Posts Tagged ‘Vijay Mishra’
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, 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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There are a good number of feature films made on Mahatma Gandhi and his philosophy. I have watched a couple of Gandhi films – Richard Attenborough’s ‘Gandhi’ (1982) and ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ (2006). There is film titled ‘Road to Sangam’ (2010) which I had not heard of until recently. The title of the film gave me an impression of a film on a road journey to the confluences of the holy rivers in India (for example, Panch Prayags in Uttarakhand). But it turned out to be a Hindi film connected with Mahatma Gandhi.
According to Amit Rai, the writer and director of the film, he got the idea to develop the story for ‘Road to Sangam’ (2010) when he saw a TV news report that an urn containing the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi was found in a bank vault in Odisha. I checked the veracity of the news and found a report on The Times of India, October 1, 2009, which stated that an urn containing the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi was deposited in then Imperial Bank of India (now SBI) in its Cuttack branch in 1950. In 1994, the banks’ manager found the urn and reported the matter to the Government of Odisha. The Government did not show much interest, and the matter was forgotten. Tushar Gandhi, the great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi filed a petition in the Odisha High Court for getting possession of the urn. In 1997, the Court directed the urn to be handed over to Tushar Gandhi. He took the urn to Prayag and immersed the ashes at the Triveni Sangam on January 30, 1997 on Mahatma Gandhi’s 49th death anniversary.
Amit Rai had also come to know that the Ford vehicle that carried Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes in urns in 1948 was lying in a depleted condition in a museum in Allahabad. A mechanic, Hashmat Ullah of Allahabad restored the vehicle in a running condition (Source: Hindustan Times, August 11, 2009). With the serial bomb blasts that had taken place in November 2007 in around court premises of Varanasi, Lucknow and Faizabad, Amit Rai had good material to weave a semi-fictional story for the film. Before commencing the shooting of the film in Allahabad, Amit Rai met the real mechanic, Hashmat Ullah and decided to rename the character of the mechanic in the script as Hashmat Ullah.
Director, Amit Rai has been associated with Hindi theatres in Mumbai. He has also worked as Assistant Directors to Anurag Basu and Anurag Kashyap. ‘Road To Sangam’ (2010) is his debut film as a director. His latest released Hindi film is ‘OMG-2’ (2023).
The main cast of ‘Road To Sangam’ (2010) consisted of Paresh Rawal, Om Puri and Pawan Malhotra with the supporting cast of Swati Chitnis, Javed Shaikh, Masood Akhtar, Vijay Mishra, Rajan Bhise, Poonam Sharma etc. Tushar Gandhi, the great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi made a cameo appearance as himself. The film was premiered on October 2, 2009, at the Asian Film Festival held in Mumbai. The film had theatrical release in January 2010.
I have recently watched the film which I found to be aesthetically made. The story of the film is as under:
Hashmat Ullah (Paresh Rawal), an expert in repairing vehicle engines in Allahabad, is entrusted with a job to repair the engine of an old Ford vehicle, lying at Allahabad Museum. He has to repair the engine with a stipulated period of time which he accepts without being aware of the importance of this old Ford vehicle.
As soon as he takes up the repairs, bomb blasts take place in the city because of which some people are arrested. The court rejects their bail applications of those arrested and they are remanded to police custody for 14 days. All of them are Muslims and the mosque committee feels that innocent people have been arrested. The Maulana (Pawan Malhotra) of the main mosque of Allahabad, after discussing with the members of the Mosque Committee, issues fatwa to all Muslims in the city to close their shops for 14 days to protest against the prosecution of innocent Muslims. Hashmat, being the General Secretary of the Mosque Committee, is affected as he has to keep his shop closed as per the decree and he is in quandary as to how to fulfil his promise to repair the engine on time.
During his TV interview with a journalist of a local TV Channel, Hashmat comes to know the importance of the work which he has undertaken to complete it on time. The engine which he has to repair belongs to the same Ford vehicle which took Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes in 20 urns to scatter all over India. The same Ford vehicle would take the remaining one urn to the confluence of Rivers Ganga, Yamuna, and the hidden Saraswati at Prayag and will be immersed by Tushar Gandhi, the great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. Hashmat’s request to Mosque Committee chaired by the influential Kasuri (Om Puri) for exempting his shop from the decree to complete the repair work on time is rejected by the Maulana.
After carefully considering the pros and cons of opening his shop for repairs, Hashmat decides to tell the museum authorities that he would not be able to complete the repairs as per the stipulated time. He visits the museum to tell the authorities accordingly. As they had gone out, Hashmat spends time in the museum depicting the important events in the life of Mahatma Gandhi. This makes him emotional, and he returns home without meeting the museum authorities. He is in two minds – whether to open his shop to repair the engine defying the Maulana’s decree or tell the museum authorities his inability to complete the repair work in stipulated time. After discussion with his wife (Swati Chitnis), Hashmat decides to resume repair works. However, the members of the committee confiscate keys of Hashmat’s shop. In protest, Hashmat sits on fast in front of his shop until the keys are returned to him.
After a couple of days, the keys are returned to Hashmat without the knowledge of Mosque Committee, and he begins the repairs work. After overcoming many hurdles like an important worker refusing to work, scuffles with some members of the Muslim community in which he gets injured, facing some health issues because of pressure from the Muslim community etc, Hashmat manages to complete the repair work and the Ford Vehicle is ready to carry the urn of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes to the Sangam for immersion. He convinces Kasuri, members of the Mosque committee and Muslim community to join the procession. The film ends with crowds from all communities joining the procession and watching the immersion of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes at Prayag.
‘Road To Sangam’ (2010) is a good attempt from the debutant director, Amit Rai to take up a sensitive story. Paresh Rawal has given one of his best performances in the film in which he makes his presence felt almost in all scenes. Another surprise performance was from Pawan Malhotra (of ‘Nukkad’ fame) in the role of Maulana. He has suitably modulated his voice to sound like a maulana. Om Puri in the role of an influential community member gave his usual performance. The film miserably failed at the box office as per the Box Office India Report. Probably, being a low budget film, it was not properly marketed. It was released in limited numbers of theatres. The net result is that the film is almost forgotten today.
The film has 7 songs written by Sudhir Nema (3). Allama Iqbal (1), Narsinh Mehta (1), John Henry Newman (1) and the remaining one, the traditional song. Songs have been set to music by Vijay Mishra (3), Nitin Kumar Gupta-Prem Haria (3) and Sandesh Shandilya (1). All the songs are in the nature of prayers. One of the 7 songs of the film is an English Choral song.
I am presenting the first song, ‘lab pe aati hai dua ban ke tamanna meri’ from the film to appear on the Blog. It is a well-known nazm by Allama Iqbal. The poem has been rendered by Hariharan which is set to music by Vijay Mishra who has also acted in the film in the role of Paresh Rawal’s son.
The background to the song in the film is that Hashmat is disappointed by the rejection of his request by Mosque Committee chaired by Kasuri (Om Puri) and Maulana (Pawan Malhotra) to open his shop for repairs to the engine. Simultaneously, the urn containing the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi has been kept for display in the premises of Allahabad Museum with prayers from all religions and this is one of the prayers in progress.
In rekhta.org, this nazm has a title ‘Bachche Ki Dua’ (children’s prayer to the God). It is a universal prayer seeking from the God to light-up the darkness in the world through the light in one’s own life, to make one’s own country adorable, help the needy and old persons and, seeking blessing to protect from evils and put on the path of good deeds.
It may be noted that Allama Iqbal wrote this poem in 1902 in undivided India. Hence, the word ‘watan’ used in the poem was intended to be referring to undivided India (Hindustan). The intent of the prayer being universal, the ‘watan’ in the nazm becomes a generic one and can refer to any country in which this prayer is rendered.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Lab pe aati hai dua ban ke tamanna meri (Road To Sangam)(2010) Singer-Hariharan, Lyrics-Allama Iqbal, MD-Vijay Mishra
Lyrics
lab pe aati hai
dua ban ke tamanna meri
lab pe aati hai dua ban ke tamanna meri
lab pe aati hai dua ban ke tamanna meri
zindagi shamma ki soorat ho
khudaaya meri
lab pe aati hai dua ban ke tamanna meri
door duniya ka mere dum se andhera ho jaaye ae
door duniya ka mere dum se andhera ho jaaye
har jagah mere chamakne se ujaala ho jaaye
ho mere dum se youn hi mere watan ki zeenat
jis tarah phool se hoti hai chaman ki zeenat
zindagi meri ho parwaane ki soorat yaa rab
ilm ki shamma se ho mujhko muhabbat yaa rab
ho mera kaam ghareebon ki himaayat karna
dardmandon se za’eefon se muhabbat karna
mere Allah buraayi se bachaana mujhko
nek jo raah ho uss rah par chalaanaa mujhko
ra ra ra
ra ra raa ra
ra ra raa ra ra
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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