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 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.

I am sure, many of us have gone through this experience in our lives. Some song heard sometime, somewhere haunts you so much that you can not simply forget it. In due course of time, this disappears, but at a later time, may be after many years when you hear that song again, all your memories come back and you are lost in Nostalgia.

Same thing has happened to me about today’s song, which is from an old film Raaz-1949. It is sung by Mohd. Rafi- who was just beginning to make a mark for him in Hindi film music. When I heard this song after almost 65-70 years, all old memories flashed before my eyes.

It was early 1950 or so. Our house in Hyderabad was second in a lane. Just outside the lane, on the main road and on the opposite side, was a Hotel- Hotel Madina. This hotel was famous in our area, because the owner used to play all latest Hindi film songs on his Gramophone from 7 am to 7 pm. A reasonable crowd of music lovers sat there for hours. In fact the Hotel had become a meeting point for friends. Many ‘ latest ‘ songs were introduced to me this way. I had first heard this Rafi song from film Raaz-49 here only and I fell in love with this song. I remember, I forced my father to buy this record so that I could hear it more often.

Like many other songs, this too went at the backstage and I was swayed by some other lilting songs. That was a period when ” ek se badh kar ek ” songs were rolled out. As the time went and years passed by, I never heard this song again till last week. I was searching for some other song on You Tube, and my eyes fell on this song. Feeling something familiar, I played the song and my God !, I can not describe how many times I must have heard this song till now. I felt as if I met a long lost friend. I remembered my childhood ( I might be about 10-12 years old that time, my friends and the evenings spent clustering near that hotel, so that we could hear the songs.
Now all facilities are available at beck and call, but where are those days, those friends and those songs ?

Coming to today’s film Raaz-49, as many as 6 films with same title are made so far, add to that a few more with the word Raaz in its titles. This film was produced by Neelkamal Kalamandir and was directed by Emmanuel. The 10 songs written by Mirazi and Gulzar Nadeem were composed by the talented but unlucky Sardar Malik (HFGK mentions his name as Malik Sardar). For 10 songs 7 singers were used. One song from this film is already discussed here. I have noticed a peculiar thing about this film and that is, that for its director Emmanuel, Lyricist Mirazi and one singer Shaila, this was the only film they contributed.

The Hero of the film was Mohan Sehgal. Born in Jallundhar, Punjab, on 1-12-1921, Mohan came to to the films to become an actor-preferably a Hero. He acted in 7 films- Neecha Nagar and Chalis Karod in 1946,Phool aur kante-48, Raaz-49, Afsar-50, Humsafar-53 and Suhana Geet-63. But he was known more as a Producer/Director. He directed 18 films- from Aulad-54 to Kasam suhag ki-89. Some of his well known films were, New Delhi-56,Kanyadan-63, Sawan Bhadon-70, and Raja Jaani-72. His favourite actors were Kishore kumar, Dharmendra, Rekha and Hema Malini as well as Navin Nischol. Mohan Sehgal died on 19-10-2005 in Mumbai.

In this film there are two names which are not well known to many. One of them was Maya Devi. Maya Devi was from Bombay and started her career from silent films in 1928 with Anarkali by imperial. Her first Talkie film was Kunwari ya widhva-35. Her real name was Leela. She became a favourite of Bombay Talkies and she did 6 films with them in 37 and 38. In all she did 5 silent films and 31 Talkie films till 1949. Her last film in India was Raaz-49. She got married with a Muslim and then migrated to Pakistan, where she did 19 films and then retired in 1964. Her first film in Pakistan was Phere-1949. She died in Lahore on 1-2-67. She did films in Gujarati and Punjabi also.

The second name is S.B.Nayampalli, who was a popular Villain in his films. S.B.Nayampalli was born in south Karnataka. In 1915,his family shifted to Bombay. His personality was imposing with fair colour, six feet height and solid physique. Due to father’s death, he did a job in P and T department, but soon he left it and joined as a clerk in Killick Nixon company. He was a commerce graduate and was fond of playing Cricket, representing his company at Club cricket championships.

S.B. Nayampally (or Nayampalli) was working at the firm of Killick, Nixon and Company when he was discovered by film director P.Y. Altekar at a gym where Nayampally regularly exercised. Altekar felt that Nayampally very much resembled the famous French boxer Georges Carpenter and would be perfect for the stunt films that had become popular at the time. At Altekar’s urging, Nayampally joined Imperial Studios and was quickly cast in his first film, Wedding Night(1929), opposite the popular actress Jilloo. When he arrived at Imperial to begin his first day of filming he was amused to find that the building now used for the studio had formerly housed the school he’d attended as a child.“Wedding Night was a stunt film of the Robin Hood type,” Nayampally explained in a 1964 interview. “It had a little more of a plot to it than many films of the same class. My next film, Hell’s Paradise (1929), I remember for three reasons. One, it was based on a real-life episode involving an Indian prince and a foreign girl, described as an adventuress. Two, Mama Warerekar, the noted writer, did the story. Three, the film had a kissing scene, probably the first ever in an Indian film.”

Nayampalli was cast in Imperial’s Noorjehan (1931), which was initially to be a silent picture, but because of the success of their film Alam Ara (1931), which was India’s first talkie, the studio decided to make Noorjehan partly with sound. Nayampally was not originally cast in Noorjehan, but a chance meeting with the film’s director, Ezra Mir, got him the role of Prince Salim in the film.Nayampally then played Karna in Imperial’s next sound film, the mythological Draupadi (1931), but the actor considered his best mythological role to be that of the wily Shakuni in Mahatma Vidur (1943), a part that was appreciated by critics and the public, alike.

As sound films came in, silent actors were being discarded in favor of those with stage backgrounds and could not sing, so Nayampalli joined the Grant Anderson Theatrical Company which specialized in Shakespearean plays. After gaining some experience he tried to rejoin films, but without much luck. His previous roles had been leads, so he decided if he wanted to work regularly, maybe he should take a different approach and he offered himself up for character parts.His break came in the role of a hunchback in love with the heroine in Ezra Mir’s Zarina which starred Jal Merchant and Zubeida. The dentures he wore for the role were created specially by a dentist named Jimmy Gheista who had trained abroad with the dentist who had made similar dentures for Lon Chaney.

Nayampally had learned early on how to apply make-up for his roles and, in fact, he became so good at it he eventually came to specialize in horror make-up, which earned him the nickname “The Indian Lon Chaney.” Indeed, Chaney, Erich von Stroheim, Emil Jannings, and John Barrymore were the actors that Nayampally most tried to emulate. Boris Karloff was another of his role models. He was able to put his make-up expertise to good use for the film Sair-e-Paristan (1934), where he was a vampire-like devil, and in Zingaro(1935), in which he played a monster created by a mad scientist, and then as a the hairy “missing link” in Zambo (1937) and its sequel Zambo Ka Beta (1938). For Kalkoot (1935) he created a make-up to resemble the wrinkled effect that Karloff had used in The Mummy(1932).

Nayampally continued working in films throughout the 1940s and 50s, particularly in mythologicals and costume pictures including Raj Nartaki (1941), Nagad Narayan (1943), Vishwas 1943), Taramati(1945), Urvashi (1946), Jhansi-Ki-Rani (1953), Durgesh Nandini (1956), Basant Bahar (1956) and Shiv Parvati (1962) His last credited film appearance was in 1970’s Priya.

After the career in films ended, he started making Documentaries. He made about 35 documentaries. He won ‘ Silver Dolphin’ award for his documentary in the International Film Festival at Teheran in 1970.

He died on 7-5-1994, in Mumbai.

Sardar Malik today is a lesser known composer compared to other giants of the film industry, but he has created some golden melodies.

Born on 13-1- 1925, Sardar Malik had learned classical music from Ustad Alauddin Khan. He also learned a variety of dancing skills from Pt.Uday Shankar. Some other stars like Guru Dutt and Mohan Sehgal too were part of the troop under Pt. Uday Shankar, same time.

Sardar Malik got his break as a Music Director in a movie called ‘Renuka’ which released in 1947. Sardar Malik also sang 4 songs in this movie – 2 solo songs and also 2 duets with Zohrabai. But the movie was not a big success and he remained unrecognized. In the same year, he also composed music for a movie ‘Rain Basera’, but that movie too was not successful. In 1949, only one movie released of Sardar Malik and that was ‘Raaz’. The movie had some wonderful numbers from Rafi, Amirbai and Binapani Mukherjee.

In 1951, Sardar Malik shared the credits with Husnalal Bhagatram and composed a few songs for a movie ‘Stage’, which had lovely numbers sung by Asha Bhosle like ‘Dil Machalne Laga’. Asha Bhosle had excellent control in her voice in the early 50s and her association with Sardar Malik was very special in this era when Lata and Geeta Dutt were at the top.

His next movie was ‘Laila Majnu’ which was a huge success. Sardar Malik composed only 3 songs for this movie ‘Baharon Ki Duniya Pukare’, ‘Tere Dar Pe Aaya Hoon’ and ‘Dekh Li Ae Ishq’. All the other songs were composed by Ghulam Mohammed but the songs showed his versatility and he gained recognition in the film industry. Thokar (1953) established Sardar Malik as a successful composer. Songs like ‘Ae Gham-e-Dil Kya Karoon’ by Talat and Asha Bhosle and ‘Hawa Ghungunayee Fiza Muskayee’ are evergreen numbers.

‘Aulad’ (1954) showed Sardar Malik’s overall class through his magical compositions. This movie had some great numbers like ‘Duniya Tasveer Ha’i (Talat Mahmood) and ‘Tum Salamat Raho Hazar Baras’ (Asha). The same year saw the release of ‘Chor Bazar’ (1954), which had some of the best songs rendered by Lata Mangeshkar. She sang 3 beautiful songs in this movie ‘Chalta Rahe Yeh Karvan’, ‘Huyi Yeh Humse Yeh Nadani’ and ‘Dar Dar Ki Thokrein Hain’.

In the mid-50’s Sardar Malik composed music for few movies like Ab-e-Hayat-55, Taxi-555-58, Chamak Chandni-57 and Maa Ke Aansoo-59. All these movies had some nice songs. If we observe the decade of 50s, Asha Bhosle, Talat Mahmood and Rafi sang some of the best songs of Sardar Malik.

The decade of 60’s saw the release of ‘Saranga’ (1960), which can be considered as one of the best movies of Indian Cinema. The title song of the movie sung by Mukesh and the sad version of the same sung by Rafi is still as popular as it was 60 yrs ago. Many veteran music composers consider this movie as the best movie composed by Sardar Malik ever. The same year saw the release of ‘Mera Ghar Mere Bachche’ which contained some great songs sung by Mukesh, my favorite song being the duet of Mukesh with Suman Kalyanpur ‘Baharon Se Poochho’.

Sardar Malik remained active in the first half of the 1960s and composed some outstanding music for second rung movies like Madan Manjari, Bachpan, Pick Pocket, Naag Mohini, Jantar Mantar, Maharani Padmini, Roop Sundari and Main Hoon Jadugar. It was destiny that most of the films he composed for were not box-office successes, but he never compromised on the quality of his music. His career appears to come to an abrupt halt in the mid-60s. The last movie of Sardar Malik was Gynaaniji which released in 1977. This movie had songs sung by Rafi, Asha, Jaspal Singh and Jagat Singh Jagga.

Sardar Malik had huge knowledge on all forms of Indian Music. He always depended on light background orchestration in many of his songs. He made the use of accordion and flute in many of his songs. As he was classically trained, he had excellent knowledge on various raagas too.

Married to noted lyricist Hasrat Jaipuri’s sister, Kausar Jahan (Bilqis), Sardar Malik had three sons – Anu, Abu and Dabbu Malik. Thanks to his father’s blessings, Anu Malik met with a lot of success in the 1990s and 2000s.

Sardar Malik passed away on January 27th 2006, but the legacy he has left behind will always remain with us.

Today’s song is a mesmerising song and i believe, this song has inspired a few songs in Hindi films, in later years. Enjoy….

( Thanks for some information used herein from Beete kal ke sitare by S. Tamrakar, apnaarchieve, Mike Barnum blog, pakmag.com, Filmdom-46 and HFGK along with my notes.)

Song-Samay ka chakkar sau bal khaaye (Raaz)(1949) Singer-Mohd. Rafi, Lyrics- Mirazi, MD- Sardar Malik

Lyrics

samay ka chakkar sau bal khaaye ae
sau bal khaaye
aage jaa kar laut na paaye ae
ghoom ghoom kar badhta jaaye
ghoom ghoom kar badhta jaaye
peechhe sab sansaar
peechhe sab sansaar
bolo
o bolo
chakkoo chhuri dhaar
bolo
chakkoo chhuri dhaar

dhaar bane aur chakkar ghoome
phoot ke har chingaari jhoome ae
dhaar bane aur chakkar ghoome
phoot ke har chingaari jhoome
dekho is ki jyot mein chamke
jag jeewan ka pyaar
jag jeewan ka pyaar
bolo
ho bolo
chakkoo chhuri dhaar
chakkoo chhuri dhaar

baalak samjhe ise khilauna
ye zehri talwaar
baalak samjhe ise khilauna
ye zehri talwaar
moorakh isko haath lagaaye
kar de maaraamaar
kar de maaraamaar

jag mein jeet usi ki pyaare ae
jag mein jeet usi ki pyaare
jiske dil mein pyaar
jiske dil mein pyaar
bolo
ho bolo
chakkoo chhuri dhaar
chakkoo chhuri dhaar

dharti badle roop anjaane
aasmaan aisi reet na jaane ae
dharti badle roop anjaane
aasmaan aisi reet na jaane ae
jab tak apne saath jawaani ee
man dekhe sapne manmaane
jeewan poorampaar
bolo
ho bolo
chakkoo chhuri dhaar
chakkoo chhuri dhaar