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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Today’s song is from a very popular but very old -86 year old, to be exact – film Kangan-1939.
Kangan-1939 was a film noteworthy for many reasons. Firstly, it was the beginning of 3 most successful films of Leela Chitnis and Ashok Kumar in those times. The other two films were Bandhan and Jhoola. Historically, this pair was one of the most successful and popular romantic pairs in the Hindi cinema history.
Secondly, this was the first film for Leela Chitnis with Bombay Talkies. Thirdly, this was the film, during the shooting of which, its director and cinematographer along with other German technicians were arrested by the British Government and sent to a Concentration Camp near Igatpuri (between Bombay and Nashik).
The film made by Bombay Talkies was directed by a German, Franz Osten. The music was provided jointly by Saraswati Devi and Ramchandra Pal. The cast of the film was Leela Chitnis, Ashok Kumar, P.F.Peethawala, Mubarak, V.H.Desai, Balwant Singh, Arunkumar and others. The lyricists were Pt. Narottam Vyas, Kavi Pradeep and some famous geets of Sant Kabir were also used in this film.Commensurate with the system of those days, there were 12 songs in the film.
This film was partly based on the Bangla Novel “Rajanigandha” written by Gajendra Kumar Mitra. This film was a story of 2 lovers who are separated and after many twists and turns, eventually they get united. The story of this film was…..
The love story between the beautiful village belle Radha and Kamal, the son of the village zamindar who wants to be a great poet. The zamindar sends his son to the city where Kamal becomes a noted novelist and playwright while Radha is persecuted by the zamindar and his henchmen Banwari.
She feigns suicide but in fact goes to join her beloved in the city (on the same train as the now repentant father). When she eventually reaches Kamal’s house, she hears him declaring his love to a woman. Unaware that he is merely reading lines from his latest play. She goes away and plans to commit suicide.
However, Kamal’s father sees her and realises what must have happened. He stops her, explains everything and brings her back to Kamal. Kamal puts the Gold Bangle around her wrist as a token of his love. They are united.
LEELA CHITNIS(9-9-1909 to 14-7-2003) was a remarkable actress in more than one way.
Born into a scholar family,at Dharwad in Karnataka,she married Dr.G.Y.Chitnis,a double Ph.D from Germany when she was just 15 years old.After 3 children they went to UK and helped freedom fighters like M.N.Roy etc from their house.After divorce from husband,she started acting in films.First in Prabhat,then in Ranajit Movitone.She joined Bombay Univ.once again to become a graduate,only because Bombay Talkies recruited only Graduates in those days.
After she joined Bombay Talkies,she overtook Devika Rani in acting,singing and also working with Ashok Kumar(till then,Devika’s Hero).
In 1941,she was the FIRST Indian beauty to endorse LUX SOAP hitherto a speciality of only Hollywood actresses.
From 1948 onwards,she started doing other roles and settled to be a permanent Mother to ALL leading actors of india,till her last picture ‘Dil tujhko Diya”-1987.
In 1989, she shifted to the US and died there at the age of 93 yrs.
Mr.Jayant Kulkarni, International collector of old songs, films etc, now in New York, said in one of his articles-
” One day my friend from India rang me up and said,’Latadidi is coming to NY tomorrow. She wants to listen to her first recorded song,from your collection. Next day Didi came and in the course of talking told me that Leela Chitnis stays in Connecticut and she wants to meet her.I was extremely happy with the prospect of meeting the star of my dreams.
We went there, she opened the door and said, please sit down,I will just do some make up and come back. She went inside. When she came into the room,I was stunned to see her. Even at 90 yrs of age, she was glowing and radient. We spent few mesmerising hours there, which are forever etched on my memories. ”
Times of India,in its obituary,described her as “The first society lady of Indian Films. ”
Leela Chitnis wrote her autobiography in Marathi “Chanderi Duniyet” (in the land of silver screens). In this book she has described her experience in the famous studios like Prabhat, Ranjit and Bombay Talkies. She devoted one full chapter on her times in Bombay Talkies and especially her first experiences there while shooting for the film Kangan. Such autobiographies are an important document to know about the people, times and the various studios and their working systems, as they are first person experiences. Many other Marathi Heroines like Hansa Wadkar, Shanta Apte, Snehprabha Pradhan, Shanta Hublikar etc have also written their autobiographies.
As such, 1939 was a very eventful year for Indian films. The year was 1939 and the British Government had declared war against Germany and Japan, as soon as the WW II began. All countries ruled by Britain were – willingly or unwillingly, drawn into the war efforts and its effects. The war began in the month of September and soon various restrictions came into operation – like rationing, blackouts, shortages etc. The film industry which was still under its development stage suffered. It also realised the importance of remaining united as one industry. However, all that came after 1 or 2 years. In 1939 there was not much war effect seen on the film industry.
The industry had its own problems. In spite of the playback system in operation, their problem was that because there was no technique of recording from the film negative yet, the singers had to sing twice. Once for the actual film shooting of the song, and later, with the same set of orchestra, for commercial records. Sometimes, the original singer was not available due to any reason, some other singer had to sing for commercial records. Thus we have many such examples, where the singer in the film song and the record is different. However, this problem continued only till mid 50’s when the Tape and the required technique became available. With just one time recording, the film and commercial recording were taken care of.
Khemchand Prakash, K.Datta (Datta Koregaonkar), Rafiq Ghaznavi and Anupam Ghatak made their Debut as Music Directors. Kavi Pradeep wrote his first film song for film Kangan. In 1939, 2 most Unusual songs were presented, for the first time . One was a Multi-Lingual song from film Aadmi-39, a film by Prabhat….Kis liye kal ki baat. This song was in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bangla, Tamil and Telugu. ( In its Marathi film version-” माणूस “, this song was only in one language-Marathi.) Different Lyricists and MDs were used for each language. The song became very popular.
Second unusual song was from film ‘Ghareeb ka Laal’-1939. The song lyrics had the names of 32 artistes, operating in Hindi films that time. Top Heroes and Heroines were mentioned in this song. The beginning of the song was ” Tuze Bibbo kahoon ya Sulochana, Uma shashi kahoon ki Jamuna “. This song was sung by the comedian Mirza Musharraf. In later years many songs with film artistes’ names came but none had so many names. Thus this record is still unbroken, in case of this song.
Besides these songs, let us quickly take a look at some films of 1939….
Aadmi – Prabhat’s hit film, a remake of the Marathi film ” माणूस “. It had some good songs by Shanta Hublikar, Sundarabai Jadhav and Ram Marathe.
Adhuri Kahani – a trend of Tragedy films set by the effect of film ‘Devdas’. All the 3 main characters of this film commit suicide in the end.
Badi Didi – A New Theatres film.
Brandy ki Botal – Master Vinayak’s comedy remake of Marathi film ‘ ब्रॅंडीची बाटली ‘.
Dil hi to hai – Debut of Kidar Sharma as a Director and Ramola as a Heroine in a Hindi film.
Dushman – New Theatres’ film of Saigal, with only his 4 songs.
Ek hi Raasta – Sagar presents first film with 3 Heroes in one film.
Ghazi Salauddin – Debut of Khemchand Prakash as M.D.
Hukum ka Ikka – First film with a Triple role by Umakant Desai ( who later specialised as Lakshman in 7 films, including Ramrajya-43).
Imaandaar – Debut of actress Shamim Akhtar.
India in Africa – This was the First Hindi film to be shot abroad (in Africa). The Hero B. Nandrekar had also gone to Africa for its shooting. Naaz-54 was not the first such film, though HFGK mentions it so.( Ref – pp 69, Maharashtra-The Birthplace of Indian cinema by Isak Mujawar)
Kangan – First of the 4 Hit films of Ashok kumar and Leela Chitnis, made by Bombay Talkies. Kavi Pradeep’s Debut as a Lyricist in this film.
Kapal kundala – New Theatres. Pankaj mullick’s hit song ‘ Piya milan ko jaana ‘.
Leather Face – Debut of Meena Kumari as a child artiste.
Navjeevan – Debut of Hansa Wadkar as a Heroine- Bombay Talkies film.
Pukar – Hit film from Minerva Movietone. Naseem Bano sings ” Zindagi ka saaz bhi kya saaz hai….”
The last few years of life of Leela Chitnis were spent in an “Old People Home” in the USA, inspite of her children being in the USA. They kept her in the Home and occasionaly met her. She breathed her last all alone in the Old People Home only.
Here is a very nice Bhajan by Sant Kabir from this film. The composer is Ramchandra Pal. Singer is Kavi Pradeep with Chorus. Enjoy this 86 year old song….
Song- Maare Raam Jilaave Raam (Kangan)(1939) Singer- Kavi Pradeep, Lyricist- Kabir Das, MD-Ramchandra Pal
Chorus
Lyrics
maare Raam jilaave Raam
maare Raam jilaave Raam
jaako raakhe saainyaan maar naa saktaa koy
jaako raakhe saainyaan maar naa saktaa koy
baal na baankaa kar sake jo jag bairi hoy
baal na baankaa kar sake jo jag bairi hoy
maare Raam jilaave Raam
maare Raam jilaave Raam
mariye so mar jaaiye chhoot jaay jajaal
mariye so mar jaaiye chhoot jaay jajaal
aisaa marnaa kyon marey din mein sau-sau baar
aisaa marnaa kyon marey din mein sau-sau baar
maare Raam jilaave Raam
maare Raam jilaave Raam
sir raakhe sir jaat hai sir kaate sir soy
sir raakhe sir jaat hai sir kaate sir soy
jaise baatee deep kee kate ujiyaaraa hoy
jaise baatee deep kee kate ujiyaaraa hoy
maare Raam jilaave Raam
maare Raam jilaave Raam