the song was already covered in the past.
So it was back to the drawing board.
Now I have picked another special song. This song is from an obscure movie called “Putli”(1950). “Putli”(1950) was produced and directed by Wali Sahab for Punjab Film Corporation, Bombay. The movie had Mumtaz Shanti ,Pran, Yaqoob, Husn Banu, Srinath, Majnu, Prem Dhawan, Ramesh Thakur, Sheela Naik etc in it.
The movie had eleven songs in it. Four songs have been covered in the past. HFGK mentions singers only for three songs. The singers mentioned for these songs are Meena Kapoor for all three songs and a male voice in one of these three songs. There is no mention of singers for remaining eight songs.
What is special about this song is that HFGK is silent about the singers of this song. On listening to the song, it is clear that the song contains the voices of Geeta Dutt and Shamshad Begam. So this song is a “new” discovery as a Geeta Dutt song as well as a Shamshad Begam song.
Uploader of the audio of the song mentions Harikrishn as the lyricist and Aziz Hindi as the music director. While the music director matches with the entry of HFGK, the lyricist does not as HFGK is silent about the lyricist. HFGK Wali Sahab and Abid Gulrej are mentioned as the two lyricists. I think that the uploader of this song has more information about this song as he may have taken this information from the record label.
With this song, Geeta Dutt now has exactly 900 songs in the blog as a playback singer. It is befitting that she should reach this mark on the occasion of her 90th birth anniversary today. What a delightful song to bring up this occasion.
As a great coincidence, this song is the 700th song for Shamshad Begam in the blog and she too completes her century with this song.
PS-Sadanand Kamath Jee has located the video of the song. He identifies the two female dancers as Sheela Naik (lip syncing in Geeta Dutt’s voice) and Cuckkoo (lip syncing in Shamshad Begam’s voice).
Audio
Video
Song-Kabhi ganga ke paar kabhi jamuna kinaar (Putli)(1950) Singers-Geeta Dutt, Shamshad Begam, Lyrics-Harikrishn, MD-Aziz Hindi
Both
Lyrics
kabhi ganga ke paar
kabhi jamuna kinaar
chale aana
main tera intezaar karoongi
ho chale aana
main tera intezaar karoongi
ho naina chaar karoongi
tohe pyaar karoongi
hoy naina chaar karoongi
tohe pyaar karoongi
chale aana
oye bhool na jaanaa
main tera intezaar karoongi
ho chale aana
main tera intezaar karoongi
kabhi ganga ke paar
kabhi jamuna kinaar
chale aana
main tera intezaar karoongi
ho chale aana
main tera intezar karoongi
ooo tu jo dil dega balma
main jaan de doongi
haaye main jaan de doongi
aur main hans hans kar
aur main hans hans kar donon jahaan de doongi
aur main hans hans kar donon jahaan de doongi
o o o
tu jo dil dega balma
main jaan de doongi
aur main hans hans kar donon jahaan de doongi
jaan de kar bhi
jaan de kar bhi tera deedaar karoongi
jaan de kar bhi tera deedaar karoongi
chale aana
main tera intezaar karoongi
ho chale aana main tera intezaar karoongi
kabhi ganga ke paar
kabhi jamuna kinaar
chale aana
main tera intezaar karoongi
ho chale aana main tera intezaar karoongi
lalalaa lalla lalla la
lalalaa lalla lalla la
lalalaa lalla lalla la
lalalaa lalla lalla la
mere angna mein
haaye mere angna mein saavan ke mele piya
aa aa aa aa
mere angna mein saavan ke mele piya
aa aa
kaise dekhoon akele akele piya
haaye
akele piya
tum jo aao
tum jo aao main saula-singaar karoongi
tum jo aao main saul-singaar karoongi
chale aana main tera intezaar karoongi
ho chale aana main tera intezaar karoongi
kabhi ganga ke paar
kabhi jamuna kinaar
chale aana
main tera intezaar karoongi
ho chale aana
main tera intezaar karoongi
gehri gehri nadiya hai
gehri gehri nadiya aur door kinaara re
door kinaara
gehri gehri nadiya aur door kinaara re
door kinaara
tere bina koi nahin apna sahaara re
haaye apna sahaara
apni naiyya ko
apni naiyya ko nadiya ke paar karoongi
apni naiyya ko nadiya ke paar karoongi
chale aana main tera intezaar karoongi
ho chale aana main tera intezaar karoongi
kabhi ganga ke paar
kabhi jamuna kinaar
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusaist 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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Blog Day : |
4511 | Post No. : | 16059 |
kuchh aur zamaana kehta hai kuchh aur hai zidd mere dil ki
main baat zamaane ki maanoon ya baat sunoon apne dil ki
This was the swan song from ‘Chhoti Chhoti Baaten’ (1965) both for the singer and the music director of the song as this was their last film in Mumbai before shifting lock stock and barrel to Delhi in 1963. The playback singer was Meena Kapoor and the music director was Anil Biswas. In relation to her romantic affairs with Anil Biswas in the early 1950s, just like in the above two-liner, she was in a quandary. But her heart was adamant (aur hai zidd mere dil ki) that led to a long partnership with Anil Biswas irrespective of what the society said about their relationship.
Today, November 23rd is the 3rd Remembrance Day of Meena Kapoor. The day also happens to be 90th birth anniversary of Geeta Dutt. Both were born in the year 1930 in Bengal Presidency of British India. Both started their playback singing career in Mumbai in the year 1946 – Geeta Dutt with ‘Bhakt Prahlad’ (1946) and Meena Kapoor with ‘Pul’ (1947) in 1946 though her first released song was from ‘Eight Days’ (1946). The similarities do not end here.
Both Geeta Dutt and Meena Kapoor got recognition as playback singers under S D Burman – Meena Kapoor in ‘Aath Din’ (1946) and Geeta Dutt in ‘Do Bhai’ (1947). Both virtually ended their playback singing career around mid-1960s though there were few spill-over of their songs thereafter. Both had almost similar vocal cords giving an impression to the listeners that their singing voices sound more or less the same. And what was more important was that despite being in the competitive field of playback singing career, both were close friends to such an extent that they both became a part of extended family of Roys and Kapoors.
Unfortunately, their similarities of Geeta Dutt and Meena Kapoor did not reflect in their playback singing career. During their active years (1946-65) of playback singing career, Meena Kapoor’s output (around 175 songs) has no match with that of Geeta Dutt (around 1400 songs). Out of curiosity, I checked the year-wise growth of the playback singing career of both of them beginning with the year 1946 and up to 1955, the year from which Meena Kapoor had Anil Biswas as his life partner, almost retiring from her playback singing career except singing mainly for Anil Biswas. The statistics given in the table below reveal that Geeta Dutt was quite ahead of Meena Kapoor for all the years – both in terms of aggregate number of songs as well as films.
| Year | Geeta Dutt | Meena Kapoor | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Films | Songs | Films | Songs | ||
| 1946 | 12 | 21 | 2 | 5 | |
| 1947 | 22 | 52 | 5 | 9 | |
| 1948 | 37 | 107 | 15 | 43 | |
| 1949 | 34 | 97 | 8 | 15 | |
| 1950 | 50 | 169 | 12 | 17 | |
| 1951 | 30 | 81 | 4 | 11 | |
| 1952 | 42 | 122 | 5 | 8 | |
| 1953 | 25 | 59 | 14 | 27 | |
| 1954 | 25 | 54 | 7 | 10 | |
| 1955 | 34 | 84 | – | – | |
[Source: List of songs of Geeta Dutt from http://www.geetadutt.com counter-checked with http://www.myswar.co and list of songs of Meena Kapoor from http://www.myswar.co]
What could be the reasons for such a significant difference in their output of songs? At the outset, I could not see any reason other than ascribing it to a pure bad luck for Meena Kapoor in the sense that she was born with a voice almost similar to Geeta Dutt. And it was Geeta Dutt’s voice which seems to have been preferred by most of the music directors over that of Meena Kapoor.
In Lata Khubchandani’s article reproduced in RMIM’s Article Archive (No.324), Meena Kapoor had said that she had never been ambitious and she had not taken her music seriously. She also did not make any effort towards furtherance of her playback singing career. Her father, Bikram Kapoor who was a character actor in New Theatre, Kolkata and later in Mumbai, wanted his daughter to excel in singing only after completing her education. When she started living with Anil Biswas sometime in mid-1950s, she was happier as a housewife than pursuing the playback singing profession.
There is an interesting trivia as to how Meena Kapoor met Anil Biswas for the first time. In the interview referred to above, she had revealed that she refused to give audition to Anil Biswas when he was planning to get some songs sung by her for ‘Anokha Pyaar’ (1948) under the recommendation from his brother-in-law, Pandit Pannalal Ghosh. She had already recorded many film songs under many composers. As such, she felt that it was not necessary to her to give a fresh audition to Anil Biswas. It was her father who took a few recorded songs of her to Anil Biswas. After listening to her song, tod gaye haaye tod gaye armaan bhara dil tod gaye from ‘Khel’ (1950) under the music direction of Sajjad Hussain, Anil Biswas called her for rehearsal without audition. This incidence also shows as to how casual Meena Kapoor was in regard to her playback singing career.
Geeta Dutt on the other hand was interested in pursuing the playback singing career in films and her parents encouraged her by arranging music teachers. It was exactly at a time when Meena Kapoor’s restrictive playback singing career due to her education gave opportunity for Geeta Dutt to get a strong foothold as a playback singer as the statistics in the above table reveal. For example, S D Burman after giving two songs to Meena Kapoor in ‘Aath Din’ (1946), he switched over to Geeta Dutt during 1948-55 beside Lata Mangeshkar. It was only after 1957 when Geeta Dutt could not give sufficient time to S D Burman for rehearsals, he switched over to Asha Bhosle (Lata Mangeshkar not singing for him due to some misunderstanding). It is interesting to note that after her marriage with Guru Dutt in 1953, the yearly aggregate number of songs sung by Geeta Dutt post-1953 have fallen mainly due to a stiff competition from Lata Mangeshkar coupled with her domestic compulsion.
Both Geeta Dutt and Meena Kapoor have emotional tone in their voices which suits the genre of poignant and devotional songs. However, going by a large number of songs sung by Geeta Dutt relative to that of Meena Kapoor, the former’s versatilities are evident to general listeners of her songs. Just note as to how S D Burman had been instrumental in making Geeta Dutt a versatile singer. From emotional mera sundar sapna beet gaya in ‘Do Bhai’ (1947) to light-hearted tadbeer se bigdi huyi taqdeer bana le in ‘Baazi’ (1951), to coquettish song, jaane kya toone kahi jaane kya maine suni, teasing song, janoon jaanoon re chhupke kaun aaya in ‘Insaan Jaag Utha’ (1959) and many of her club songs. Her repertoire of songs under other music directors is also large.
Meena Kapoor did not get much opportunities to display her versatilities as her singing output was less than 200 songs as compared to Geeta Dutt’s around 1400 songs. But Meena Kapoor had also a good repertoire of songs like waltz type song, aate hain wo aate hain wo in ‘Chalte Chalte’ (1947), light-hearted meri jaan meri jaan sunday ke sunday in ‘Shehnaai’ (1947), romance in ye samaa ham tum jawaan in ‘Maashooka’ (1953), folk song, rimjhim barse paani aaj more angna in ‘Pardesi’ (1957), Rabindra sangeet, mere chanchal naina madhur ras ke bhare in ‘Angoolimal’ (1960) etc.
With almost similar voice timbre, Geeta Dutt and Meena Kapoor had very few occasions to sing together during their active years of playback singing career as detailed below:
| Films | Songs (Geeta-Meena) | Co-singers | Music Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hip Hip Hurray (1948) | Main jaan gayi jaan gayi | – | Hanuman Prasad |
| Aadhi Raat (1950) | Maine baalam se poochha | – | Hansraj Bahl |
| Jalte Deep (1950) | Aayi milne ki raat | – | Shardul Kwatra |
| Hulchul (1951) | Mile dil aankh sharmaayi | – | Mohd. Shafi |
| Ghaayal (1951) | O rani mainwati -1 | G M Durrani | Gyan Dutt |
| Ghaayal (1951) | O rani mainwati -2 | G M Durrani | Gyan Dutt |
| Ghaayal (1951) | Tera kisi pe aaye dil | – | Gyan Dutt |
Before I conclude my article, I would like to give links of a solo song each of Meena Kapoor and Geeta Dutt for the purpose of their voice comparison. I have deliberately selected the songs of the same genre (Meera bhajans) so that the comparison is on the even keel.
| Meena Kapoor | main birhan baithi jaagoon | ‘Gopinath’ (1948) |
| Geeta Dutt | ae ri main to prem deewaani | ‘Jogan’ (1950) |
After repeatedly listening to these two songs, I can feel some differences in voices but I am unable to explain as to what are the differences. Probably, Meena Kapoor sounds slight nasal in her singing than Geeta Dutt. Of course, musicologists like the late Ashok Ranade would have technically explained their voice differences.
On the occasion of the 90th birth anniversary of Geeta Dutt and 3rd Remembrance Day of Meena Kapoor on November 23, 2020, I am presenting their duet song, aayi milne ki raat karo meethi meethi baat from an obscure film ‘Jalte Deep’ (1950). The song is written by Aziz Kashmiri which is set to music by Shardul Kwatra. The film was produced by R Vasudeva under the banner of Nihal Film Corporation and was directed by Deepak Asha. The star cast included Nimmi, Amarnath, Randhir, Sophia, Deepak, Kuldeep, Leela Mishra etc. The film had 12 songs of which one song has been covered in the Blog.
The voices of Geeta Dutt and Meena Kapoor are so similar that I get a feeling whether the song I am presenting is solo or duet. However, the lyrics do give an impression of a duet and HFGK mentions Geeta Dutt and Meena Kapoor as playback singers for the song.
Since the film’s VCD/DVD is not available, one can listen to the song only on the audio clip. I have a photograph from the film in which Nimmi and Sophia are seen holding a tray each with lamps. Based on the photograph, my guess is that the song may have been picturised on Nimmi and Sophia welcoming their ‘balam’ and ‘sajan’.
Audio Clip:
Song-Aayi milan ki raat karo meethhi meethhi baat(Jalte Deep)(1950) Singers-Geeta Dutt, Meena Kapoor, Lyrics-Aziz Kashmiri, MD-Sardul Kwatra
Lyrics
aayi milne ki raat
karo meethhi meethhi baat
tumhen meri kasam
o mere achhe balam
aayi milne ki raat
karo meethhi meethi baat
tumhen
o tumhe meri kasam
o mere achhe balam
aayi milne ki raat
karo meethhi meethhi baat
raat hai suhaag ki
chhaayi hai bahaar sajan
chhaayi hai bahaar
nainwa se phoot pada
meethha meethha pyaar
nainwa se phoot pada
meetha meetha pyaar
zara thhaamo ji haath
karo meethhi meethhi baat
tumhen
o tumhe meri kasam
o mere achhe balam
aayi milne ki raat
karo meethhi meethhi baat
tumhen meri kasam
o mere achhe balam
aayi milne ki raat
karo meethhi meethhi baat
taaron ne dekh liya tera mera mel sajan
tera mera mel
ankhiyon ne khel liya naya naya khel
ankhiyon ne khle liya naya naya khel
zara thhaamo ji haath
karo meethhi meethhi baat
tumhen
o tumhe meri kasam
o mere achhe balam
aayi milne ki raat
karo meethhi meethhi baat
o tumhen meri kasam
o mere achhe balam
aayi milne ki raat
karo meethhi meethhi baat
Aa jaa papeehe geet sunaa de
Posted on: November 23, 2020
- In: Bird songs | Devnagri script lyrics by Avinash Scrapwala | expression of love | Feelings of heart | Geeta Dutt solo | Geeta Dutt songs | Guest posts | Lyrics contributed by readers | Papeeha songs | Post by Avinash Scrapwala | Rare song | Songs from Unreleased Films of 1940s | Songs of 1940s (1941 to 1950) | Songs of 1948 | Yearwise breakup of songs
- 3 Comments
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.
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Blog Day : |
4511 | Post No. : | 16057 | Movie Count : |
4389 |
Today 23rd November’2020 is ninetieth birth anniversary of singer Geeta Dutt (born on 23rd November’1930).
She passed away on 20th July 1972 at the age of forty-one only. Reading her life story stirs the heart even today, and the Hindi Film Industry and Hindi Film Music will always feel sad for losing her so early.
Geeta Dutt was one of the legendary singers of yesteryears and sang many for Hindi film, Bengali films. Also, she sang many non-filmy Hindi and Bengali songs.
I will not go into her detailed biography or whatever has been written about her on this blog earlier. And, also, I will not mention her songs which are my favorite and those I like very much. That will be a long list. Today I would only like to pay my tributes to her with a song from an unreleased movie ‘Hamraaz’.
This movie is said to be made somewhere in between ‘1941-1950’.
I had come across songs of this movie in 2014 and had then shared fours songs from this movie to our editors then. At that time the year of this movie was mentioned as ‘1950’ on some links and ‘1940’ on others so it was not clear.
However, somehow the movie remains still to be launched on the blog in the ‘rush’ of other priorities.
When I had initially shared the songs from this movie, I was not having its detailed information, but now with the help of HFGK Vol-II (1941-1950) we can have this brief about this movie.
HFGK Vol-II 91941-1950) lists this movie as ‘Un-released’ movie of ‘1941-1950’.
On page number 607 – Appendix-1 Movie number 1214 this movie is mentioned as presented by ‘Rahnuma Pictures’.
However, its star cast and director is not mentioned. Music director is mentioned as Shankar Lal.
Lyricist names are mentioned as Shyam Hindi and Kamran Momin.
The list mentions total eight songs in this movie.
| S. No | Song Title | Lyricist |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Ga re manwaa gaa | Shyam Hindi |
| 02 | Ghoonghat mein sharmaaye dulhaniya | Kamran Momin |
| 03 | Baat kuchh aisi wah hamse kah gaye | Shyam Hindi |
| 4 | Cham cham chamken taare | Shyam Hindi |
| 05 | In do matwaale nainon mein | — |
| 06 | Aabaad hai saraa jahaan | Shyam Hindi |
| 07 | Khushi chaaron taraf chhaayi | Shyam Hindi |
| 08 | Aa jaa papeehe geet sunaa re | Kamran Momin |
Some links of the songs shared earlier are fortunately available but for one song that I shared the link is no longer available now.
As mentioned above today we will listen to a song sung by Geeta Dutt, written by Kamran Momin and composed by Shankar Lal.
With this song the movie ‘Hamraaz (UR)-1941-1950 makes its debut on the blog and joins its ‘ham-naam’ ‘Hamraaz-1968’ 😊 on the blog.
Remembering Geeta Dutt. Let us now listen to the song of today…
Song-Aa jaa papeehe geet suna de (Hamraaz)(UR)(1948) Singer-Geeta Dutt, Lyrics-Kamran Momin, MD-Shankar Lal
Lyrics
aa ja aa aa aa
aa jaa
aa ja aa aa aa
aa jaa
aa ja papeehe
geet sunaa re
ro ro birhan rain guzaare
aa ja aa
aa ja aa aa aa
aa jaa
yaad kisi ki jab aa jaaye
yaad kisi ki jab aa jaaye
hook uthhe man tadpaa jaaye
hook uthhe man tadpaa jaaye
neer bahaaye nain bechaare
aa ja aa
aa ja aa aa aa
aa jaa
saajan bairee saara zamaana
saajan bairee saara zamaana
aise mein tum bhool na jaana
aise mein tum bhool na jaana
thhaame jigar ginti hoon sitaare
aa ja aa
aa ja aa aa aa
aa jaa
jeewan naiyya dagmag dole
jeewan naiyya dagmag dole …
——————————————–
Devnagri Script lyrics (Provided by Avinash Scrapwala)
——————————————–
आ जा आ आ आ
आ जा
आ जा आ आ आ
आ जा
आ जा पपीहे
गीत सुना दे
रो रो बिरहन रैन गुज़ारे
आ जा आ
आ जा आ आ आ
आ जा
याद किसी की जब आ जाए
याद किसी की जब आ जाए
हूक उठे मन तडपा जाए
हूक उठे मन तडपा जाए
नीर बहाए नैन बेचारे
आ जा
आ जा आ आ आ
आ जा
साजन बैरी सारा ज़माना
साजन बैरी सारा ज़माना
ऐसे में तुम भूल न जाना
ऐसे में तुम भूल न जाना
थामे जिगर गिनती हूँ सितारे
आ जा आ
आ जा आ आ आ
आ जा
जीवन नैय्या डगमग डोले
जीवन नैय्या डगमग डोले …
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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Blog Day : |
4509 | Post No. : | 16052 |
Today’s song is from an obscure film Ranee-43, which was a Bi-lingual film made by Calcutta’s Barua Productions.
The film was directed by P C Barua and the music was by Kamal Dasgupta. Barring a few big movies, the Hindi-Bangla bilingual films did not become as successful as their Bangla versions. I feel the reasons were mainly two. One was that the cast of such films consisted of most names, with which the Hindi audience was not familiar. The second point was the style of acting and the dialogue delivery of the Bangla actors was deemed strange in Hindi belt. The Hindi used in films made in Bengal was too pure to be of the liking of people who were used to Hindustani language. The audience preferred ” pyar or muhabbat ” to ” prem “, for example.
The cast of the film Ranee-43 was Jahar Ganguli, Kalavati, P C Barua, Jamuna, Patience Cooper, Bikram Kapoor etc. The music of film Ranee-43 was not popular. The year 1943 was an year when lots of films provided melodious music. There were films like Aabroo, Ishara, Kanoon, Kismat, Nadaan, Nai Kahani, Najma, Namaste, Naukar, Panghat, Poonji, Prithvi Vallabh, Ram Rajya, Sanjog, Shakuntala, Tansen, Taqdeer etc. etc. Films of popular singers like Saigal and Noorjehan were on everone’s lips. In this situation, films like Ranee with music below par could not make any impact.
There were a number of films made by Bangla artistes, like Wapas, Shri Ramanuj, Ranee, Manchali, Kashinath, and Hospital. The exodus of artistes from New Theatres had started from 1940 onwards and many came to Bombay. Whatever the reason, New Theatres had lost its sheen, which it had enjoyed till now, It was sad to see a Lion in a dilapidated and helpless situation.
P C Barus and Jamuna, the husband-wife pair, were in the lead in this film. While Jamuna still looked like a Heroine, Barua did not look suitable for the ” young and Handsome” hero’s part. Reviewing the film in his magazine, Baburao Patel cme down heavily on this misfit hero and the declining skill of the director Barua. The story of the film was about Ranee- a young and good looking girl in a village, who becomes a victim of false rumours about her character. She leaves the village, giving an impression that she has done suicide. She works as a Maid in another village with a Zamindar. The zamindar’s young and handsome brother falls in love, but she does not show inclination. He starts drinking. She leaves the house. The hero drinks and falls ill, Ranee enters as a Nurse and looks after him. The zamindar comes to know who she is and that all the rumours were false. The hero recovers completely and both get married.
Before joining The New Theatres, Barua was running his own film making outfit for a studio and a company. After leaving NT, he restarted it. Actually he wanted initially to merge his company with NT, but Sircar refused and offered him a paid job, which he had accepted.
Director P.C. aka Pramathesh Barua was born on 24-10-1903. A well educated and foreign trained prince from a Royal family came into the films only by chance. He established his own studio and made films. Impressed by his style and work, B.N.Sircar of New Theatres offered him a job in his company. Barua joined and made such films in New Theatres that the studio became famous all over India. His greatest contribution was his first film here, ” Devdas”-34 in Bangla. he did the main role and brought in a comparatively new actress Jamuna for the role of Parvati aka Paro. With the fantastic success of the Bangla version, Barua made its Hindi version in 1936, with K L Saigal as the Hero. This was mor successful than the Bangla version and became an iconic film for ever as a reference point. Then an Assamese version was also made in 1937.
With a very eventful, successful and satisfying stint in New Theatres, Barua developed serious differences with the owner-B.N.Sircar, who was known to be a disciplinarian who held the Institution ( of NT) in place. New Theatres, in the 30s , was full of Titans having larger than life images and it was inevitable that there would be clashes amongst the artistes and the owner. Like true Bengalis, they all had king size Egos and over estimated self respects.
The first crack came in 1933 when Nitin Bose and Debaki Bose clashed, resulting in Debaki Bose’s temporary exit. In the line was Barua, who had a grudge that he was not given as many films as his peers Nitin Bose and Hemchander Chunder got . The rift between Barua and Sircar was obviously born out of deep differences, because after Barua left, B N Sircar had said ” He was a remarkably innovative director who seemed to improve after every film. As an actor, he forged a style that was distinctively his own uniquely. But as a Man…..well,I would rather not discuss it ”.
However, it was known to both of them and all others connected with NT, that both these Giants had tremendous love and respect for each other. In 1951, when Barua lay dying on his bed, he instructed that his body be taken past the house of B N Sircar, where he was lying sick on bed. When Barua’s funeral convoy reached Sircar’s house, the ailing Sircar hobbled painfully to the window of his elegant Elgin Road Residence, as the prince of Players paused beneath the window for a while and then proceeded. It was a poignant moment- an act symbolic of a reference point established a long time ago in a business which was notorious for callous and impermanent relationships !
After Barua Nitin Bose left, then Kanan Bala and a few more. Only Pankaj Mullick, though hurt by NT’s neglect, stuck till the end. P.C.Barua died on 29-11-1951. He acted in 8 Hindi films( Manzil-36, Mukti-37, Adhikar-38, Jawab-42, Ranee-43, Subah Shaam-44, Amiree-45 and Pehchan-46). He directed 14 films and sang 1 song in the film Jawab-42.
Barua’s wife Jamuna Was an excellent actress. Pity that she did only 13 films in Hindi. Jamuna ( 10-10-1919 to 24-11-2005) was the fourth of the six daughters of Puran Gupta, a resident of a village near Agra, India. Each of the sisters was named after an Indian river like Ganga, Jamuna, Bhagirathi etc. As destiny would have it, Jamuna came to reside in Calcutta, a leading film producing city in India. Originally from Gauripur of Assam’s Goalpara district (undivided), Jamuna was married to the legendary actor director Pramathesh Barua, or P.C. Barua, who died in 1951. She began her acting career in her husband’s famous production Devdas in 1936 and was the film’s lead character Parvati or Paro. She went on to make a number of memorable movies in Assamese, Bengali and Hindi, notably Amiri, Mukti, Adhikar and Sesh Uttar. She stopped acting after Barua died.
Jamuna made her film debut in the 1930s and played a small role in Mohabbat Ki Kasauti (1934), Hindi version of Rooplekha (Bengali), directed by P.C. Barua. A romance started although Barua, hailing from the native Indian state of Gauripur, Assam, was already twice married. As the actress, who was to play Parbati in Barua’s next venture Devdas (1935) reported inability to attend the studio on the very first day of shooting, Jamuna was called from Barua’s residence (she was living with him by then) and was asked to get down to work straight away without any preparation whatsoever. Thus she came to be the first Parbati of Indian talkies- Miss Light had played the role in the silent version of the enormously popular Sarat Chandra novel. Aishwarya Rai happens to be the last so far and Devdas has been made and remade a number of times. Jamuna played the same role in the Hindi version also and was accepted in this very first proper exposure as an actress in her own right.
She continued to act in Barua’s films like Grihadaha (1936), Maya (1936), Adhikar (1939), Uttarayan (1941), Shesh Uttar (1942), Chander Kalanka (1944) and the respective Hindi versions of each film. Barua had left the prestigious New Theatres in 1940 and was directing as well as producing his films. Thereafter she acted in a number of Barua directed Hindi movies like Amiree, Pehchan and Iran Ki Ek Raat. These films however did not add to the prestige of either Barua or Jamuna. Jamuna also acted outside Barua direction in three Bengali films Debar (1943) and Nilanguriya (1943) where she proved herself without Barua’s influence. Her last film Malancha (1953) was also outside Barua’s direction. She also starred in its Hindi version Phulwari (1953).
Barua’s death in 1951 when he was only 48 changed Jamuna’s life altogether. She had three sons by Barua, Deb Kumar, Rajat and Prasun. They were all minors at the time and the Gauripur estate refused to take any of their responsibilities. She had to wage a legal battle with the powerful and influential royal family to get her and her children’s dues and recognition. Time settled the matters and she was allowed ownership of the house with its vast adjoining land and also an allowance. Jamuna spent the rest of her life after Barua as a housewife, busy in bringing up her minor sons. She had to complete the unfinished film Malancha of course but bid adieu to the film industry soon after. Later in her life she did attend a number of functions to celebrate the centennial year of husband P.C. Barua and received felicitations on behalf of the Government of India and the state Government of Assam as the first Parbati of Indian talkies.
Her last days were not very comfortable and she was bedridden for more than six months prior to her death. She is survived by her three sons and their families and a host of relatives. According to her family members, she had been ill for some time, and the cause of death was illness related to old age. She died at her residence in South Kolkata. She had acted in 13 Hindi films. Her last film was Phulwari-51.
Today’s song is the third song from this film to be posted here. The names of singers of all songs are not given in the HFGK. The film was released on 4-6-1943 at Super cinema, Bombay, where it ran for only 2 weeks.
Song-Piyo ji khoob piyo main pilaun pyaar se (Ranee)(1943) Singer-Unknown female voice, Lyricist- Pt. Madhur, MD- Kamal Dasgupta
Lyrics
Piyo jee
khoob piyo
main pilaaun pyaar se ae
main pilaaun pyaar se
Piyo jee
khoob piyo
main pilaaun pyaar se ae
main pilaaun pyaar se
dil tera howe
maikhaana
saaqi ban jaaye
paimaana
bano jee
mast bano ye
jawaani ki kahaani
bano ji
mast bano ye
jawaani ki kahaani
Piyo jee
khoob piyo
main pilaaun pyaar se ae
main pilaaun pyaar se
peene kaa hi hai naam zindagi
aur aankh aankh se karti hai bandagi
dilon ke ??
nahin inkaar se
dilon ke ??
nahin inkaar se
Piyo jee
khoob piyo
main pilaaun pyaar se ae
main pilaaun pyaar se
honthhon ko hai ye jaam choomte
dil ke hain saare armaan jhoomte
mazaa peene ka peene ka
mazaa peene ka
boojh lo
aa aa aa aa
ishq ke beemaar se
Piyo jee
khoob piyo
main pilaaun pyaar se ae
main pilaaun pyaar se
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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Blog Day : |
4506 | Post No. : | 16048 |
Today (18 November 2020) has got to be an important day in the calendar of Hindi Film Song lovers, especially those who are interested in the history of HFM and its artists. It was on this day 69 years ago that Harmandir Singh Hamraaz, the man behind Hindi Film Geet Kosh (HFGK) was born on 18 November 1951.
We in this blog are very familiar with Mr Harmandir Singh Hamraaz. The fact that we now have the details of almost all Hindi movies and their songs from 1931 till 1985 is something that we take for granted today. But that was not always the case. When we were growing up, there was no authentic record like HFGK those days. Hearsay ruled the roost. Artists claimed to have sung tens of thousands of songs. Their words were accepted and even included in publications such as Guinness Books of world records.
We lived in an era before internet and even TV. Information on any subject was difficult to obtain, so any information was like gold dust. Today we are upto date on informations pertaining to election results, sporting events results etc, but that was not the case till 1970s. I was a cricket enthusiast, but I often learnt about the results of cricket matches after several days, and sometimes even after weeks.
Information about Hindi movie songs was entirely dependent upon access to its record, or depended on the announcement made about the song on radio station. There were many Hindi movie music fans who were into noting down lyrics of songs. I was among them. I needed to listen to the lyrics of a song quite a few times on radio before I managed to get the lyrics correct. I would then note the lyrics down in a diary. Alongwith the lyrics, details about singers, lyricist and music director were also noted down, as announced on radio stations broadcasting these songs.
That diary had about 200 such lyrics. During those days (1970s), I had no idea how many songs of interest were there in Hindi movies. I was not alone, no one else was any wiser. In any case, I was only interested in new songs, recorded after 1970s. Older songs (any song prior to 1967) were “boring” to my mind. Singers like K L Saigal were objects of mirth for teenagers and pre teens like us, who wondered why these old timers could not sing like Kishore Kumar.
It was in 1980 that the first volume of HFGK (chronologically the third volume, namely volume III- dealing with songs of the third decade- 1951 to 1960) was published. It was published without any fanfare. It was followed by volume II (songs from 1941 to 1950)in 1984, volume IV (1961 to 1970) in 1986 and volume I (1931 to 1940)in 1988. Volume V (1971 to 1980) was released in 1991. All these were accompanied by functions graced by film personalities.
After a long wait of 18 years, volume VI (1980 to 1985) was published on 14 march 2018.
These compilations were authentic because the number of movies released were taken from authorised sources. Movies in India could only be released after obtaining censor certificate, and these censor offices had the list of movies censored by them. Number of songs available in these movies were taken from movie booklets, catalogues of record companies etc.
Collecting information contained in these volumes and presenting them in book form, and finally getting them printed and published had been a Herculean task. Harmandir Singh Hamraaz was doing something which was never done before. And he was doing it in a country where there is not much appreciation for this kind of work, no matter if it rewrote Hindi Film music history. In India, people do not buy even normal books and magazines, so it was not very likely that most “music lovers” would buy such volumimous books on a topic that is clearly a non best seller. Forget selling these books, there were no takers for publishing these books either. Finally Harmandir Singh Hamraaz had to publish these volumes himself. The responsibility of publishing Volume III in 1980 was taken up my Mr Harmandir Singh Hamraaz’s father.
Harmandir Singh Hamraaz got married only after he had seen the publication of volume III in 1980. His wife has been the publisher of the subsequent volumes of HFGK.
People today cannot imagine the influence of HFGK on our knowledge of HFM. When people went through the contents of the HFGK, they realised that only about 44,000 songs were created in Hindi movies from 1931 to 1980. Only around 25000 songs were created between 1945 and 1975. And we had two playback legends claiming to have sung 25000 and 28000 songs respectively during this period ! On counting their songs, it turned out that their actual count was in the region of 5000 songs each.
Even less prolific singers were supposed to have sung thousands of songs in the pre HFGK days. Influenced by HFGK, Mukesh Geet Kosh was published and it turned out that Mukesh had sung less than 1000 songs in Hindi movies. Mukesh fans were quite unhappy with Harish Raghuvanshi jee, a major contributor of HFGK and the author of Mukesh Geet kosh. 🙂
A blog like ours cannot be imagined in its present form if we did not have HFGK available to us. Thanks of HFGK, we can accurately gauge the progress of the blog on a regular basis. For instance, HFGK volume III tells us that the decade of 1950s (1951 to 1960) had 1160 movies and about 9000 songs. The blog today has 5099 songs from 1007 movies from this decade. Based on information from HFGK, we know when we cover all the songs of a movie. We know for sure that 384 of these 1007 movies have been YIPPEED. So we only need to look at the songs of 1007-348= 659 movies plus the 153 missing movies. So we know for sure that a little under 4000 songs from this decade are yet to be covered. Not every song will be available. yet that gives us an idea which movies and which songs to search for.
That is not all. HFGK also tells us about our progress in covering songs of a particular year, a particular artist etc. Thanks to the information contained in various volumes of HFGK, now we can say with confidence that we have less than 100 songs each to be covered for artists like S D Burman, Naushad, O P Nayyar, Roshan, Shailendra etc. We can confidently state that the year 1968 saw 458 songs created in 72 movies and that the blog has 313 of these songs (from 68 movies). So we are just 145 songs short of covering all the songs of the year 1968.
One can say that HGFK has opened an entirely new dimension for Hindi Film music lovers to explore and savour. With advent of time, Internet has happened which has made it very easy for people to collaborate online. Harmandir Singh jee left us the treasure of HFGK. Now we can go through its contents and seek to search for songs and movies that we may not otherwise be aware of.
He compiled HFGK in an era before computers and internet. Today, equipped with them, we can use the data contained in HFGK and gain valuable insight into HFM. In a way, we and others like us are reaping the rewards of HFGK. We in this blog are in a way trying to take the next step, namely trying and locating all the songs mentioned in HFGK, and gaining information that was not available at the time HFGK got compiled.
While Harmandir Singh Hamraaz is well known among hardcore HFM historians, he is not known among casual music lovers and definitely not in government circles. He deserves government recognition for his Herculean task. He should have been awarded Padmshree for his contributions. As fas as I know, these awards are accorded only if someone gives nomination. In most cases, the persons themselves send their own nominations. Knowing important persons in the Government also helps. It is clear that a self respecting person like Har Mandir Singh jee will not send his own nomination. I think some hardcore HFM lovers should take the lead and send his name for Padmshree. He richly deserves this honour.
On this occasion, here is a song from “Laadli”(1949). This movie, HFGK part II tells us, is directed by J P Advani for Variety Pictures, Bombay. This “social” movie had Sulochana Chatterjee, Jairaj, Kuldeep, Sulochana (senior), Ramesh Sinha, Shivnath Seth, Pt Iqbal, Narbada Shankar, Urvashi, Shivji, Randheer etc in it.
The movie had eleven songs in it. Six of these songs have been covered in the past.
Lata Mangeshkar’s voice figured in seven songs. Four out of these seven songs have been covered in the past.
The song under discussion is sung by Lata. Nazim Panipati is the lyricist. Music is composed by Anil Biswas.
What a fun song it is ! I am sure that most of us would not have become aware of it without consulting HFGK.
I take this opportunity to wish Shree Harmandir Singh Hamraaz a very happy birhday. Let there be many more happy returns of the day.
Song-Khula hua hai dil ka ye darwaazaa re(Laadli)(1949) Singer-Lata, Lyrics-Nazim Panipati, MD-Anil Biswas
Lyrics
intzari mein teri saara sitamber beeta
rote rote teri furkat mein november beeta
aahen bhar bhar ke ye kehta hai calendar mujhse
hichkiyaan lete huye saara december beeta aa aa aa aa aa
khula hua hai dil ka ye darwaaja re ae
aathh roz ki chutti lekar aaja re
aaja re
khula hua hai dil ka ye darwaaja re ae
o baabu mere
aath roz ki chutti lekar aaja re
aaja re
dil tere hizr mein deewaana bana jaata hai
thandi aaho se barf khaana bana jaata hai
thandi aaho se barf khaana bana jaata hai
do hi ashkon se hua aa aa aa aa aa
do hi ashkon se hua unki gali mein keechad
meri afsaani bhi afsaana bana jaata hai
arre aa aa aa aa aa aa
aa dil ka rog mita ja re
mita ja re
mita ja re
aathh roz ki chutti lekar aaja re
aaja re
khula hua hai dil ka ye darwaaja re
o ainak waale
aath roz ki chutti lekar aaja re
aaja re
ho gaye qaid mere dil ko churaane waale
haspatalon mein gaye aankh milaane waale ae
haspatalon me gaye aankh milaane waale
aa tujhe dil ki main aen aen aen aen
aa tujhe dil ki main ik lori suna du jaalim
o mujhe hizr ke choolhe mein jalaane waale
mere dil ki ee ee ee
mere dil ki lagi bujha ja re
bujha ja re
bujha ja re
aathh roz ki chutti lekar aaja re
aaja re
khula hua hai dil ka ye darwaaja re
o baabu mere
aathh roz ki chutti lekar aaja re
aaja re
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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Blog Day : |
4506 | Post No. : | 16047 |
Today’s song is from the film Kaise Kahoon-1945.
To start with, Bombay was the first film making centre followed closely by Calcutta. Slowly, some other centres like Madras, Coimbatore, Poona, Bangalore etc. as occasional film centres also developed. In 1924,i.e. 11 years after the first silent feature film was released in Bombay, Lahore made its first silent film-“The daughters of Today”. It was made and released in Lahore. This film was made by Mr. G K Mehta, a former officer of North Western Railways, who had imported a Camera from London. A R Kardar, who was making posters for foreign film productions and who was a qualified well known Calligrapher, assisted Mehta. Kardar and his friend Ismail both also acted in that film.
In 1928, Kardar, with no other work on hand, decided to start a film making studio and a production company called ” United Players Corporation” to make films. He made 12 silent films in Lahore, thus bringing Lahore’s name on the map of film centres in India. Therefore, Kardar can be called the architect of Lahore film industry, in a sense. Slowly Talkie films were planned in Lahore. Dalsukh Pancholiestablished his studio. The making of films like Khazanchi, Khandan and Zamindar firmly established Lahore as a Film making centre. Many films like Poonji, Daasi etc were made there. Punjabi aspirants in various fields like acting, direction, music, singing, cinematography etc found Lahore convenient to start careers, rather than going to Bombay all the way.
Film Kaise Kahoon – 45 was made by Pancholi Art Studio, Lahore which had earned All India fame with its highly successful films. As per Baburao Patel’s review in Film India magazine January 1945, the film’s story was by Dalsukh pancholi himself. He had also written the story for another hit film Daasi-44 earlier. Patel said in his review that ” Pancholi stole ideas from foreign films “. Whether True or not, the treatment Pancholi’s films gave to the stories was certainly loved by the audience all over India, so there was no problem. The film was directed by foreign trained Moti B Gidwani, who directed 17 films in his career. It is interesting to know, however, that his first film as a director, ” Midnight Girl -29″ was a resounding flop and it caused the film maker company- Maharashtra Film company of Kolhapur to close down. It also caused a group of 5 people to leave the company earlier and start their own Prabhat Film Company, at Kolhapur.
Cast of the film was Ragini, Najmul Hasan, Akhtar, Jagirdar, Durga Mota etc. Ragini was famous and popular. She was one of the two actresses of Hindi films, who had Brown eyes, the other being Vanmala. The hero Najmul Hasan was a compromise actor, who had become infamous due to his elopement with Devika Rani of Bombay Talkies. She returned to her husband and he was left high and dry ! Baburao Patel described him as ” an overfed Owl ” !
One name in the cast is that of Durga Mota. His real name was Durgaprasad. Due to his heavy build he was nicknamed Mota(fat). He was a permanent member of Pancholi films as a comedian. It is very sad that his career ended in a gruesome way. In 1947, after Partition, there was an exodus of millions from Lahore to India. Durgaprasad also wanted to shift to Delhi. He went to Lahore station to catch the train. Suddenly, a frenzied mob of rioters invaded Lahore station and they started killing all the passengers waiting to go to India. People started running to save life. Due to his fatness, Durgaprasad could not move faster and was caught by the mob, who cut him in pieces on the Lahore Railway station platform itself.
The film was released on 16-11-45 ( 75 years ago to the date, almost), in Imperial Cinema, Bombay. The story of the film, as adapted from the Film India magazine review by our Sadanand kamath ji, was – A doctor (Gajanan Jagirdar) has a son and two grown up daughters – Geeta (Ragini) and Basanti (Baby Akhtar). The son who was in Burma is expected to return home, However, he is accidentally killed by Pradeep (Najam ul Hasan) without knowing the identity of the deceased. As it often happens in Hindi films, coincidentally, Pradeep lands in a doctor’s house for an overnight stay. He falls in love with Geeta instantaneously. The overnight guest becomes a permanent attachment. Basanti, the younger sister of Geeta, is also happy about her sister’s love for Pradeep.
As usual in Hindi films, when the love reaches a finale, a villain, a zamindar (probably Ajmal) steps in the picture. He comes to know about the accidental death of the doctor’s son and the killer who is none other than Pradeep. After a lot of suspicions and misunderstanding, the things get cleared and Pradeep gets his fiancee Geeta.
The music of film kaise Kahoon-45 was by a veteran Pt. Amarnath Batish. I am purposely calling him Batish, because there was another MD with the same name of Pt. Amarnath Chawla. They were obviously different, but were a case of ” Same Name Confusion” because both never wrote their full names. In this matter Marathi actresses never became a case of SNC, because they all used their surnames, like Shanta Apte and Shanta Hublikar, Nalini Tarkhad and Nalini Jaywant, Leela Chitnis and Leela Chandragiri etc. etc. This made matters clear and easy to identify.
In 1931 the first Talkie film was released. There were seven songs in this film. With this film, along with the existing Film Industry an additional Music Industry also came into existence. The early film makers understood the importance of music in India. Music, Instrumental or Vocal had secured the Royal Patronage from the kings and Nawabs. For the common people Gramophone records were providing musical entertainment. Occasional open air dramas and music concerts too were popular. By the 30’s decade the NFS (Non Film Songs) became a craze and several popular singers churned out their records.
Music became an integral part of Hindi films. Famous filmmakers like Prabhat, Ranjit, New Theatres, Madon Theatres, Bombay Talkies, Saraswati Cinetone etc. also helped in promoting film music. Initially Film music was greatly influenced by Parsi Theatre, and Marathi and Gujarati Natya Geets as well as Folk songs. This was successfully changed by Ghulam Haider with Punjabi Music in Lahore and Naushad with UP folk music in Bombay. Pt. Amarnath and his younger brother pair of Husnlal-Bhagatram carried forward the Punjabi music.
Amarnath Batish was born in 1912 in Jalandhar. He started his career as an actor and singer on stage dramas. He was a good Harmonium and Tabla player. He started his career with HMV as an Orchestra Director, in Delhi. Master Madan, the child Prodigy recorded few Punjabi songs under his baton.
It was natural that Amarnath joined Films. His first film was Roop K Shorey’s Nishani-1942. Pandit ji had discovered Naseem Akhtar. She and Shamshad begum sang songs for him. In the same year, his first Punjabi film Govandi-42 was released. His new find Zeenat Begum sang in it. Even Amarnath sang a song ” Pagadi utaar jatta” along with S D Batish and chorus in it. However, the British government banned this Patriotic song. The film was a hit film. Film Daasi-44 was his most popular film. All songs became hits. He did a film Irada-44, in Calcutta in which he introduced Hemant Kumar in Hindi films.
Simultaneously, he was giving music to Punjabi films too like Koel-44 and Gul Baloch-45.During the 40s decade Pt. Amarnath was the most busy composer, with a line up like- Nishani-42, Paapi-43, Irada-44, Daasi-44, Panchhi-44, Shirin Farhad-45, Ragini-45, Kaise Kahoon-45, Dhamkee-45, Sham Savera-46, Shalimar-46, Shehar se door-46, Jhumke-46, Aai Bahar-46, pagdandi-47, Mirza Saheban-47, Roop Rekha-48 and Ek Teri Nishani-49.
He gave music to 18 Hindi films, composing 152 songs in all. Due to his success, he started taking drinks, which became his nemesis. At the time of film Pagdandi-47, after a few songs, he was replaced by Khurshid Anwar. Even in his last two films Roop Rekha-48 and Ek teri nishani-49 after a few songs, he was replaced by other MDs. Film Patjhad, which he had signed, was given to Ghulam Haider.
During the making of the film Mirza Sahiban-47, Pt. Amarnath died at the age of just 35 years, on 20-2-1947. The balance songs were done by Husnlal Bhagatram.
(Adapted with thanks, from Film Sangeetkar by Prof. Yadav, an article by Sharad Dutt in milleniumpost.in, Dhunon ki yatra by P.Raag, HFGK, muVyz and my notes).
So far, 2 songs of this film were discussed. Today’s song is the third song here. I would say, songs of this film do not conform to the fame of Pt. Amarnath for giving melodious songs. But then, every song of every film can not be of the same quality.
Song-Gori gaagar ki Ganga udhhaar diye jaa (Kaise Kahoon)(1945) Singers- S D Batish, Shamshad Begum, Lyricist- Sharma, MD- Pt. Amarnath
Chorus
Lyrics
Gori ee
gaagar ki Ganga udhhaar diye jaa
udhhaar diye jaa
tujhe ganga kasam
o tujhe Ganga kasam
haan
dil waalon ke dil ka vyopaar kiye jaa
vyopaar kiye jaa
tujhe ganga kasam
o tujhe Ganga kasam
gori ee
gaagar ki ganga
wo bageeche mein dekho
wo gaagar pade
wo bageeche mein dekho
wo gaagar pade
nahin hoti hai
?? mein pade
babu dil mein hi
o babu dil mein hi
dil ka vyopaar kiye jaa
gori
gaagar ki Ganga udhhaar diye jaa
udhhaar diye jaa
tujhe ganga kasam
o tujhe
o tujhe
o tujhe
ganga kasam
baabu
dil mein hi Ganga utaar kiye jaa
utaar kiye jaa
tujhe ganga kasam
o tujhe Ganga kasam
Gori ee
gaagar ki ganga
Gori har roz tumse to kehna nahin
Gori har roz tumse to kehna nahin
sada gaagar ki ganga mein behna nahin
sada roop jawaani mein rehna nahin
rehna nahin
aji din hain tere
upkaar kiye jaa aa
baabu u
dil mein hi dil ka vyopaar kiye jaa
vyopaar kiye jaa
tujhe ganga kasam
o tujhe
o tujhe
o tujhe
ganga kasam
o gori ee
gaagar ki ganga
baabu baala jobanwa hai
pyaar kiye jaa
pyaar kiye jaa
baabu baala jobanwa hai
pyaar kiye jaa
pyaar kiye jaa
kachchi kaliyaan hain
kachchi kaliyaan hain
tan man nisaar kiye jaa
nisaar kiye jaa
phool ban’ne talak
intzaar kiye jaa
gori ee ee
gaagar ki ganga udhhaar kiye jaa
udhaar diye jaa
tujhe ganga kasam
o tujhe
o tujhe
baabu
dil mein hi dil ka vyopaar kiye jaa
vyopaar kiye jaa
tujhe ganga kasam
o tujhe
ganga kasam
o gori ee
gaagar ki ganga
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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Blog Day : |
4499 | Post No. : | 16032 |
Today’s song is from film Pagle-1950.
1950 was the last year of the second decade of Talkie cinema. The effects of Partition had started showing effects. Entry of actors, directors and composers from Bengal – due to the crumbling of New Theatres – entry of newer artistes to replace the migrators and the changing tastes of the Indian people was being reflected in the films made in this year. The migration of artistes-both ways-continued with force till about the early 50s and slowed down in the early 60s, where finally it was stopped in 1965 by Pakistan rulers.
The social film Pagle-50 was produced and directed by Protima Dasgupta. The cast of the film was Begum Para, Madhuri, Jagirdar, Pratima Devi, Mubarak, David, Cuckoo etc.etc. The music was by V.G. Bhatkar – who was no one else, but Snehal Bhatkar. Since he was still w2orking in H.M.V., he could not use his real name. Some other composers also did this under same conditions. For example, C Ramchandra was working Filmistan, under a contract and he gave music to his friend Master Bhagwan’s films like Bhedi Bungala-49, Bhole Bhale-49, Babuji t50 and Bakshish-50. For these films CR used the name of his long time assistant P.Ramakant (Ramakant Paingankar). Similarly, Anil Biswas, while in contract with National Studios, gave music to Bombay Talkies film Basant-1942, using the name of Pannalal Ghosh, his own Brother in Law (sister singer Parul Ghosh’s husband). In 1942, Anil Biswas was very busy with as many as 5 films – Vijay, Jawani, Gareeb, Apna Paraya and his famous film Roti.
Under such situations, normally just one pseudo-name is used to hide the real identity legally, but in the case of Snehal Bhatkar he used several names for different films-
Rukmini Swayamwar-46….Vasudev-Sudhir (Phadke)
Neel Kamal-47….B.Vasudev
Sant Tukaram, Sati Ahilya-48 and Pagle-50….V.G.Bhatkar
Suhag Raat-48….Snehal
Thes-49….Snehal and finally
Hamari beti-50….Snehal Bhatkar. By this time he had resigned from HMV and was a free bird !
The film’s director Pratima Dasgupta started as an actress and then turned to be a Producer and Director. She was born on 5-9-1922 into a wealthy family of Bhavnagar, in Kathiyawar state. Her father was the Chief Engineer of Kathiyawar state. Her family was related to Rabindranath Tagore. So, after the initial education in England, she came to Shanti Niketan and completed her studies. She was a favourite and a favoured student throughout.
Looking at her acting skills, it was Tagore himself who recommended her to act in the Bangla film “Gora”-38, based on his own novel. Her role of Latika-daughter of Paresh babu in the film-who falls in Love with Bijoy and marries her- was liked by Tagore. She did one more film ‘Na hone wali baat’-38 in Hindi, followed by the Hindi version of Rukmini in 1939. After doing 4 Bangla films, she did the Trilingual film (Bangla, Hindi and English)- Raj nartaki-1941. This was made by Wadia movietone in Bombay and was directed by Modhu Bose, husband of the Heroine Sadhana Bose-the international dancer. She married Major Manzoor-ul- Huq, brother of actress Begum Para.
Her other Hindi films were Kunwara baap-42,Raja-43 and Shararat-44, all directed by Kishore Sahu. She also did Namaste in 1943.. After this she turned to Direction and did her first film Chhamiya-45, with Begum Para and David as a Lead pair. She repeated this team again in Pagle-50 also. However her second film ‘Jharna ‘-48 was banned by Morarji Desai, the then Chief Minister of Bombay Province, on the plea that the film had explicit sexual scenes in it. This was a financial disaster for Pratima and she decided to quit films.
In all, Pratima Dasgupta did 10 Hindi films and 8 Bangla films.
In Hindi film industry, branding is very common or rather Popular, from the beginning. Actually, Branding reconfirms the actor’s strong points, his expertise in acting. For example, Ashok kumar and Motilal were known for Natural acting, for beauty it was Madhubala, for excellence in acting- Meena kumari, Sanjeev kumar for variety in roles, Sohrab Modi and Raaj Kumar for dialogue delivery, Tragedy king was Dilip Kumar (only till 1955), Ajit was Sophisticated Villain etc. etc. There was one actress who was famous for her ” Oomph”. It is said that her sexy photos were pasted by U.S. soldiers in their rooms, during Vietnam war. The ” TIME ” photographer did a Photo session with her. She too conscientiously maintained her ‘ Sexy ‘ image and so she was never known as a good actress in acting. Her name – BEGUM PARA.
Begum Para (née Para Haq; 25 December 1926 – 9 December 2008) was a Hindi film actress who was active mostly in the 1940s and 1950s. After 50 years, she returned to films with her last role in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya (2007) as Sonam Kapoor’s grandmother. In her times in 1950s, she was considered a glamour girl of Bollywood, so much so, that Life magazine had a special session with her devoted to her fine sensuous photographs.
Begum Para was born as Para Haq in Jehlum now a days in Pakistan. Her family was from Aligarh. Her father, Mian Ehsanul-Haq, was a judge who at some point in his life went into the judicial service of the princely state of Bikaner, now northern Rajasthan, where he became chief justice of its highest court. He was a fine cricketer of his time. She was brought up very disciplined yet liberal. She spent her childhood in Bikaner. She was educated at the Aligarh Muslim University. Her elder brother Haq, had gone off to Bombay in the late 1930s to become an actor. There he met and fell in love with the Bengali actress Protima Dasgupta, and married her.
Whenever she visited them in Bombay, she was quite taken up with the glitzy world of her sister-in-law. She used to accompany her on many occasions and get-togethers. People would get quite impressed with her looks and offer her a lot of roles. One such offer came from Shashadhar Mukherjee and Devika Rani. Her father consented to her wishes reluctantly, and requested her to never work in Lahore.
Begum Para’s first break turned out to be 1944 film Chand, from Prabhat Studios in Poona. Prem Adib was the hero, and Sitara Devi was the vamp in the film. It did extremely well and Para started getting paid about Rs. 1500 a month. Soon after, she and her sister-in-law Protima made a film called Chamia (1945) based on the novel ‘Pygmalion’, which again was a huge success. Para signed a lot of films after Chamia, but she couldn’t quite establish herself as an actress. Because she had a highly scandalous image, people always gave her the role of glamour doll in most films. She didn’t mind it because she always played herself on screen.
She did Sohni Mahiwal (1946) and Zanjeer (1947) with Ishwarlal and Dikshit; Neel Kamal (1947) with Raj Kapoor; Mehendi (1947) with Nargis; Suhaag Raat (1948) with Bharat Bhushan and Geeta Bali; Jhalka (1948); and Meherbani (1950) with Ajit Khan. She also worked in Ustad Pedro (1951), produced and directed by the then well-known actor, Sheikh Mukhtar. It was a fun film, and was packed with action, romance, and stunts.
In 1951 she posed for photographer James Burke for a Life magazine photo shoot. Para’s last role was in the movie Kar Bhala in 1956. She was also offered to play Nigar Sultana’s role ‘Bahar’ in Mughal-e-Azam (1960). However, she refused to play the role because she considered it against her image. In all, she acted in 34 films in her career.
She made a comeback on the silver screen in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya in 2007 as Sonam Kapoor’s grandmother.
She married actor Nasir Khan, the younger brother of Bollywood actor Dilip Kumar. They had three children, including the actor Ayub Khan. Begum Para’s father Mian Ehsan-ul-Haq of Jalandhar, was a judge who joined the princely state of Bikaner, now northern Rajasthan, where he became chief justice of its highest court. Her husband died in 1974. Following her husband’s death, she briefly migrated to Pakistan in 1975. Two years later, she relocated back to India.
She died in her sleep on 9-12-2008, at the age of 81 years. (Thanks to wikipedia).
Film Pagle-50 had 9 songs. 6 songs are already presented here. Today’s duet would be its 7th song to be discussed here. It is a duet sung by Rajkumari and Talat Mehmood. The song is quite ordinary. As such, Snehal Bhatkar was not known for many melodious songs in his films. This duet is an average one.
Song-Taaron se ab chaand ki kuchh baat ho gayi (Pagle)(1950) Singers- Rajkumari, Talat mehmood, Lyricist- Qabil Amritsari, MD-V G Bhatkar (Snehal Bhatkar)
Both
Lyrics
Taaron se ab chaand ki kuchh baat ho gayi
Taaron se ab chaand ki kuchh baat ho gayi
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi ee
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi
taaron se ab chaand ki kuchh baat ho gayi
taaron se ab chaand ki kuchh baat ho gayi
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi ee
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi
koi nazar milaa ke mohabbat dikhaa gaya
dil ko khushi se aaj dhadakna bhi aa gaya
kya jaane aankhon aankhon mein kya ghaat ho gayi
kya jaane aankhon aankhon mein kya ghaat ho gayi
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi ee
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi
aankhon mein tere khwaab hain
honthon pe tere geet
aankhon mein tere khwaab hain
honthon pe tere geet
tu aarzoo hai dil ki
har saans tera meet
tu aarzoo hai dil ki
har saans tera meet
ab meri zindagi bhi tere saath ho gayi
ab meri zindagi bhi tere saath ho gayi
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi ee
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi
apna bana ke dekho daaman na chhod dena
apna bana ke dekho daaman na chhod dena
dil mein samaane waale
dil ko na tod dena
dil mein samaane waale
dil ko na tod dena
manzoor unki dil ko har baat ho gayi
manzoor unki dil ko har baat ho gayi
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi ee
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi
taaron se ab chaand ki kuchh baat ho gayi
taaron se ab chaand ki kuchh baat ho gayi
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi ee
aapas mein do dilon ki ee mulaakaat ho gayi
Ham se dil ki lagi na chhupaana
Posted on: November 8, 2020
This article is written by nahm, 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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Blog Day : |
4496 | Post No. : | 16028 |
Munawwar Sultana – 96th Birth Anniversary on 08/11/2020
The name Munawwar means, shining brightly or aglow. Combined with Sultana, it becomes “an empress who shone with a bright light”. Munawwar Sultana was born on 8th November, 1924 at Lahore, she had a compact but meaningful career from 1941 to 1956 of working in 28 films. After this she settled down to married life and devoted her-self to raising her family. She expired at the age of 82 on 15th September 2007.
I have not seen any of the films she acted in but some of the songs picturised on her are my personal favorites. The song Afsaana likh rahi hoon de=il e bekaraar ka is one of those songs which will be remembered till hindi film songs are remembered. From what I have read about her career, she was very much part of the A list actors and film makers of the era, and she quit while still in demand. She might even have cut down on films because she wanted to quit. She never made a comeback despite living in Mumbai all her life and in the thick of things at Pali Hill. The busiest and eventful time of her career is from 1947 to 1952.
Another important film of Munawwar Sultana is Babul 1950, which has her lip syncing this famous unforgettable duet Milte hi aankhen dil huaa deewaana kisi ka .
I was looking for a song picturised on her and found this film “Pyar Ki Manzil” 1950, with music by Husnlal Bhagartam. It is my experience that whenever I have stumbled upon their songs, I have not moved on to look for a better choice. So here is the melodious, female duet by Lata Mangeshkar and Shamshad Begum.
Here is the list of this films songs already posted in the blog;
| Song | Date of posting |
|---|---|
| Aankhon mein aankhen daal ke | 16 May 2011 |
| Bichhde huye saajan ki | 20 June 2011 |
| Ae chaand zaraa sun le | 28 September 2011 |
| Padosan ke ladke ne dil mera chheena | 2 February 2015 |
| Bheega hua daaman hai to aankhon mein hai paani | 17 December 2017 |
Though the film “Pyar Ki Manzil” is available on youtube, only audio of songs are there. In the absence of video, I have no way of knowing which song is pictured on Munawwar Sultana, among the remaining 5 songs of the film, not yet posted. So it is doubly prudent that I chose this song, a female duet, the chances of it featuring Munnawar Sultana doubles. Actually Rehman is the hero, and two singers are talking about him in the song.
Shewan Rizvi is the lyricist, of this wonderfully tuned song. It should have been a popular song, even in 1950 crowded as it was with all the great songs of the era.
This is the present tally of Huslal-Bhagatram and Shewan Rizvi in the blog:
| Artist | Songs in the blog | Career tally of songs |
|---|---|---|
| Husnlal Bhagatram | 289 | 451 (50 movies) |
| Shewan Rizvi | 118 | 381 |
100th song of Shewan Rizvi was some years ago, which raises the thought that it is time to improve this poets tally in the blog. Some of the 28 movies starring Munawwar Sultana, not yet yippeed or represented in the blog, may have a few more songs filmed on her, and who knows what all pearls are lying in wait to be discovered.
Song-Ham se dil ki lagi na chhupaana (Pyaar Ki Manzil)(1950) Singers-Lata Mangeshkar, Shamshad Begum, Lyrics-Shewan Rizvi, MD-Husnlal Bhagatram
Lyrics
Ham se dil ki lagi na chhupaana
ham se dil ki lagi na chhupaana
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
ham se dil ki lagi na chhupaana
ham se dil ki lagi na chhupaana
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
thhandi hawaaon ka kar ke bahaana
kar ke bahaana
kahaani hamaari
hamin se chhupaana
hamin se chhupaana
bhole balmaa ne yeh nahin jaana
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
na be-chainiyan dil ki na tum se chhupengi
na tum se chhupengi
zubaan chup rahi to
nagaahen kahengi
nagaahen kahengi
lagi dil ki hai mushkil chhupaana
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
wo ruk ruk ke kehnaa
mazaa de rahaa thha
mazaa de rahaa thha
ke nazaron ka jhuknaa
pataa de rahaa thha
pataa de rahaa thha
lagaa dil pe nazar ka nishaana
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
yahi dekhnaa hai
na kab tak kahoge
na kab tak kahoge
kahaan tak muhobbat mein
chup chup rahoge ae
chup chup rahoge
piya kab tak karoge bahaana
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
ham se dil ki lagi na chhupaana
ham se dil ki lagi na chhupaana
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
dekho ji kahin keh de na nigaahen yeh fasaanaa
Jo pahne ban jaaye dulhan
Posted on: November 8, 2020
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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Blog Day : |
4496 | Post No. : | 16027 |
Today’s song is from the film Beti-1941.
In India, most people want a Son and not a daughter, but the thinking of film makers seems to be different. From 1931 to 2012 period, only one film titled BETA was made in 1992, whereas there were 3 films titled BETI, made in 1941, 1957 and 1969. there was also one film called BETI NO. 1 made in 2000. Interestingly, while there was a film called BETA HO TO AISA in 1994, there was also a film called BETI TUMHARE JAISI in 1969. As if a compromise was done, there was a film BETI-BETE in 1964 (here also BETI came first). I am happy about this because, hopefully, it indicates where the Indian society is heading to !
1941 was the first year in the second decade of the Talkie Era and it was the beginning of the emergence of a New film industry. When Talkie started in 1931, for many years after that, the films were made by the people who had done work in the Silent films. These films had a spill over for the silent era artistes. Once the films started talking,most silent artistes who could not speak Hindi or Urdu automatically disappeared. Thus started the influx of new actors who could speak Hindi and sing songs, in whatever way they could. Intelligent directors like V Shantaram,Bhavnani, Sohrab Modi, Chandulal Shah, Himanshu Rai, B N Sircar, L V Prasad and a host of Gujarati directors understood that the Talkie needs a different treatment than silent films. Music directors from stage dramas tried their hand in composing film music.
In the next 8-9 years, there was a perceptible change in the film making, acting, singing, and composing music in the films that were made. Quality artistes from the silent era continued for some more years – finally giving way to the new artistes. The 30s and the 40s mostly differed in film music and story contents. The new blood composers like Anil Biswas, C Ramchandra, Naushad, Ghulam Haider, K Datta, Hansraj Behl, Bulo C Rani, Gyan Dutt and many more replaced the Parsi, Marathi and Gujarati drama music to more acceptable lilting songs. Many musical films were made and some everlasting songs were composed by these people. At the end of the 40’s decade one more major change in the film industry took place due to Partition. More about it when we discuss a song from 1951 in coming times.
Today’s film is an excellent example in which the cast indicated artistes, none of whom lasted till 1951. Most retired, some died and a few migrated to Pakistan. The film was directed by Jayant Desai, music was by Gyan Dutt, lyricists were D N Madhok and B R Sharma. The actors were Khurshid, Arun, Vasanti, Ghori, Bilimorea, kesari, Nagendra, Rewashankar and Khatun etc.etc.
In my last post I had written about the multifaceted S N Tripathi, who was an actor, singer, music director and director. Some readers were surprised to read about his multiple activities. But in the Hindi cinema field, there were some really talented, multi activity artistes, both in films and outside films. Offhand I can mention at least 3 such artistes. The first is Dewan Sharar, who was from a Royal clan. He was editor of an Urdu cine-magazine, worked in New York with League of Nations, editor of a London weekly, Wrote many books in English, wrote story of film KARMA-33 an English film, wrote many Radio plays on BBC, Producer and actor in the Hindi version of film Karma-33, worked for A.I.R. Delhi, acted in 8 Hindi films, wrote stories of 10 films and 62 songs in 12 films.
Second example is of Pandit Badri Prasad, who was a Hero, character actor, director, producer, Singer, Music Director, Lyricist and Choreographer in addition to being a Sanskrit scholar. Third example is Sailesh Mukherji – actor, singer, Music Director and Interior Designer (Mala Sinha’s bungalow), Radio compere on A.I.R. Calcutta.
In today’s film also there is one such multi activity artiste. The name is Nagendra Majumdar. He was the father of Ninu majumdar, the music director. Nagendra was born in a happy family in the year 1894 in Bombay. After his father died, “Pearl Dairy’ established by his father ran very well doing good business. Suddenly, Nagendra’s wife fell seriously ill and despite taking her full care, she expired. Due to neglect of the Dairy in this period, Dairy also closed down.
He shifted to Baroda and worked as a State Police Inspector. Later he worked as a Watch and Ward Inspector in Baroda Railways. He left the job and started working as a hero in dramas of famous dramatist R.V.Desai. Heeralal, the owner of Laxmi Film Company, Bombay was impressed with his personality and took him to Bombay in 1926 to act in his silent films. Thus started his film career. In those days Silent films used to be completed within a month. He worked as a Hero in films of Laxmi, Jagdish and Imperial film companies.
In the same year, he directed a film ‘Paani mein aag’-1926, made by Royal Arts. Then came two more films made by Kaiser E Hind films. He also directed films for other companies. In all, he directed 15 Silent films by 1932. By then the Talkie had arrived. In the next 14 years he directed 12 Talkie films like – Ras Vilas-32, Sassi Punnu-32, Patit Pawan-33, mirza Sahibaan-33, Mera Imaan-34, Kala Wagh-34, Rangila nawab-35, Kimiyagar-36, Aaj ka Alladin aka Alladin II-36, Lehri lutera-37, Talwarwala-46 and Swadesh Sewa-46.
When offers for direction became few, he started acting in films. He acted in 12 films. When K L Saigal came to Bombay, Nagendra wanted to work with him. In the film Tansen-43, he did the role of Tansen’s (Saigal’s) father and he was very happy. Other films that he acted in were Kanchan-41,Beti-41, Khilauna-42, Bhakt Surdas-42, Armaan-42, Tansen-43, Gauri-43, Adab Arz-43, Bharthari-44, Prabhu ka Ghar-45, Ghazal-45 and Dhanna Bhagat-45.
His last 2 films came in 1946, but his health was not cooperating for quite a few years. He gave up work and took a rest. However, he suffered from paralysis and died on 22-8-1951. His son Ninu Majumdar worked in Bombay A.I.R. as head of Gujarati programmes, since 1937. By the time Nagendra died, Ninu had already started working as a Music Director.
As a Director, Nagendra had worked with the best of his times like, Master Vithal, Zubeida, Jillo, Billimorea brothers, Madhuri, Navinchandra, Durga Khote, Jairaj, Sultana, Noorjehan sr and such luminaries of those days. He had worked for Ranjit, Imperial, Sharda, Lakshmi, Jayant Desai films, Yagnik films etc etc.
There is a name Revashankar in the cast. Some of Ranjit Movietone’s earliest talkie films had music by Jhande Khan. Next came the trio of Banne Khan, Ganga Prasad Pathak and Rewa Shankar Marwari. None of that music was ever released on 78 rpm records. From 1938-39, the great duo of Jnan Dutt and Khemchand Prakash took over the charge of Ranjit’s music, later to be joined by Bulo C Rani. It was only around 1938 that RANJIT started releasing its film music on 78-rpm records.
Rewa Shankar Marwari’s association with Ranjit Films and films produced or directed by ex-Ranjit hand Jayant Desai continued in the 1940s. He acted in 27 films, till 1955, sang 12 songs in 9 films and gave music to 21 films from Veer Babruwahan-34 to Matrubhoomi-49.
Rewa Shankar sang a beautiful classical composition ‘jay jay shankar’ in Shankar Parvati (1943) for composer Jnan Dutt. It is available with several collectors, and is a rare instance of film music using Raag Shree.
Lastly about actress Khatun. Miss Khatun Bano was born and brought up in a poor Muslim family of Lahore. As per the family tradition, she learnt dancing and singing. once, when she was performing on stage in Lahore, the Talent hunter of Sagar movietone spotted her and she was offered a role in a Talkie film- which was a novelty in 1931. Her first film was Abul Hasan-31. Then came Subhadra haran-32, Meerabai-32, Maya Bazar-32 etc etc. In all, she acted in 59 films, till her last film Ibrat-60. She also sang 25 songs in 12 films.
Today’s song is the 7th song of this film to be presented. In one of the song posts, our Sadanand Kamath ji has given the film story already. For me too, this is my second song from Beti-41 to be discussed here.
( Credits – Information for this, is collated from various sources like Listener’s Bulletins No. 40 of Feb-80 and No.145 of July 2010, HFGK, muVyz, Sapnon ke Saudagar by Vithal Pandya, Silent films by Dr.Verma, Lost Treasures by kamlakar P. and my notes.)
Song-Jo pahne ban jaaye dulhan (Beti)(1941) Singer- Vasanti, Lyricist- D N Madhok, MD- Gyan Dutt
Chorus
Male Chorus
Lyrics
Jo pahne ban jaaye dulhan
Jo pahne ban jaaye dulhan
thhan thhan nikle baala joban
thhan thhan nikle baala joban
dekh dekh lalchaaye saajan
sautan ka jo jiya jalaaye
aisi saadi kaun banaaye
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
Jo pahne ban jaye dulhan
Jo pahne ban jaye dulhan
thhan thhan nikle baala joban
chhan chhan nikle baala joban
dekh dekh lalchaaye saajan
sautan ka jo jiya jalaaye
aisi saadi kaun banaaye
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
laala jee jab baahar jaayen
dhoti patlidaar banaayen
laala jee jab baahar jaayen
dhoti patlidaar banaayen
laali jee ka joban bhaaye
aisi dhoti kaun banaaye
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
laali jee ka joban bhaaye
aisi dhoti kaun banaaye
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
patli patli pyaari malmal
patli patli pyaari malmal
sabse sundar sabse komal
tan ko laage jaise makhmal
saajan ko de josh ramaaye
aisi makhmal kaun banaaye
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
saajan ko ?? ramaaye
aisi makhmal kaun banaaye
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
Shankar mill
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