I have been giving you Raaga Based Songs of the Day (eg, ‘Raaga Based Song Of The Day #79‘) for the last nearly three months now. Many of you, who know your music well, have many a times pointed out that a particular song, though ostensibly close to one raaga has traces of other raagas or has deviated substantially from the chosen raaga. I have readily admitted that, pointing out that it is not the job of the film songs composers to stick to the purity of any raaga. Their job is to produce tunes that would be popular and would tug at the emotions of the listeners.
With that in mind, I am starting a new series today to give you songs that tug at your emotions even when they are not based on any raagas.
These are the songs that stay in the creases of your mind long after you last heard them, somewhat like the strains of the song of The Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth.
I also feel that these are the songs that make you wonder whether the lyrics influenced you more or the composition or is it the composition that made you look at the beauty of the lyrics?
The first of these has been put together by lyricist Shailendra and composer Salil Chowdhury.
There are many who feel that Shailendra penned his best songs for Raj Kapoor movies and hence composed by Shankar Jaikishan. I am included in such people. However, his songs for Salil da are memorable indeed. This is one of them. At random I can think of their songs for 1958 Bimal Roy movie Madhumati and 1960 Bimal Roy movie Parakh, such as Aaja re pardesi, Dil tadap tadap ke keh raha hai, Toote huye khwabon ne, and O sajana barkha bahaar aayi.
This one has been sung by Talat Mehmood who perfected the tremor in his voice.
It is from the 1957 movie Ek Gaon Ki Kahani that starred Talat Mehmood, Mala Sinha and Abhi Bhattacharya.
To understand the song better here is the story-line:
Jaya (Mala Sinha) lives in a village called Chandangaon in India along with her widower dad, Gokul (IS Johar), who works for a living as a compounder, but calls himself a Homeopathic doctor and dispenses Arnica for all kinds of ailments, especially since there is no qualified doctor in the village. Since Jaya is or marriageable age, he has arranged her marriage with hard-of-hearing Shiv, the son of Dayashankar (Bipin Gupta), who is the President of the Gram Panchayat. Dayashankar is anxious to get Shiv married so that he can get some dowry from Gokul. The other suitor for Jaya is Ratan (Abhi Bhattacharya), whose mother would like her to re-marry her son as his wife, Maya (Nirupa Roy), is unable to conceive. Then a new doctor (Talat Mahmood as Talat) arrives in this village to look after the charitable dispensary. Things heat up when Dayashankar and Ratan’s mom (Lalita Pawar) find out that he may be Jaya’s new suitor. Hilarious chaos reigns when Maya assaults her cruel mother-in-law, and Ratan abducts Jaya from her marriage with Shiv.
Please enjoy: Raat ne kyaa kyaa khwab dikhaye….
रात ने क्या क्या ख्वाब दिखाये
रंग भरे सौ जाल बिछाये
आँखें खुली तो सपने टूटे
रह गये ग़म के काले साये
रात ने …
ओ … (हम ने तो चाहा भूल भी जायें
वो अफ़साना क्यों दोहोरायें ) – २
दिल रह रह के याद दिलाये
रात ने क्या क्या …
(दिल में दिल का ददर् छुपाये
चलो जहां क़िस्मत ले जाये ) – २
दुनिया परायी लोग पराये
रात ने क्या क्या …
A serious song in a comic movie? Well, the fact is that the song does tug at your emotions and leaves you with an emptiness that Talat must have felt when parting from Jaya.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Please await tomorrow’s song.
