Posts Tagged ‘Meer Sahab’
Saanwariya se hamri naaheen bani re
Posted on: March 6, 2022
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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4979 | Post No. : | 16859 |
“Main Haari”(1940) was directed by Gajanan Jagirdar for Minerva Movietone, Bombay. The movie had Navin Yagnik, Maya Devi, Naseeb Bano,Hari Shivdasani,Ghulam Hussain,Eruc Tarapore etc in it.
The movie had six songs in it. One song has been covered in the past.
Here is the second song from “Main Haari”(1940). The song is sung by Menaka Bai. Kamal Amrohi is the lyricist. Music is composed by Meer Sahab.
Only the audio of the song is available. I reuest our knowledgeable readers to thro light on the picturisation of the song.
Lyrics of the song were sent by Prakashchandra.
audio link:
Song-Saanwariya se hamri naaheen banee re (Main Haari)(1940) Singer-Menaka Bai, Lyrics-Kamal Amrohi, MD-Meer Sahab
Lyrics(Provided by Prakashchandra)
saanwariyaa se hamri naaheen banee rey ae ae
saanwariyaa se hamri naaheen banee rey ae ae
saanwariyaa se hamree naaheen banee rey ae ae
bas ek baar charnon mein bichchney ki ??
bas ek baar charnon mein bichchney ki ??
aa aa haa aan aa haan aan aaa
aan aaan aa aaa
main sau baar sainyyaan ke paaiyyaan padee rey ae
main sau baar sainyyaan ke paaiyyaan padee rey ae
saanwariyaa se hamree naaheen banee rey ae ae
main ujdee bhee
sanwri bheeee
bigdi banee rey
main ujdee bhee
sanwri bheeeee
bigdi banee rey ae ae
ke paaoon unhein jaisey waisey sajee rey ae
ke paaoon unhein..aen jaisey waisey sajee rey ae
paseejey kisee baat se bhee na saajan..n.n.n.n.n
paseeje kisee baat se bhee na saajan
main royee main tadpee
main roothhee manee rey
main royee main tadpee
main roothhee manee rey
woh kaisey mujhey ae apney mann mein basaatey ae
woh kaisey mujhey ae ae apney mann mein basaatey ae ae
woh ho honthon se mere aey ae ae aey ae ae ae
woh ho hoke mere main thee hee bujhee rey aey ae ae ae
Sipaahi toone jeet liya maidaan
Posted on: February 27, 2022
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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4972 | Post No. : | 16845 |
Today’s song is from the film Phir Milenge-1942.
The film was made by Minerva Movietone. In 1942, WWII was on its peak. Till that time, the Germans were on the attack, but from 1942 onwards, their decline had started and by 1945 end, both Japan and Germany had lost the war and surrendered to the Allies. However, the damage caused by the war situation continued for a few more years and like all other industries the film industry too took time to normalise its set up.
The war affected the film industry mainly in 3 ways. Firstly, the essential commodities like Petrol, Sugar etc went into shortage and the Government put several items under ” Rationing”. The list also included a shortage of Raw Film, the main requirement for making movies. Many restrictions like the length of the film etc were implemented. To rationalise and to take advantage of the powerful media like films, the Government gave additional raw film to producers on ‘ controlled rates ‘, provided they made a film with a story of helping the government war efforts. It was called a “propaganda” film.
Major film producers make a film or two such films to take advantage of the concession and allotment. During this period many such ‘ War effort’ films were made. Some examples are, Master Vinayak made ” Badi Maa”-1945 with Nurjahan and others ( including Lata and Asha). Acharya Atre’s Navyug films made the film ” Panna”-1944 with Jairaj and Geeta Nizami and film ” Phir Milenge”-1942 was made by Minerva Movietone.
The second impact of War, on the Indian Film Industry was that considerable clandestine Black Money entered the film making and many new, so called ‘Producers’, with bags of money were seen making films. Although more money became available to make more films, the directors had to entertain the whims of the producers about selection of actors or changes in the story. Many such producers started to ‘Direct’ the films. This lowered the quality of films, but brought in many new artistes and provided work to more people.
The third effect of the War was the most damaging. Since the new producers and directors did not have their own studios, they started alluring the studio employed artistes by giving more money per film. They hired studios for shooting films. This devastated the ” Studio Culture”, because artistes started “Freelancing”, without getting attached to a studio. This crumbled the studios on one hand and on the other hand the cost of engaging artistes escalated many folds. Before the war, films could be made in 75000 to 1 lakh rupees, now films needed 1 to 2 lakhs to make one film. It went on increasing and today, making a film in the 2020’s decade one needs atleast 40 to 50 crores per film.
Film Phir Milenge-42 had Sardar Akhtar, Sadiq Ali (later on called The Prince of Minerva), Meena, K N Singh, Menaka and a host of others. The film was directed by Sohrab Modi.
Sohrab Modi’s rise from a Stage Actor to a very popular and successful studio owner, actor-famous for his Dialogue Delivery of very long sentences, producer and director is very interesting. With small successes and big failures, he learned the art of giving what the audience liked in those days. However, one drawback of such people is that they can not and do not change as per the need of the times and become obsolete, ending their careers pathetically.
Famous for making large scale films, powerful dialogues and films with a lot of dramatics, Modi could not cope up with the changing tastes of the audience from the 30’s to the 60’s. The audience changed with 2 generations, but Sohrab Modi’s Minerva Movietone could not change their success formula which was not working now unlike earlier times ! May be he never wanted to change-due to self admiration or king size Ego !!
Minerva was the last big studio and film maker in the list of eminent studios established in the 30’s. When Minerva Movietone was established in 1936, there were already studios like Madon Theatres (est.1919), Imperial (1926), Ranjit Studio (1929), Prabhat (1929), Sagar Movietone (1929), New Theatres (1931), Wadia movietone (1931) and Bombay Talkies(1933). Therefore Minerva was the youngest studio. It is to its credit that it survived with dignity for a longer time-and actively too- than its predecessors and competitors, who perished, some tragically, from 1938 (Madon) to Ranjit (1963).
Sohrab Modi was a colossal personality. leela Chitnis,actress who had the experience in working for films made in different centers like Bombay, Poona, Kolhapur, madras, Calcutta,and Lahore writes in her Marathi autobiography ” चंदेरी दुनियेत “, about all major studios. About Minerva, she writes -“The atmosphere in Minerva was very playful, but once Sohrab Modi entered the premises, everyone used to be quiet and only did his work. He was a taskmaster and a great disciplinarian. he did not like people laughing or whiling their work time. it felt like a Jailor taking rounds in the jail. The atmosphere became suffocating sometimes. ”
I liked him and his films. However I always felt that Sohrab Modi was a polished, educated and a white collared version of Dara Singh. I liked his dialogue delivery style. Later I shifted my liking to Raajkumar ‘Jaani’.
In the cast we see a new name Eruch Tarapore. I was keen to know about this actor because of his strange name. It was a typical Parsee name. I searched quite a lot. Ultimately one day I accidentally came across a site about Parsee artistes. I forgot to note down the name and URL address of that site and till today I did not find it ever again. Anyway I found this information about Eruch Tarapore on this site.
Eruch Tarapore was a distant relative of Sohrab Modi and he worked only in Modi’s films. He worked in 16 films, right from Modi’s first film Hamlet-35 up to 1948. Eruch sang one song each in 3 films, Meetha zehar-38, Jailor-38 and Phir milenge-43. He died in 1948.
Today’s song is sung by Sardar Akhtar and chorus. The song was written by Pt. Sudarshan.
Song- Sipaahi toone jeet liya maidaan (Phir Milenge)(1942) Singer- Sardar Akhtar, Lyricist- Pt. Sudarshan, MD- Meer Saheb
Unknown male voice
Chorus
Lyrics
Sipaahi toone jeet liya maidaan
Sipaahi toone jeet liya maidaan
ladta chal tu
badhta chal tu
ladta chal tu
badhta chal tu
saath tere Bhagwaan
saath tere Bhagwaan
sipaahi toone
sipaahi toone
sipaahi toone
jeet liya maidaan
sipaahi toone jeet liya maidaan
?? bahaadur hai tu
?? bahaadur hai tu
ek ladaai jeet gaya
ek ladaai jeet gaya
jo kaala din aaya thha wo
jo kaala din aaya thha wo
hanste hanste beet gaya aa
hanste hanste beet gaya
dekh dekh kar himmat teri
dekh dekh kar himmat teri
duniya hai hairaan
duniya hai hairaan
sipaahi toone jeet liya maidaan
sipaahi toone jeet liya maidaan
kal wo din thha jab duniya ne
kal wo din thha jab duniya ne
dekhta thha laachaar tujhe
dekhta thha laachaar tujhe
aaj ladaai toone jeeti
aaj ladaai toone jeeti
aaj ?? hathiyaar tujhe
aaj ?? hathiyaar tujhe
kal duniya jai jai bolegi
kal duniya jai jai bolegi
hain sabhi ek zabaan
hain sabhi ek zabaan
sipaahi toone jeet liya maidaan
sipaahi toone jeet liya maidaan
sipaahi toone jeet liya maidaan
Kisi se preet na kariyo koye
Posted on: August 5, 2021
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 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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4766 | Post No. : | 16514 | Movie Count : |
4490 |
Today’s song is from the film Phir Milenge-1942, a film made by Minerva Movietone and directed by Sohrab Modi. All the 9 songs of the film were written by Pt. Sudarshan and were composed by the Music Director Mir Sahab. The cast of the film consisted of Sardar Akhtar, Sadiq Ali, Meena (Shorey), K.N.Singh, Eruch Tarapore, Manakabai, Ghulam Hussain, Saadat Ali and many others. For the 9 songs 7 singers were used.
Director of the film-Sohrab Modi was married to Mehtab- daughter of Marium, the divorced wife of a small time Nawab from Gujarat and the step sister of Zubeida (Alam Ara fame), Sultana and Shahzadi, daughters of Fatima- the extra-wife of the same Nawab. The Heroine of the film became the wife of Mehboob- the famous director and the owner of Mehboob studios.
It is a well known established fact that in the early years, many women artistes came from lower classes, singing families or Tawaifs and similar types. Most of these girls joined the film line in order to get a rich Seth ji or a suitable husband and spend the rest of the life respectfully. There are many examples of such ‘planned’ marriages in the early era. However, this process continued even in later times.
Film industry is one industry where men and women have to work together. Whether it is an Actor-director or Singer-Composer, for the sake of work they have to spend much time together. No wonder then that Cupid does his work overtime. Sometimes there is mutual attraction and at times there are one sided fires burning. In most cases the one sided fire is extinguished in a very painful way, like what P L Santoshi faced with actress Rehana or the slap Sanjiv Kumar got from actress Nutan.
There were cases when the love of Dilip kumar for Madhubala, died in the High court witness Box, when he gave evidence against her father in the ‘ Naya Daur‘ legal case. Dev Anand’s love with Suraiyya ended happily for Dev Anand with him marrying Kalpana Kartik, but Suraiyya stayed “Unmarried”, in his ” yaad”, throughout her life. Here the villain was her so-called ” Grandmother “, who actually was her own mother, as documented in the book “Stars from another sky” by Saadat Hasan Manto !
The successful 2-way traffic usually ended with a marriage. We can see marriages between producers and Actresses( Himanshu Rai-Devika rani and W Z Khan and actress Nina), directors and singers/actresses ( Nalini jaywant-Virendra Desai, Shaukat Hussain-Noorjehan, Geeta Dutt-Guru Dutt, Lalita Pawar-G.P.Pawar, Rattanbai-Hafiz Khan), Actors and Actresses ( Arun Ahuja-Nirmala devi, Snehprabha Pradhan-Kishore Sahu, Dev Anand-Kalpana Kartik, Dharmendra- Hema Malini, Rajesh Khanna-Dimple Kapadiya, Amitabh Bachchan-Jaya, Abhishek-Aishwarya, Kishore Kumar-Madhubala, Premnath-Bina Rai, Karan Dewan-Manju Desai, Marutirao Pehlwan-Tara Devi.)
There were some odd combinations like Satyendranath Athiah-Bhanu Athaiya (Lyricist-Costume designer),Lyricist-Singer (Amar Verma-Manik Verma), Singer-villain (Shakti Kapoor- Shivangi Kolhapure),Music teacher-student ( Roshan-Ira Moitra, Hemant Kumar-Bela Mukherjee, C.Ramchandra-‘Ben’ Ratan Thakur), and even a singer-Orchestra player (Vinita Amladi-Krishna Chakravarty) and lastly between singer-singers ( Jyoti-G M Durani, Gauhar Karnataki- Bal Gandharva). There were those pairs who were singers-actors ( Amirbai- Himalayawala, Rafiq Gazanavi- Anwari bai).
The interesting group, however, was that of Composer-Singers ( Sudhir Phadke-Lalita Deulkar, Asha Bhosle-R D Burman, Naashad-Premlata, Anil Biswas-Meena Kapoor, Pannalal Ghosh-Parul Ghosh, Khayyam-Jagjit Kaur, Ghulam Haider-Umrao Zia begum, Kamal Dasgupta-Firoza begum, Ninu Majumdar-Kaumudi Munshi).
Additionally, there were some high profile marriages too like, Kardar- Bahar, Mehboob khan-Sardar Akhtar, Sardar Chandulal Shah- Gohar Mamajiwala, Sohrab Modi- Mehtab, Homi Wadia- Fearless Nadia, Zubeida sr – Raja Dhanrajgir, S.D.Narang- Smriti Biswas etc. etc. Each of these marriages has an interesting story behind it. Please note that all these lists quoted in this post are only indicative and not exhaustive. Many more pairs have remained unmentioned.
One of the artistes in the cast of this film is Menaka. She was one of the ” Same Name Confusion” pair, which was operative in the same period, causing severe confusion in their filmographies. These two Menakas caused solid confusion as one of them had worked in films made at Bombay and Calcutta.
Menaka/Menakabai / Menakabai Shirodkar ( Bombay )
—————————————————-
Menaka was born in Lahore in or around 1910. She was from a professional singer family and got training in classical singing. The family was originally from Belgaum and her maiden name was Menaka Belgaonkar. Later she was married and became Menaka Shirodkar.
At the age of 23-24 she landed in Bombay to try her luck in films. In those days such girls from singing families used to get into films easily, due to their singing capability. She joined Minerva and sang in their films, starting with Pukar-39,in which she got only one song.
She was more interested in classical singing and hence concentrated on singing more than acting. However, she did act in 5 films, in which she also sang.
After her film Gul Bakavli-47 she devoted her full time to singing and holding jalsas. Soon she became a known figure in singing circles. After marriage she had two daughters. One of them, Shobha became a famous singer and was known as Shobha Gurtu.
After her singing was over Menakabai Shirodkar-as she came to be known later- retired and settled in Ponda,Goa.
She died on 23-12-2003 at the age of around 93 years.
Filmography-
——————–
.
| Title | Comments |
|---|---|
| Pukar-39 | 1 solo song |
| Paak Daman-40 | Acting and 3 solos+ 1 Duet |
| Main Haari-40 | 1 solo, 2 Duets |
| Bharosa-40 | Acting and 2 solos, 1 Duet |
| Sikandar-41 | 1 solo |
| Ulti Ganga-42 | 1 solo, 1 Trio |
| Phir milenge-42 | Acting and 3 solos |
| Prithwi Vallabh-43 | 2 solos, 2 Duets and 1 Trio |
| Bhakta Raidas-43 | Acting and 1 Duet as Menakabai |
| Dr. Kumar-44 | 1 solo |
| Gul Bakavali-47 | Acting and 4 solos, a Duet..all as Menakabai |
Sadiq Ali- the Hero of this film was known as ” Prince of Minerva”. Sadiq Ali, was born on 6-10-1911 at Jalandhar, Punjab. His 2 cousins- Wazir Ali and Nazir Ali were famous Indian cricketers. Sadiq Ali completed his Engineering degree and worked in M.E.S. at Kanpur (Military Engg. Services). Due to strong desire to work in films and dramas, he resigned from his job after 5 years and joined Agha Hashr’s Drama company. When the company was closed, he joined The Burma Imperial film company at Rangoon. After few small roles, he came down to Bombay.
After working in some smaller companies, he joined Minerva Movietone. Starting with khan Bahadur-37, he worked in Minerva’s Pukar-39, Sikandar-41, Phir Milenge-42, Prithwiraj Sanyogita-43, Parakh-44 (only directed by Modi) and Ek din ka sultan-45, also in Sandesa-39,Black out, Duniya tumhari hai, Phir milenge, Lieutenant, Ulti Ganga, Patharon ke saudagar,Jagbeeti,Nishana, Do Naina, Manjhdar, Mitti etc. In all he acted in 23 films. His last film was Ever Ready-46. After partition, he migrated to Pakistan.
First film in Pakistan was Judai (1950 Shaheena,Nazar and Zeenat). Other film was Shola (1952).
Sadiq Ali was a very successful and famous actor before partition and got the title of Prince of Minerva. He acted in many films in India, but in Pakistan, Sadiq Ali could not be successful as he was in India.
He was paralyzed in the 60’s and could be seen sitting with a Pan shop in Capitol Cinema lane, Karachi. Died on 12-7-1977 in Karachi. In his last days, he was seen begging on the road.
Today’s song, sung by Sardar Akhtar is not sung like a professional singer, though she was one of the famous singers of Hiramandi Bazar of Lahore. I wonder how and why she sang 92 songs in 27 films. I never liked her songs. I think even Naseem Bano sang better than her in ” zindagi ka saaz bhi kya saaz hai”.
With this song, the film ‘Phir Milenge’ makes its Debut on this Blog.
Song- Kisi se preet na kariyo koye (Phir Milenge)(1942) Singer- Sardar Akhtar, Lyricist- Pt. Sudarshan, MD- Meer Saheb
Lyrics
Kisi se preet na kariyo koye
Kisi se preet na kariyo koye
preet jagat ka sundar dhokha
preet jagat ka sundar dhokha
preet kiye dukh hoye
kisi se preet kiye dukh hoye
kisi se preet na kariyo koye
preet patang kare deepak se
preet patang kare deepak se
phir peechhe pachhtaaye
phir peechhe pachhtaaye
deepak preet ki reet na jaane
deepak preet ki reet na jaane
tan man det jaraaye
Kisi se preet na kariyo koye
preet kanwal se bhramar kare hai
baithhe uthh kar jaaye ae
preet kanwal se bhramar kare hai
baithhe uthh kar jaaye ae
saanjh samay jab sot kamal jab
saanjh samay jab sot kamal jab
bhanwra jaan ganwaaye
Kisi se preet na kariyo koye
?? se neh lagaaye
?? kar lehraaye
?? se neh lagaaye
?? kar lehraaye
jhoome jhoole sudh budh bhoole
jhoome jhoole sudh budh bhoole
?? haath ??
Kisi se preet na kariyo koye
Aao chalen us paar sajni
Posted on: June 1, 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 : |
4336 | Post No. : | 15632 | Movie Count : |
4305 |
Today’s song is from film Pattharon ka Saudagar-1944. The film was made by Minerva Movietone. It was a Costume drama, directed by a Debutant Director Shorey Daulatlavi, who was earlier a Cinematographer with Minerva. Sohrab Modi was not known to be a generous person or one who encouraged Talent development in his staff. All his decisions were made on the basis of financial considerations. No wonder, he paid this novice quite a low wage. After this film, Daulatlavi got attached to Navyug Pictures and directed three more films, namely Din Raat-45, Paro-47 and Saajan ka Ghar-48.
The Music Director was Meer Saheb. During the period of 1937-38, C Ramchandra ( he was only Ram Chitalkar those days) worked in Minerva Movietone and had the opportunity of working under Meer Saheb. He wrote in his Marathi Autobiography, ” Meer Saheb was a good person and a good Musician, but problem with him was that he would forget the tune set in the evening by next morning. When I joined him, I used to write the Tune’s notation immediately, so that his problem was taken care of. He was very much pleased with me for this “.
Out of seven songs in the movie , five were written by Lyricist Gaafil Harnalvi and two by Sudarshan. The cast of the film was Al Nasir, Meena, Paresh Banerjee, Sheela, Sankatha Prasad, K N Singh, Jilloo, Balraj Mehta and others.
Though this film came from Minerva Movietone, one of the famous and successful movie studios of India, film Pattharon ka Saudagar (1944) was a failure. Almost every successful and famous studio faced this problem of flops. Minerva actually had started with a big flop movie, ‘Atma Tarang-37 ‘ and there were two earlier flop movies made by Modi, under different banner,- Hamlet-35 and Sayeed E Havas-36. Even in later stage, Minerva’s films like Main Haari-40, Phir Milenge-42 and Dr. kumar-44 had flopped. Even Minerva’s ambitious last big film Jhansi ki Rani-53 had failed.
In case of another famous company, Prabhat Films, films like Dharmatma-35, Ramshastri-44 etc had flopped. Similarly, New Theatres of Calcutta had flop films like their first 3 films and later Nartaki-41, Meenakshi-42 and Anjangarh-48 were flops.
One more point of films’ success or failure is, how other films, made around same time fared in its competetion. In 1944, quite a good number of successful films had been released and they gave a tough competetion to PKS. Some of the notable films of 1944 were….Bhanwara, a quicky made by Kidar Sharma for Ranjit (it was reportedly made in 9 days flat, as per Kidar Sharma, in his autobiography), featuring Saigal. Naturally, his songs made the film popular. Film Bharthari became popular for Surendra’s songs. Chal Chal re Naujawan was Filmistan’s first venture. Chaand was first film of Husnlal-Bhagatram ( first time Prabhat hired a non Marathi composer). Daasi had good songs under Pt. Amarnath.
Draupadi was first film of Sushila Rani, who sang all 9 songs in the film. It was directed by her mentor-and husband, later – Baburao Patel. Irada was the first film for Hemant Kumar’s first Hindi playback song. Fazli Brothers- the pioneers of Muslim socials in India released Ismat-first such film in Bombay by them. Their earlier 2 films were from Calcutta. Bombay Talkies gave Jwar Bhata- Dilip Kumar’s first film. Surprisingly, Agha was the leading man opposite Shamim and Dilip kumar was the second Hero opposite another debutante Mrudula.
Krishna Bhakta Bodana was the only film of the Revolutionary singer from Surat- Master Vasant Amrit. Lal Haveli of Nurjehan, in which C Ramchandra sang one song for Mir Saheb-his old boss from Minerva. Shalimar’s Mann ki Jeet featured their star Neena again. New Theatre’s My Sister with Saigal’s song in the music of Pankaj Mullick was famous. Shantaram’s Parbat pe apna dera had Amirbai’s career best song “Pareshan hoon ke kyun meri pareshani Nahi jaati “. Prabhat’s Ramshastri directed by Gajanan Jahagirdar and film Uss Paar with the first duet of Mukesh with Kusum Mantri were also there. With all these films, the mediocre Pattharon ka Saudagar had no chance to succeed at all.
A very odd name in the cast can be seen- Balraj Mehta. I am sure,hardly anyone has ever heard his name, but he was a very active person in his life. Born on 22-4-1918 at Lahore, he was the son of Sukh Dayal Mehta – Superintendent in the Commissioner’s office at Lahore. He completed Matriculation from Central Model High School and B.A. from Dayal Singh College of Lahore in 1939.
He was active in Students’ union and held General Secretary’s post of Punjab University Students’ Union, in 35-37. He organised All India Student Federation conference in 36/37. He was a born Leader. He was interested in acting on stage. In 1944, he founded Indian National Theatre (I.N.T.), which is a very famous institution in India now also. He wrote, directed and produced its first stage drama ” Aawaaz” in 1945.
By now he was married and needed to earn money. He joined film line. He acted first in “Dulla Batti” in 1939-40. Then came Sajjan-41,Panna-44, Parakh-44, Pattharon ka Saudagar-44, Gulami-45 and lastly Pul-47.In the period 1944-45, he also became Secretary of Film Artistes’ Association and served it for a long time. In 1947, he entered Politics. After Independence, he became a journalist. After this I found his name in the cast of film Ayodhyapati-56 and then as a Director of film Trunk Call-1960. However, there is no information about him after this.
The second Heroine of this Costume drama was Sheela. She was a find of Sohrab Modi himself. SHEELA(real name-Roshan Ara) was born on 13-3-1925 at Sholapur-Maharashtra. Her father was Station Master at Sholapur Rly.Stn.
Once Sohrab Modi had come to Sholapur with his Drama company. He went to the station to do reservations and saw Sheela. They got to know each others and he proposed to give her roles in his films.Thus Sheela came to Bombay in 1936 and Joined Minerva Movietone as a singer/actress.
Her first film was Khan Bahadur-37, in which she sang and acted. Then came Jailor-38 in which she sang 4 solo songs under MD Mir Sahib.Then Divorce and Meetha Zahar came.
She became famous only after her songs in Pukar-39. Bharosa, Wasiyat and Sikander also gave her name and fame. In Sikander she had 6 songs out of total 7 songs. The famous song ‘ zindagi hai pyar se’ also had her voice in the chorus. She was Heroine in film ‘ Vaseeyat’-40
Ulti Ganga, Bhakta Raidas, Prithvi Vallabh,and Patharon ka Saudagar were all Minerva films.
She had also done films elsewhere. Viz:Alladin and wonderful lamp, College Girl, Gaibi Gola, Jahan ara, Keemti qurbani, Sansar naiya, Shaitan ka pash etc.
After 1943, she almost stopped working. Only in Beete Din-47 and lastly in Billi-49 she sang songs., which was a stunt film of Nadia and Cavas.
She had married the actor Rama Shukla, in 1947. He was a Kanauji Brahmin and they had terrible opposition to their marriage. The marriage was by Registration. Only 4 friends were present in the marriage. They had one son and one daughter. Rama Shukla died by Heart attack in the 50s.
Her voice had a peculiar mixture of Muslim style of Amirbai karnataki and Marathi slant od Shanta Apte.
There is an anecdote with one of her songs. When film Pukar was in the making, C.Ramchandra was working as an assistant to MD Meer Saheb. He has mentioned in his autobiography also that in the absence of Meer saheb, he used to insert his tunes to songs as Meer saheb’s. This was known to many, except, may be, Meer saheb himself. One of the very popular songs sung by Sheela ” Tum bin hamri kaun khabar le” was actually composed by C.Ramchandra. This is supposed to be C Ramchandra’s first composed song. The credit ,of course, went to Meer Saheb.
Let us now listen to today’s song. It is a duet of Rajkumari and Sheela. I liked this song. May be you will also like it. With this song, film Patthron ka Saudagar makes its Debut on the Blog.
Song-Aao chalen uss paar sajni (Paattharon Ka Saudaagar)(1944) Singers- Sheela, Rajkumari, Lyricist- Sudarshan MD-Meer Saheb
Lyrics
Aao chalen uss paar sajni
aao chalen us paar
aao chalen uss paar sajni
aao chalen us paar
kaah karoon mann maane naahin
kaah karoon mann maane naahin
daude baarambaar sajni
daude baarambaar sajni
aao chalen uss paar
aao chalen uss paar sajni
aao chalen us paar
aao chalen uss paar sajni
aao chalen us paar
wo duniya albeli si hai
uski reet ?? si hai
wo duniya albeli si hai
uski reet ?? si hai
wo to ek paheli si hai
wo to ek paheli si hai
jo koi jaane jo koi samjhe
jo koi jaane jo koi samjhe
pahunche ?? sajni
pahunche ?? sajni
aao chalen us paar
Aao chalen uss paar sajni
aao chalen us paar
Aao chalen uss paar sajni
aao chalen us paar
parbat ooncha dariya gahra
kadam kadam par ?? pahra
parbat ooncha dariya gahra
kadam kadam par ?? pahra
?? sunahra
?? sunahra
usmein baitha sundar sundar
mohan raajkumaar sajni
usmein baitha sundar sundar
mohan raajkumaar sajni
aao chalen us paar
aao chalen uss paar sajni
aao chalen us paar
aao chalen uss paar sajni
aao chalen us paar
Kaahe ko byaahi bades
Posted on: August 7, 2018
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
| Blog Day : | 3672 | Post No. : | 14552 |
Today’s song is from film Jailor-1938, made by Minerva Movietone and directed by Sohrab Modi.
Thousands and thousands of actors, directors and musicians worked in this film industry, since films started. Not all of them are known or remembered by people. 95 % of these people are not remembered today. Most names had no faces. They were in the films without any specific personal identity. 5% names are known to many, but it is the special few names which became permanently etched in the minds of people.
You can ask 10 persons to list out 10 names of film personalities, who gave their major contribution or were famous so much that they can not be forgotten. On checking this list of 100 people, you will find certain names repeated in almost every list. Names like Saigal, Dilip kumar, Dev Anand, Rajkapoor, Ashok kumar and Sohrab Modi are certain to be in all the lists. Their contribution to Hindi cinema is unmatched.
Sohrab Modi is remembered fondly by the film buffs for his towering personality, solid voice and his forceful dialogue delivery. Actually, Modi was much more than that. He was the first and the only film maker who took up Historical subjects to make films that left a long lasting impression on the film goers. He loved to do the roles of Historical persons ( actual or mythical) and deliver long dialogues in his resonant voice, clear diction and superb voice modulation.
Sohrab Modi developed these qualities from his stage acting days. In his growing up age at Rampur, he had spent hours in the library of the local Nawab, where his father worked as a Superintendent. This gave him a command on Urdu language. Added to this was his brother Rustom’s drama company ” The Arya Subodh Natak Mandali” in which he acted. In 1935, the brothers set up the ” Stage Films ” to film the two dramas, namely Hamlet aka Khoon ka khoon and Sayeed E Hawas, based on Shakespeare’s play King John, as movies. However, these movies did not do too well, as the audience had seen them on stage several times.
Modi’s Minerva Movietone was established in 1936 by Sohrab Modi and his brother Rustom. It emerged from Stage Films, set up in 1935 to film the stage repertoire of Rustom’s group, Arya Subodh Natak Mandali. Renowned for big-budget historicals, the studio benefited from the Modi family’s existing distribution interests in Gwalior, expanded by the third brother, Keki Modi, into Western India Theatres, owning a chain of 27 theatres in 10 cities. Set up the first Technicolor laboratory (1952) with Film Group and made Jhansi Ki Rani (1953). From 1936 to 1960 Minerva made 28 films. A very impressive score indeed. Modi directed 20 of them. In all Modi acted in 32 films and directed 27 films.
In 1937, Modi made a film ‘Atma Tarang”…..which was a disaster at the box office with just 20 persons in the audience. He was devastated and decided to quit making films. After the show, 4 persons from the audience came to him and congratulated him for making this nice film. They wished him all the best for his future films and left. Later Modi came to know that they were Bombay High court judges. This incident infused him with new hopes and enthusiasm. This changed his life. Initially he focused on making films on social evils like Drinking (Meetha Zehar-38), Husband-wife separation ( Divorce-38) and Incest ( Bharosa-40 ).
However, making film Pukar-39 changed his outlook and set his goals for the future’ for Historical films. Pukar-39 was actually shot in real courts and Mughal Palaces to give it authenticity. For his next film Sikander-41, he brought in Prithwiraj Kapoor for the role of Sikander and he himself took the role of Porus. The film employed high values of Costumes and Props of that era. The entire film was , however, shot with only one camera. His third film was Prithvi Vallabh-43, which was an adaptation of K.M.Munshi’s novel. In this film Modi enacted a dangerous stunt scene of being trampled to death by an Elephant.
His last Historical film was “Jhansi ki Rani”-53. he had hired the best Hollywood technicians. it was shot directly on 35 mm film, and was in technicolor. Modi had borrowed real weapons from Defence ministry, for the shootings. His next film ‘ Mirza Ghalib-54’ won President’s Gold medal ( now called the National Awards), to become the First Hindi film to win it. However this and his next film ‘ Nausherwan E Adil’-57 could not save Minerva’s from running into loss. It made only 2 more films- Jailor-58 and Mera Ghar mere bachhe-60, before closing down production.
Sohrab Modi was probably the only film maker in Hindi films, who handled many genres like Historical, religious, musical, Costume, Social, Action, Reformative, War, psycho Analytical etc etc.
Sohrab Modi was born in Parsi family on 2nd November, 1897. His parents were Parsi civil Servants. For few years he stayed among Parsi community in Bombay. Sohrab Modi childhood was spent with lot of activities. As he grew up, he displayed more interest in exercise and sports. He was seriously sick several times during his childhood and he had to be hospitalized a few times as well. All that led to his tall but thin physique. Later on he was very active. In school he was an average student, he never got hooked to History subject. Many times teacher complained to his his parents for lagging behind in history subject. His parents left no stones unturned to make him study but it all those efforts went in vain.
But Sohrab was good in sports and from childhood he was interested in exercise which helped him to develop his personality in stage acting. Later he shifted with his family to Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. At the age of 14 -15 his mind absorbed many interesting things in acting as he watched silent movies. Soon his mind got diverted toward stage acting.
Sohrab Modi only acted as an extra or side role which was not very helpful to him in furthering his career. But Sohrab was bidding for his time looking for the opportunity where he could act as a leading actor. Very soon he got an opportunity and made his breakthrough. Soon He earned the reputation as Shakespearean actor. Sohrab Modi’s elder brother Rustom helped him in stage acting and people appreciated Sohrab Modi’s acting.
As Sohrab grew up, his personality kept developing. His personality suited the role of king. His portrayal of King in his two plays ‘Khoon Ka Khoon’ and ‘Saed-E-havas’ were additional feathers in his acting cap.
Sheesh Mahal was one of the better movies by Sohrab Modi. It was observed that even blind people were sitting on booked seats. But they put there head down and heard the voice and dialogues of Sohrab Modi. It was for first time in history of cinema that Blind people had tears in there eyes while hearing the dialogues of Sohrab Modi. When one Blind man wasa asked how he enjoyed movie without watching the set up, the Blind man replied that he watched the movie from his heart and heard the dialogues which enabled him to visualise what was going on and so he was able to understand the movie. Ticket Money of these audience were refunded.
In 1976 Sohrab had complained about weakness and headache which were cured by common home remedies and he kept acting in the roles of father and grandfather. Sohrab Modi health kept deteriorating and he had to be hospitalised in 1979 but the true cause of his sickness could not be diagnosed. Sohrab Modi himself never believed that he was sick and he never allowed any Doctor to do any proper diagnosis of his ill health. His common dialogues to doctors were ‘Sher kabi bimar nahi padta Aur agar main bimar Hu to mai jald theek ho jaunga’. His heavy voice was enough to reassure Doctors that all was well and he was discharged within two days.
Soon after completing Razia Sultan, he had started new movie ‘Guru Dakshina’. But unfortunately this film was never completed. In 1981 or 1982 he was again hospitaled. Whole Kapoor Family visited the hospital to convince him to get all checking done. Doctors were 90% sure that Sohrab had cancer since the symptoms of Sohrab indicated that. Sohrab Modi was soon found to have cancer and immediately medications were bought from other countries. His condition led to his frequently hospitalisation. His kept losing weigh. He tried to involved himself to complete his ‘Guru Dakshina’ but his health did not allow him to do that.
On 2nd November 1984, at the age of 86, Sohrab Modi took breathed his last.
Today’s song is “Kaahe Ko Byaahi Bides”. This is a famous song by Amir Khusro. This has been used in several films like, Jhankaar-42, Heer Ranjha-48,Nadir Shah-68,Suhag Raat-48, Maang bharo sajna-80 and Umrao Jaan-2009, in addition to today’s song from film Jailor-38. It is also sung as a NFS by many famous singers. Mostly in films, the original song is mixed with some new lyrics and the credit is given to film’s lyricist. In film Jailor-38 too, the lyricist’s name is given as Kamal Amrohi.
Amir Khusrow ( 1253 to 1325 ) was a Sufi mystic and a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya. He lived for 72 years, out of which 60 years he lived in the courts of as many as ten different rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. He was a poet as well as prolific musician. His primary language to write poems was Persian but he composed almost half a million verses in Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Braj Bhasha, Hindavi as well as the Khadi Boli. His Khaliq-e-bari, which is known as oldest printed dictionary of the world deals with Hindi and Persian words. He is regarded as the “father of qawwali”. He is also credited with enriching Indian classical music by introducing Persian and Arabic elements in it, and was the originator of the khayal and tarana styles of music. Khayal later reached to its zenith during the times of Mohammad Shah Rangile and today is integral part of Hindustani classical music. His association with various sultans enabled him to travel and stay in various parts of India and this gave him exposure to various local traditions. This helped him to assimilate diverse musical influences. He was patronized by three Khilji rulers successively.
The singer is Eruch Tarapore. He was a distant relative of Sohrab Modi and he worked only in Modi’s films. he worked in 16 films, right from Modi’s first film Hamlet-35 up to 1948. Eruch sang one song each in 3 films, Meetha zehar-38, Jailor-38 and Phir milenge-43. He died in 1948.
( credits- Cinestaan, Flash back-Isaq Mujawar, Hindi filmon ke geetkar, upperstall.com,MuVyz, HFGK and my notes.)
Song-Kaahe ko byaahi bades(Jailor)(1938) Singers- Eruch Tarapore, Lyrics-Kamal Amrohi, MD-Meer Sahab
Lyrics
kaahe ko byaahi bades
arey sun baabal mora
kaahe ko byaahi bades
arey sun
ham to baabul torey jhaad ki chidiya
ham to baabul torey jhaad ki chidiya
meh barsat udd jaayen re
meh barsat udd jaayen re
baabal mora
kaahe ko byaahi bades
[Ed Note: ‘meh’ = megh, baadal]
This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
“Laal Haweli”(1944) was directed by K B Lal for Bombay Cinetone, Bombay. The movie had Surendra, Noorjahaan, Ulhas, Baby Meena (later known as Meena Kumari), Maya Bannerji, Yaakoob, Kanhaiyalal, Brijrani, Vatsala Kumthekar, Badri Prasad, Ghori, Alaknanda etc in it.
Read more on this topic…
Gaa re panchhi gaa
Posted on: July 12, 2016
This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
“Laal Haweli”(1944) was directed by K B Lal for Bombay Cinetone, Bombay. The movie had Surendra, Noorjahaan, Ulhas, Baby Meena (later known as Meena Kumari), Maya Bannerji, Yaakoob, Kanhaiyalal, Brijrani, Vatsala Kumthekar, Badri Prasad, Ghori, Alaknanda etc in it.
Read more on this topic…
Dil le ke mukar na jaana
Posted on: August 2, 2015
This article is written by Bharat Upadhyay, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
Nightingale Noorjehan -13
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With this duet ‘Dil Leke Mukar Na Jaana’ from 1944 film ‘Lal Haveli’, all Noorjehan’s songs are covered in this blog.
Read more on this topic…
Mohaniya sundar mukhda khol
Posted on: August 1, 2015
- In: Actor-Singer song | Century songs for the blog | Duet | expression of love | Feelings of heart | Guest posts | Lyrics by Nitin Shah | Lyrics contributed by readers | Lyrics contributor century song | Noorjehaan songs | Post by Bharat Upadhyay | Songs of 1940s (1941 to 1950) | Songs of 1944 | Surendra Noorjahaan duet | Surendra songs | Yearwise breakup of songs
- 5 Comments
This article is written by Bharat Upadhyay, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
Nightingale Noorjehan -12
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Here is a tuneful duet of Noorjehan and Surendra from the 1944 ‘Bombay Cinetone’ film ‘Lal Haveli’. The other duet, by the same pair, from this film, will follow soon on this blog. (Hari ichchha permitting.) Naushad’s Guru Meer Saheb has set the tunes to the simple lyrics of Shams Lakhnavi.
Read more on this topic…
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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