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

This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular 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.

Today’s song is from from an almost forgotten film of the Golden period- Jeevan Sathi-57. This particular song is a very melodious one which had been quite popular in those days. I was surprised how this song was not yet posted here so long. The song is sung by Geeta Dutt, written by Indeevar, it is composed by by a talented but a moderately successful composer- Bulo C. Rani.

Bulo C Rani was such composer whose best is buried under the debris . When the slow paced melodious music was replaced by the fast paced
rhythmic melodies, Bulo suddenly lost his relevance as a composer. He lived in a state of hibernation for so long that his death – a suicide – on 24th May 1993 at 73 was reported as if it was a matter of no big consequence. The eventful career of Bulo C Rani in the 40’s and the early 50’s was forgotten.

Bulo c Rani was born on may 6, 1920 in Hyderabad, Sindh and his original name was Bulo Chandiramani Ramchandani. His father Chandiram was also a composer and he has composed for a film Insan ya Shaitaan[1933]. Incidentally, this was the first film in which our National Anthem ” Jan gan Man…” was composed. Bulo obviously grew up in a musical atmosphere and hence in a way, it was not surprising that after graduating, he went to Lahore with the express intention of composing for films and joined Ghulam Haider for a while he came to mumbai in 1942 with D N Madhok and joined Ranjit films to assist Khemchand Prakash and later on to Gyan Dutt. Independently he gave music to Ranjit films from 1945 onwards only.

Khemchand gave him a break as a singer in 1942 in Mehman. in 1942 Gyan Dutt also gave him opportunity to sing. In 1943 he got six films to sing in. In all he sang 34 songs in 19 films. O JOGAN O BAIRAGI in Shankar Parvati [music by Gyan Dutt] was very popular. in 1944 he composed for Pagli Duniya. He composed for the film murti-45. in it Badariya Baras Gayi – which mukesh’s first song as the composer often claimed with pride – won popularity.Before that in film Paigham-43. 2 songs are credited to him. An important thing is, Bulo sang in Pagli Duniya-44 as BHOLA and subsequently too he sang as Bhola. Most people credit these songs to composer Bhola Shreshtha, which is wrong. BHOLA is Bulo C Rani.

Bulo composed for 71 films, and composed 574 songs.

His music was not highly original, but it successfully exploited the intrinsic acceptability of conventional forms such as bhajans, or the newly circulating patriotic musical idioms, which appealed to certain stock responses.

one wonders whether he was more adequate as a singer than a composer – at least when he began his career when actor – singers had singing voices!

Mukesh, after his initial failure as a singer, caught music lovers’ attention only when he sang for Bulo in ‘Moorty’ ( ‘Badariya baras gai us paar’/with Hamida and Khursheed/1945 )

The film ‘Jogan’ (1950) was a land -mark in Bulo’s career. His composing skill enabled him to enhance the inherent charm of Meerabai’s traditional bhajans such as ‘ghoonghat Ke Pat Khol re’, ‘Main to giridhar Ke ghar jaaoon’, ‘Damag damag dole naiya’ and ‘ Jogi mat ja, mat ja’. Even the Holi song (‘Rang daaro ri’) and the sentimental one in the voice of Talat (‘Sundarta Ke Sabhi Shikari’) were no less appealing. More than Dilip Kumar and Nargis in the film it was Bulo’s music which turned out to be the real star.

Before ‘Jogan’ came his way Bulo had already earned recognition through the films such as ‘Rajputani’ (‘Ja parwane ja kahin shama jal rahi hai/Mukesh, hamida and ‘Anjuman (‘Kaise bataoon tum se is dil ko pyar kyun hai’/Shamshad, Mukesh) and the immense popularity of the song ‘Armaan bhara dil toot gaya’ (‘Wafa/Lata, Mukesh).

Bulo C Rani had a special fascination for heavy voices which were capable of more expressive power. For the same reason he was able to create a great impact on listeners with the voices of Amirbai (‘Sooni padi hai payar k duniya tere baghair’/ ‘Carvan’).Zohra (‘Ankhon mein intezaar Ki duniya liye huve’/’Carvan’) and geeta Roy(Dutt) in the songs of ‘Jogan’. Bulo did not hesitate to create an enchanting melody in the song ‘Badi bhool hui tujhe pyar kiya’ in ‘Maghroor’. Geeta Dutt was his favourite singer. He gave over 60 songs to Geeta alone.

‘Bilwamangal’ (1954) was the last significant film of Bulo c Rani. Suraiya sang one of her most memorable song ‘Parwanon se preet seekhli, shama se seekha jal jaana’ and so did C.H. Atma in ‘Panghat pe more shyam bajaaye muraliya’.

Despite the popularity of a stray song such as ‘Hamen to loot liya milkehusn Walon ne’ (Ismail Azad/’Al Hilal’/1958), Bulo C Rani just continued to drift because his music had not remained a viable commercial proposition. After ‘Sunhare Qadam’ (1966), Bulo’s career came to an end. Having once enjoyed the position of prominence the lack of assignment made him restless. No films came to him. In addition, his family sold his posh flat in Shivaji Park and shifted to Versova, which hurt him a lot. He lost the will to live.

It was an irony of fate that the song he composed in the voice of Lata in his last film ‘Sunhare Qadam’ was ‘Maangne se jo maut mil jaati, Kaun jeeta zamane men’.

Irony was that in life he asked for death and he got it. And how horribly too ! It is said that he committed suicide by immolating himself. When his body was burning, he ran on the streets shouting in pain and finally fell on the road dead.

In the film Jeevan Sathi-57, there were 5 Lyricists. One of them was Kumud Tripathi. He joined the industry to become a Lyricist ( like comedian Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi) but ended up becoming a comedian. During his struggling days in the early 50s, he was staying in Bandra’s slums along with Sunil Dutt and Rajendra kumar. He acted in 73 films. His one role I remember is from film Apradhi Kaun-57, in which he had sung two songs also on the screen. After retirement from the films, he joined TV and did a memorable role as Guptaji ( owner of a Gen. Store) in famous serial of the 1986 period- Nukkad.

Films with the title “Jeevan Saathi” were made 4 times. 1939, 1949, 1957,and 1988. The prefix Jeevan was used in 34 films in different combinations. The cast of the film was Ashok kumar, Usha Kiran, Anup kumar,Amarnath, Jabeen, Iftekhar, Mirza Musharraf etc etc. I have not seen this film, so I do not know if Iftekhar has done the Police officer’s role here. Iftekhar had become synonymous with Police Commissioner in Hindi films-like Jagdish Raj was always remembered as a Police Inspector ( a record 144 films ). The difference was Jagdish Raj never got promoted as a regular Commissioner, and Iftekhar mostly portrayed a Commissioner or Inspector General.

Along with Ashok Kumar, Motilal, Sanjeev Kumar and Amitabh Bachhan, Iftekhar is my favourite actor. I like the way he carried himself in any role.

Sayyadana Iftekhar Ahmed Shareef was born in Jallundhar on 26-2-1922. His father was a big gun i a private company at Kanpur, so his education upto Matriculation took place in Kanpur. Then he went to Lucknow to do a Diploma i Painting. He was very fond of singing and wanted to become a singer like the legendary Saigal. Naturally , he went to Calcutta to gain entry into singing . There he met Kamal Dasgupta who was impressed with his personality and mannerisms.

He not only recorded 2 of his songs, but also recommended his name as an actor to his production company. In 1944, Iftekhar was taken as an actor in film Taqraar, opposite actress Jamuna. Next year, he did Ghar-45 and also Rajlakshmi-45- in which Talat Mehmood also acted and sang songs. During this period he fell in love with a Jew Girl- Hanna Joseph, who stayed in his building. Iftekhar broke his earlier engagement to Sayeeda from Lucknow and got married to Hanna,after converting her to Islam. Sayeeda never married in her life time after this break up. He got 2 daughters.

After 1947, his family had migrated to pakistan, but he chose to remain in India. By that time he had done 2 more films,namely, Aisa Kyun and Tum aur Main. He decided to shift to Bombay due to riots in Calcutta in 47-48. In Bombay, he had no work and faced lot of problems. His wife had to do a job for sustenance. Iftekhar was recognised and helped by Ashok Kumar. He was given a role in film Muqaddar-50. Being a good painter, Iftekhar taught Painting to Ashok Kumar. In the next 20 years, he did 70 films.

Then came film Ittefaq-1969, in which he did the role of a Police Officer. This film changed his life and there was no looking back. Films like Zanjeer, Deewar etc further augmented his image and he was well entrenched. He bought a house, car etc. His daughters got married. Iftekhar acted in 318 films in all.

After his younger daughter’s death, Iftekhar was a broken man. He fell ill and within a month’s time, he died on 1-3-1995.

It is written many places on Internet that Iftekhar was the brother of actress Veena. It is NOT true. His only sister Shameem got married and migrated to Lahore,in 1947, where she died recently. ( adapted,with Thanks, from http://www.beetehuedin.blogspot.com)

Film Jeevan Sathi-57 had a complicated storyline, which I had read somewhere. Ashok Kumar’s sister is engaged to an young farmer but she loves a married lawyer having a wife and a son. The farmer comes to the city, meets with accident and is admitted to a hospital where the lawyer’s wife is admitted. they start loving each others. I did not read the story further. Same was the reaction of the audience also and the film was a flop.

The songs were quite good. There were 8 songs. 3 songs are already discussed on the Blog. Today’s song is the 4th song. For 8 songs, there were 7 singers, including Bulo himself.

Let us now enjoy this beautiful Geeta Dutt song…..

Song-Bahaar le ke aayi qaraar le ke aayi (Jeewan Saathi)(1957) Singer- Geeta Dutt, Lyricist- Indeevar, MD- Bulo C Rani

Lyrics

aa hahaha
aa hahahahaaa aa

bahaar leke aayi
karaar leke aayi ee
main teri duniya mein pyaar leke aayi
bahaar leke aayi
karaar leke aayi ee
main teri duniya mein pyaar leke aayi
bahaar leke aayi
aa hahaha haa

aankhon mein laayi hoon main laakhon baaten
aankhon mein laayi hoon main laakhon baaten
kaali kaali zulfon mein matwaali raaten
haaye matwaali raaten
kaali kaali zulfon mein matwaali raaten
haaye matwaali raaten
rangeen armaanon ke main haar leke aayi
main teri duniya mein pyaar leke aayi
bahaar leke aayi
karaar leke aayi ee
main teri duniya mein pyaar leke aayi
bahaar leke aayi
aahahahahaaaa

pal bhar kahin pee ko jaane na doongi
jaane na doongi
pal bhar kahin pee ko jaane na doongi
daaman se haan ji inko baandhe rahoongi
main baandhe rahoongi
daaman se haan ji inko baandhe rahoongi
main baandhe rahoongi
daaman mein chaahat ke taar leke aayi
main teri duniya mein pyaar leke aayi
bahaar leke aayi
karaar leke aayi ee
main teri duniya mein pyaar leke aayi
bahaar leke aayi
aa hahaha
aa hahahahahaa