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

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.

#the Decade of Seventies – 1971 – 1980 #
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# (Debutant movie -Konduraa – 1977)
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# Desh ki mitti ki khushboo – 4 #
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Today’s song is from the movie ‘Konduraa-1977’.

I discovered this song and this movie a few months ago while I was searching for Bhupinder Singh songs. The post however got delayed for various reasons.

“Konduraa (The sage from the sea/Maanas Ka Maharshi)” was directed by Shyam Benegal for ‘Ravi Raj International, Madras’. It was produced by K. Venkat Rama Reddy.

It had Vanisri, Anant Nag, Smita Patil, Shekhar Chatterjee, Sulbha Deshpande, Nirmala, Jhansi, Uma, Satyadev Dubey, Siddesh, and Venu, Shesham Raju, Raja Narsimha Rao, Prakasa Rayalu, Jayavani, Gavara Raju, Garaga Suryanarayana, Chenchu Ram Reddy, Sambasiva Rao, Master Seenu, Master Devudu, Masthanayya, Dr Prabhakar, Basha, V. A. Narsayya, Subrahmanyam and The people of Aaripaka, Panchadharla, the people of Vizianagram who appeared in the film.

Amrish Puri had a special appearance in this movie.

This movie was passed by Censor Board on 05.12.1977.

Screenplay of this movie was written by Arudra, Girish Karnad and Shyam Benegal. Dialogues for this movie were written by Pt. Satyadev Dubey. And Editing of this movie was done by Bhanudas. Govind Nihalani was the cameraman for this movie.

Lyrics for the two songs in the movie were written by Vasant Dev. And music was composed by Vanraj Bhatia. P. Susheela and Bhupinder Singh are the playback singers for the songs in this movie.

The story of this movie ‘Konduraa-1977’ was adapted from the ‘Marathi novel’ of the same name written by the great Marathi writer C.T. Khanolkar.

Chintamani Tryambak Khanolkar or C.T. Khanolkar was an eminent writer, poet and playwright in Marathi literature. He wrote poetry, novels, plays, adaptations, collection of stories that created a new wave in the ‘Marathi literature and theatre’ in mid-sixties.

His play ‘Ek Shoonya Bajirao’ (1966) is rated as one of the ‘works of lasting values’ in the history of theatres.
Movies were made based on a few of his literary works viz. ‘Konduraa’ (published in 1966), ‘Chaani’ (1970) , and ‘Kaalaay Tasmai Namahaa’ (1972) (movie was named ‘Ankahee’)

C.T. Khanolkar was born on 08^th March’1930 and passed away on 26^th April’1976 at the age of forty-six only.

C.T. Khanolkar was a gifted writer. His childhood was full of hardships. His mother ran an eatery at ‘Baglanchi Rai, near Vengurla’ in the Konkan region of Maharashtra where Khanolkar spent his childhood.
He used to sit at the cash counter of this hotel and always jotting down something that was going through his mind.

Khanolkar could complete his education up to matriculation only and started looking after the family business, but the business could not do well and he had to leave his village in 1959 to seek better opportunities of livelihood in the city of Bombay. He took jobs like supervising a student hostel and staff artiste at the All India Radio in Bombay. He got the job at the All India Radio with the help of poet Mangesh Padgaonkar but had to give it up due to his eccentric behavior (in 1961).

However, all these hardships coming his way helped only to sharpen the expressions in his writings.

The natural and the social environment in his native place (Konkan) played a big role in shaping the thoughts of Khanolkar. Along with the enchanting beauty of Konkan, there was also a feeling of haunting desolation and mysterious atmosphere which he experienced and brought in his writings through the various characters in his stories.
The rural traditions, the beliefs that people followed, the haunting stories that he listened to in his childhood, and the superstitions associated with the deities that people worshipped, embedded subtle impressions on his young mind when he was growing.
His novels depict the grinding lives of lower middle class people. In his writings he attempted to analyze the impact of the social customs and traditions that dominated the social interaction among people.

His writings posed many philosophical questions which left the individual for his own introspection and analysis, given the incomprehensible nature of this world which human beings always believed is run by supernatural powers above all.

Khanolkar started writing poetry with the pen-name ‘Aarti Prabhu’ around 1950 and got his poem published in the Marathi literary journal ‘Satyakatha’ in 1954 which was well received and acclaimed. In 1959 his first collection of poems was published titled as ‘Jogwaa’ and in 1962 there was another collection of poems of his published titled as ‘Divelaagan’.
His simplicity in expressions in his poems distinguished him from his contemporaries.

He received the ‘Sangeet Natak Akadami Award)’ (1976) for his play writing and ‘Sahitya Akadami Award’ (1978) posthumously for his collection of poems ‘Nakshatranche Dene’ (The Gift of the Stars).

I am quoting below a brief about what the story of Konduraa is (as mentioned in – ‘Granthyaatra episode 63 – Konduraa’ on YT).

“Konduraa’ is the story of a journey of a common man Parshuram to becoming a god-man. The writer explores the questions of blurring of boundaries between ‘vice’ and ‘virtue’ with the ‘rise and fall of person’s selfishness’, the discrepancy between thought and action and the fallacy of life despite a torrent of happenings.”

I have watched this movie recently on one of the OTT platforms and liked it very much. This poignant story is powerfully presented by the director Shyam Benegal.

The encyclopedia of Indian Cinema mentions that this is Benegal’s only film in the language of the Northern AP region where his early political dramas viz. ‘Ankur-1973’ and ‘Nishaant-1975’ were located.

‘Konduraa’ was made in Hindi as well as Telugu (as ‘Anugraham’).

The ‘Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema’ also mentions that “The Telugu version ended with a voice-over instructing the audience to consider the implications of the story.
The original novel, set in the culturally primitive Konkan, uses its central mythic narrative to create different states of perception so that the viewer is constantly asked to interrogate the protagonist’s experiences, leaving open the question of whether the frustrated and exploited Parashuram ever really saw what he says he saw. The film sidesteps this level of complexity and settles for a more standard political critique of feudalism.”

The movie starts with the following narration (I am not aware whose voice is used here)…

“In lehron ki garjanaa mein konduraa ka hi naam goonjtaa hai.
Konduraa ek jeeta jaagtaa vishwas hai.
Ek gehraa ehsaas bhi …
Kehte hain in lehron ki gehraayiyon mein konduraa ka vaas hai. Hazaaron saal se gehre tap mein doobaa hai wo.
Ashwathhama ki tarah amar hai.
Par use dekhaa kisine nahin
Kabhi kabhi kisi ke sapney mein aa jaataa hai.
Usey Aadesh detaa hai.
Us Aadesh ke paalan mein marmaantak peedaa hai.
Magar Aadesh atal hai.
Us’se koyi chhutkaaraa nahin
Konduraa kahin bhagwaan to nahin”

Here are the details of the story taken from ‘Wikipedia’ (which I find simplistic . I have added the Actor’s name to their respective character names they play in the movie)…

The film involves the life of a young man-Parshuram (Anant Nag) who comes to believe that he has been bestowed supernatural powers. As the story unfolds, this boon eventually leads to a tragedy.
Konduraa is a story whose protagonist is a young Brahmin named Parshuram. He is married to Ansooya, but is dependent partially on his brother for a living.
This makes the elder brother chide him often and that drives him away from home.

However, as he is leaving “Konduraa”, the mythical sage (played by Amrish Puri) from the sea appears and anoints him the guardian of village, to cure it of all sins. The sage also grants him a physical boon, which is a dried herb. The boon works if he remains celibate. Parshuram returns home to celibacy.
Often, the goddess of the village, grants him appearance in person, speaking to him through his wife (played by Vanisree) (a phenomenon still seen in Indian villages, where a person is believed to have sudden visitation by God or Goddess, who speaks to people through the person).

The goddess instructs him to get the village rid of evils, which he interprets as rebuilding the parts of the temple.
For this, he enlists financial support from the village landlord (Shekhar Chatterjee) who is otherwise a tyrant and womaniser. It is known that Bhairavmoorthy (Shekhar Chatterjee) takes in any woman in the village who catches his eye, including his younger brother’s wife, both of whom die leaving behind a physically challenged son Venu to an otherwise heirless fiefdom.
It is rumoured that Vasu (actor Venu) is his son, but Bhairavmoorthy mistreats him all the time. He marries him off to young and beautiful Parvati (Smita Patil), who comes from a very poor family. Bhairavmoorthy is said to be eyeing Parvati too, but Parvati is stronger than rest of the women in the family and challenges his might at occasions.

Meanwhile, as the news of Konduraa’s boon and visitations by the Goddess coupled with constructions at the temple spreads, Parshuram becomes a revered Guru with a decent following of his own in the village. Followers see him as a counsellor and a person with charisma.

There are celebrations at the landlord’s house. Parvati is expecting a child. The Landlord’s wife Kanthhama (Sulbha Deshpande) is busy doing all the ceremonies. The gossip in the village is that the baby belongs to Bhairavmoorthy. The Goddess makes a visitation to Parshuram through Ansooya (Vanisree), and Parshuram speaks of the “root” or “seed” of evil, mentioning Bhairavamoorthy’s name.

In this context, it is relevant to mention a short interlude that abruptly appears repeatedly through the narrative: The short dream-like sequence features Parvati (Smita Patil) lying in bed and beckoning the camera to come to her – Conceivably this is the director’s hint at a troubling thread in Parshuram’s (Anant Nag’s) mind, that even “chosen” ones have weaknesses to overcome.

It is perhaps due to such a bias, Parshuram interprets the words of the Goddess as concerning the baby, the “root” of Bhairavamoorthy’s evil. To make things worse, the landlord makes Parshuram believe that the baby is his, and Parshuram makes Parvati drink Konduraa’s herb that aborts the baby.

Once the sin is committed, the landlord makes the revelation that how he conned Parshuram into believing that the baby was his, which in reality was his nephew’s, and that he could not bear the thought that his crippled nephew sires one and not him.

Gripped with immense guilt, Parshuram takes a radical path of atonement. He tries to invoke the Goddess by praying to his wife, Ansooya; but, when that effort fails, he decides to repent for his sin by forsaking his celibacy. While Ansooya resists the temptation, Parshurama forces her to succumb to it.

What happens next??? ….

The movie ends on a tragic and poignant note …

Through the story, there is one character, Ramanayye Master (Satyadev Dubey), the village teacher, who does not blindly accept Parshuram’s actions as divinely sanctioned. He is seen questioning Parshuram, once even scolding him.

Here I would like to add the dialogues that I liked most in the movie which the Ramanayye Master (Satyadev Dubey) says to Parshuram when he starts the renovation of the temple in the village and gets himself totally obsessed with this activity.

“Parshuram teri patni ke liye tera jo kartavya hai wo kar …
Ye sab dhong hai, dhong …
Patthar pujwaane mein jitnaa paisaa kharchaa karwaa rahaa hain naa gaaon ke bachchon ko padhwaane mein karwaataa to gaaon ka kalyaan hotaa, desh ka kalyaan hotaa …
Narsimha (Parshuram’s elder brother), isi devi devtaa ke chakkar mein hamaare desh ki kamar tooti hai, deval mein diyaa jalegaa, gareebon ke ghar chulha nahin …”
(I think the above conversation is still relevant even today ).

‘Wikipedia’ further adds that

“While intellectuals may interpret the movie as a statement against faith itself, the story actually does not deny Divinity or its manifestations; for instance, at no point are Ansooya’s visitations hinted at being fake; indeed, much good did come out of the Goddess’s instructions to Parshuram, as long as his self-interest did not cloud his interpretation of those instructions. More than likely, the story’s ending is a nuanced take on sincere seekers, that even those with Divine experiences are not exempt from vigilance.”

(After watching this movie I read about the writer and wanted to bring more information about him here since the movie is based on his novel. That is why I have presented the information about him which I read from the sources and listened to the media available online. I hope interested readers would further read this writer C.T. Khanolkar. Also, since this story is peculiar to our social environment, culture , faith and belief system I have included it under ‘Desh Ki Mitti Ki Khushboo’)

Apart from Anant Nag and Smita Patil the performances that stand out are Parshuram’s wife played by actress Vanisree, the zamindar Bhairavmoorthy played by Shekhar Chatterjee and the character of Ramanayye Master played by Satyadev Dubey.

Here is a brief about these actors.

Vanisri (real name Ratna Kumari) was born on 3rd August ‘1948 at Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. She completed her education in ‘Andhra Mahila Sabha, Madras’ where is also learnt ‘bharatnatyam’ dance. Though she lost her father when she was still young, she continued practicing ‘bharatnatyam’.
She made her debut in 1962 in the movie ‘Bheeshma’ directed by B. A. Subba Rao. Actor S.V. Ranga Rao gave her screen name Vanisri or Vanisree.
She gained fame with a supporting role in a film ‘Sukha Dukhalu’ by K. Balachander.
Vanisri was a prominent actress in the mid-1960s to the late 1970s and she acted in many Telugu, Tamil, and Kannada Films. She acted with superstars like N.T.R, A. Nageshwara Rao, Shivaji Ganeshan and M.G.R and others.
Many of our movies were acclaimed super-hits and celebrated ‘silver jubilee’ too. She was awarded with the best actress Filmfare awards (South) for Telugu films ‘Jeevana Tarangalu’, ‘Krishnaveni’, & ‘Jeevana Jyothi’ respectively in ‘1973’, ‘1974’ & ‘1975’.

She got married in late seventies (1978) to Dr Karunakaran and left the film industry.
She had a son and a daughter. She returned back to the film industry in the eighties doing mother roles, where she often portrayed roles of an idiosyncratic mother in law. She acted in television serials as well. In 1999 she appeared in the Hindi movie ‘Main Tere Pyaar Mein Paagal’ which was directed by K. Raghvendra Rao.

Her son A.V. Karthik died in 2020 due to cardiac arrest.

(In this movie ‘Konduraa’ she appeared without make-up.)

Coming to the character played by Bhairavmoorthy the actor Shekhar Chatterjee (1924-1990) is a renowned actor and director of Bengali theatre and cinema. He was associated with many theatre groups mainly the ‘leftist ideology theatre groups. He also worked with Utpal Dutt’s theatre group, before forming his own theatre group in 1958. He had a distinguished career in films and he appeared in movies directed by the great stalwarts like Mrinal Sen (Bhuwan Shome, Ek Adhoori Kahaani, and Mrigayaa), Shyam Benegal (Konduraa/Anugraham), Satyajit Ray (Chiriyakhana, Abhijan) and Richard Attenborough’s (Gandhi).

He directed the Bengali movie ‘Vasundhara’ (1983) which was awarded with the best feature film in Bengali at the National Awards in 1984.

(I guess that in this movie his dialogues are in the voice of Amrish Puri, but I do not find this mentioned anywhere in the titles of the movie).

Finally we now came to the character of Ramanayye Master played by Satyadev Dubey. I am sure this name is not new to the readers. He was a well-known theatre and film personality who transformed the Indian theatre movement in the sixties and seventies.

Satyadev Dubey was born on 13th July’1936 in Bilaspur (M.P. then now in ‘Chhattisgarh’). His father owned a ‘cinema hall’ in Bilaspur. Dubey came to Mumbai in 1952 to learn English and Hindi at St. Xavier’s college where he had his friends like Vijay Anand who was also involved in Theatre activities and had joined the theatre group of the renowned director Ebrahim Alkazi. Dubey also joined this group and later on took over the theatre movement with his own adaptations and original scripts.

He wrote and directed over ninety plays in four languages and introduced many new comers and moulded three generations of actors during 1950s to 1970s. But Dubey was also well known for his eccentricities.
He was always trying to do new experiments and new things. His primary focus was always on language and speech which depicts his theatre background and which was essentially highly effective on stage.
Along with working in theatres Dubey also got into Cinema and made short films ‘Aparichay Ka Vindhyachal’ in 1965 and ‘Tongue in Cheek’ in 1968.
Before his death in 2011 he was already working on a movie ‘Ram Naam Satya Hai’ which remained incomplete.

It is said that Dubey who wrote for some of the best films made in the history of Hindi Cinema could have featured in the list of prominent film makers had he not immersed himself in ‘theatres’. His earlier films – two short films – and one feature film- suggests that he paid much attention to cinema as well, but later on got mainly focused on theatre and also the ‘funding problems’ prevented him from going into for production of films on that scale.

I am quoting below what he said to Pearl Padamsee in one of her interviews (in ‘Debonair’ magazine (ref. from an article on scroll.in))

“I am always trying something fresh, something new; dead habits dull any source of energy. In the theatre I train new actors; this freshness must be preserved with every new production.”

In 1971 he produced the path breaking Marathi movie ‘Shantata, Court Chaalu Aahe’ wherein Amol Palekar, Arvind Deshpande, Amrish Puri and Sulbha Deshpande were in the cast.

In 1974 Dubey turned as a screen writer with ‘Ankur’ and further wrote screenplay and dialogues (or both) for many Shyam Benegal movies and also wrote dialogues for ‘Manzilein Aur Bhi Hain-1974’ which was directed by Mahesh Bhatt, for Govind Nihalani’s ‘Aakrosh-1980’ and for Shashi Kapoor’s ‘Vijeta-1982’.

Satyadev Dubey also acted in movies like ‘Deewaar-1975’ (as dock worker), ‘Nishaant-1975’, ‘Konduraa/Anugraham-1977’, and ‘Godaam-1983’, ‘Pitaah-1991’, and ‘Maaya Memsaab-1993’.
‘Ataa Pataa Laapataa-2012’ was his last Hindi movie.

Satyadev Dubey left this world with his huge legacy behind on 25^th December’2011.

He was awarded the ‘Sangeet Natak Academy Award’ in ‘1971’ and national award for best screenplay for the movie ‘Bhumika-1978’.

(Sources of information and inputs for this article – Wikipedia, Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, Granthyaatra (episode-Konduraa), Veethi.com, Tamilstar.com, Handbook of Twentieth-Century Literatures of India, Scroll.in)

Let us now listen to the today’s song which appears in the background in three parts in the movie at different occasions wherein the center of focus is Parshuram (Anant Nag) and the complexities & introspection going in his mind at different situations.
The first part of the song is played when Parshuram gets the ‘herb’ (the boon) given by the sage Konduraa and is carrying it to his home.
The second part of this song is played when Parshuram is thinking about the ‘herb’ and Konduraa’s boon is real or will it really work? And he hears the sound of the bells ringing the temple and he walks to the temple in the dark.

The third part is played when Parshuram has arranged a ‘bhajan’ in the temple so that the village is freed from ‘increasing sins’. He sees the goddess (Devi maa, which is his wife Ansooya) and questions her if this will be sufficient. But she only nods negatively and walks away from the temple and disappears. Parshuram walks to look for Konduraa swami to seek answers for his question. While descending on the steps the Carpenter comes to see Parshuram carrying the body of his new born baby who is dead. Parshuram looks him and without saying anything walks to the seashore looking for Konduraa who is nowhere…

(This full song is played in the background of other titles at the end of the movie again).

The movie is available online.

Part I (starts at 00:10:08)

Part II (starts at 00:29:40)

Part III

Song-Ye var ho shaap ho(Konduraa)(1977) Singer-Bhupinder Singh, Lyrics-Vasant Dev, MD-Vanraj Bhatia
chorus

Lyrics

Part I(Starts at 00:10:08)
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Ye var ho
Yaa shaap ho
Shaap ho o

Aa aa aa
Aa aa aa
Ye var ho o
Shaap ho o
Var ho o
Shaap ho o
Punyaphal ho o o
Ho o
Paap ho
Punya ho
Paap ho
Paap ho
Aa aa aa

Jaan si anjaani
Hriydaya veethhi mein
Aa aa aa
Jaan si anjaani
Hriydaya veethhi mein
Kiran kaa
Aavaran main
Vandeep hoon
Deep hoon
Deep hoon
Sapan jhilmil deep ho
Deep ho o
Ye var ho o
Shaap ho o
Var ho o
Shaap ho o
Punyaphal ho o o
Paap ho o o
Punya ho o
Paap ho
Var ho o
Shaap ho o
Paap ho

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Part II (starts at 00:29:40)
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Mandiron mein archanaa ka
swar uthhaa ghanghor
Deh mein kisne machaaya
Laalsaa ka shor
Laalsaa ka shor
Laalsaa
Kaa
Shor

Thaa bhujang ban
Uthhaaye phan pe phan
Huye prashna
Aur uljhan
Chahoon oar
Chahoon oar
Chahoon oar

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Part III ( starts at 01:21:26)
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Jo gunaah nahin to
Sazaa kya
Ishwar ki yahi hai
Kripaa kya
Jo gunaah nahin to
Sazaa kya
Ishwar ki yahi hai
Kripaa kya
Hansti manjaree ee
Hansti manjaree ee
Murjhaayee
Jhulsaayee
Dhool huyi ee
Bhagwan ki prati hinsaa kya
Bhagwan ki prati hinsaa kya
Bhagwan ki prati hinsaa kya

Pratihinsaa kya