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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‘Amrit Manthan’ (1934) was a bilingual film in Marathi and Hindi, produced under the banner of Prabhat Film Company and was directed by V Shantaram. The cast included Nalini Tarkhad, Sureshbabu Mane, Shanta Apte, Chandramohan, Kelkar, Shankar Kulkarni, Varde, Umakant Desai etc. Chandramohan made a debut with this film. It was Shanta Apte’s first film with an adult role. Keshavrao Bhole debuted in this film as a music director. This was the first sound film which ran for more than 25 weeks in Mumbai’s Krishna theatre in regular shows. Prabhat Film Company’s distributor, Baburao Pai was the first to coin the word ‘Silver Jubilee’ with reference to this film. The film was shown at the International Film Festival, Venice.
After the shifting of Prabhat Film Company from Kolhapur to Pune, ‘Amrit Manthan’ (1934) was the first film to be made from their modern soundproof studio in Pune. It was also the first film from Prabhat on social reforms. With this film, many stage artists and literary figures began working for the films. Narayan Hari Apte was one of them and ‘Amrit Manthan’ (1934) was based on his Marathi novel, ‘Bhagyashree’. Film’s director, V Shantaram directed this film after studying the art of filmmaking from Germany. This film, therefore, heralded the new style of filmmaking. For the first time, a telephoto lens, imported from Germany, was used for framing tight close-up shots of Chandramohan’s eye covering the entire screen space. It is said that this shot was a wonder for the cine audience which made them to watch the film repeatedly in the theatre.
The lead actor in the film was the singer-actor, Sureshbabu Mane (1902 – 15/02/1953). Born as Abdul Rehman, he was the son of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, the doyen of Kirana Gharana and Tarabai Mane, who was from the princely family of Baroda. He had his initial training in Hindustani classical music from his father and later his uncle, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan. In 1918, his mother divorced Ustad Abdul Karim Khan and shifted to Pune. She gave new names for her two sons and 3 daughters using the surname, ‘Mane’ from her parents. So, Abdul Rehman became Sureshbabu Mane. He started as a drama actor-singer in Marathi plays. Later, he acted in a few Marathi/Hindi films like ‘Amrit Manthan’ (1934), ‘Chandrasena’ (1935) and ‘Rajput Ramani’ (1936) under Prabhat Films. He was the music director for ‘Sant Tulsidas’ (1934), ‘Savitri’ (1936, Marathi), and ‘Sachh Hai’ (1939).
Sureshbabu Mane excelled in Khayal and Thumri renditions. But he did not pursue his career as a concert vocalist seriously. Instead, he concentrated on teaching the Hindustani classical music. His disciples included his sisters, Hirabai Barodekar and Saraswati Rane. Menaka Shirodkar, Vasantrao Deshpande, Prabha Atre etc were his other disciples. He also guided prominent Hindustani classical vocalist like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Basavaraj Rajguru, Manik Verma etc.
Whenever the reference of Sureshbabu Mane comes, I feel very sorry about him. A promising concert vocalist of very high calibre could not make it to one of the top icons of Kirana Gharana. For me, he was as good as his father, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan insofar as his rendition of Hindustani classical music was concerned. His voice and style of rendition was almost the replica of his father.
Coming back to the film under discussion, surprisingly, the 90-year-old film, ‘Amrit Manthan (1934) is available for viewing on one of the video sharing platforms albeit in less than average video and audio qualities. The title of the film may give an impression that the film is based on a mythological story of ‘Samudra Manthan’. But it is not so. The mythological story has been used as a symbol of elimination of evils in the society. In the film itself, the scene of churning of the sea is shown – once by the priest as to how the evil must be removed to save the religion and second time by a loyal general of Queen as to how demons often appearing in the disguise of gods, need to be removed. The story of the film is as under:
Reformist King, Krantiverma (Varde) has banned the human and animal sacrifices in his kingdom despite the advice from his minister that this would tantamount to interference in the religious matters. This infuriates the Priest (Chandramohan) of Chandika cult, who is also the Rajguru of the kingdom. He calls a meeting of his followers and orders one of his followers Yashodharma (Kulkarni) to kill the king Krantiverma. He is not convinced but he has to follow the dictate of the Priest. Before he proceeds to kill the king, Yashodharma leaves a letter for his son, Madhavgupt (Sureshbabu Mane) and his daughter, Sumitra (Shanta Apte) that he is going on a mission to kill the king as per the orders of the Priest. The king is killed by Yashodharma.
Rajguru declares King Krantiverma’s daughter, Mohini (Nalini Tarkhad) to be successor to the king as Queen. Yashodharma is caught and the Rajguru orders death sentence for him for killing the king. Madhav and Sumitra, Yashodharma’s son and daughter are on the run and the Rajguru’s men are searching for them. Finally, Madhav is caught, and the letter written by his father before killing the king is found in his possession. Sumitra is taken prisoner.
After taking over as a Queen, Mohini in her first meeting with her ministers reiterates to follow her father’s orders of banning human and animal sacrifices in the kingdom. However, the writ of Rajguru works and he tells the gathering that it is not proper to interfere in the religious matters. So, he orders all the religious activities to continue. In the gathering, Madhav is brought before the Queen who sentences him to death. However, Rajguru suggests to Queen that instead of killing Madhav, he can be offered to Chandika as human sacrifice. Queen Mohini reluctantly agrees.
When the process of human sacrifice of Madhav was going through in the presence of Queen Mohini and Rajguru, a sudden storm erupts with a devasting damages. Madav saves Queen Mohini and runs away with her towards the forest to save themselves from the storm. In this milieu, Madhav is separated from his sister, Sumitra. Both Queen Mohini and Madhav spend few days in the deep forest as commoner. During this period, her conversations with Madhav make her realise that how difficult for the common people to sustain themselves.
Meanwhile, Rajguru’s men bring the reports that the people are against any type of sacrifices in the temple as they feel that the devastating storm just before the human sacrifice of Madhav is the indication that even God does not approve of this practice. Some of the commoners want to meet the Queen to know whether she has given the approval for the sacrifices in the temple. However, Rajguru disperses them by saying that the Queen is not ill, and she cannot meet anyone.
Now, it becomes an urgent necessity to search for the Queen in the forest and to being her in the palace. Rajguru with his men find the Queen. She is reluctant to come back to the palace probably to avoid taking some hard decision on the human and animal sacrifices which Rajguru is forcing on her. Nonetheless, she reluctantly agrees to return to the palace. Madhav on the other hand secretly leaves the forest in search of his sister, Sumitra who is actually in the custody in the palaces under the strict watch of Rajguru’s men. Madhav goes to the palace in search of Sumitra, but he is caught by Rajguru’s men and put in custody.
Queen Mohini has returned to her palace, but in reality, she is more like under house arrest and Rajguru has assigned Vishwasgupt (Kelkar) to convince the Queen to toe the Rajguru’s line in the religious matter. Vishwasgupt being one of the trusted ministers reveals to the Queen that it was at the instance of Rajguru, Yashodharma had killed the king. He also exposes Rajguru’s tyrannical behaviour among the subjects of the kingdom. Queen and her subject rush to the temple where Rajguru is about to offer a human sacrifice in the temple. Vishwasgupt rushes towards Rajguru with a dagger and pierces through his right eye. An injured and almost blinded Rajguru heads towards Chandika’s temple where he ends up offering his own head to Chandika Devi. Queen Mohini, Madhav and people of the kingdom rush to the Chandika temple where she announces that this is the last sacrifice. Henceforth, no human or animal sacrifices would take place in her kingdom. The people of the kingdom hail her decision. Madhav and Sumitra are united. Queen Mohini and Madhav get married.
I found the role of Chandramohan as Rajguru very complex. He is not an usual villian which we have been watching in many Hindi films. He is convinced that human and animal sacrifices are part of the rituals to please Goddess Chandika. His vilianous character comes out only when people holding humanist viewpoint against the rituals oppose him. He is so convinced of the ritual that at the end when he fails to offer Madhav as human sacrifice, he gives his own head to Goddess Chandika.
The film had 13 songs of which Veer Mohammedpuri has written lyrics for 9 songs. The name/s of the remaining 4 songs are not known. All the songs have been set to music by Keshavrao Bhole. Since he had the background of Marathi ‘Sangeet Naatak’ (musical drama), all the songs in this film are semi classical and give a feel of the musical drama. Four songs from the film have been covered on the Blog. I am presenting the 5th song, one of the earliest ghazals in Hindi films, ‘aarzoo-e-dil ayaan karne ke bhi kaabil nahin‘ which is rendered by Sureshbabu Mane on himself on the words of Veer Mohammedpuri. Nalini Tarkhad is also seen in the song.
The background of the song picturisation is that after a devastating storm, Madhav (Sureshbabu Mane) saves Queen Mohini (Nalini Tarkhad) and runs away to a dense forest to save themselves from the storm. During their few days in forest, Madhav and Queen Mohini like each other. But Madhav is in dilemma because he is a commoner while Queen Mohini is the ruler of her kingdom. Also, she has passed a judgement for his death because his father had killed her father, King Krantiverma. Madhav feels that his heart full of desire is not even qualified to be offered as a gift (to Mohini).
This is a beautiful ghazal rendered in semi-classical style.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Aarzoo e dil ayaan karne ke bhi kaabil nahin (Amrit Manthan)(1934) Singer-Sureshbabu Mane, Lyrics-Veer Mohammadpuri, MD-Keshavrao Bhole
Lyrics:
aarzoo-e-dil ayaan karne ke bhi kaabil naheen
haay jism se tanu pahloo mein mere dil naheen ??
haath pairon se (??) kaa tilmilaana hai agar ??
thhak gayaa rah rah kar jiskaa kahin saahil naheen
aarzoo-e-dil ayaan karne ke bhi kaabil naheen
paas bhi hoon door bhi hoon
ye ek sankat hai abhi
chaahe mushqil hai ke haan aasaan bhi nahin mushkil naheen
aarzoo-e-dil ayaan karne ke bhi kaabil naheen
dheere dheere ae ae ae ae ae ae
ae ae ae ae
dheere dheere ye (??)bhi miltaa nahin dil ko karaar
aa aa aa
jisko hum samjhe thhe manzil
dar-asal manzil naheen
aarzoo-e-dil ayaan karne ke bhi kaabil naheen
haay jism se tanu pahloo mein mere dil naheen ??