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 sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
When we hear the song sundar naari preetam pyaari from ‘Manzil’ (1936), the voice of Pankaj Malik vibrates in our ears.
When we hear the ghazal sukoon dil ka mayassar gul-o-samar mein nahin from ‘Street Singer’ (1938), K L Saigal and Kanan Devi come to our mind.
We remember Kanan Devi when chali pawan harsoo from ‘Jawaani Ki Reet’ (1939) is played somewhere.
How can we forget K L Saigal when he sings karoon kyaa aas niraas bhai from ‘Dushman’ (1939) ?
We remember the magical voice of Begum Akhtar when we hear the ghazal ‘wo hans rahe hain aah kiye jaa raha hoon main’ from ‘Roti’ (1942).
It is Mohammed Rafi who dominates all the way when we hear jin raaton mein neend ud jaati hai from ‘Raat Ki Rani’ (1949).
Listening gore gore chaand se mukh par from ‘Anita’ (1967), the voice of Mukesh comes to our mind.
But how many would remember that all these songs have come from the pen of Arzoo Lucknowi, one of the leading pre-modern Urdu poets ?
Syed Anwar Hussain, popularly known as Arzoo Lucknowi (also known as Munshi Arzoo/Hazrat Arzoo) was born in Lucknow some time in 1873 in the family of Urdu poets. Unfortunately, not much documentation is available either on the internet or on the books about his early life. I had read that a couple of people were enlisted for Ph.D. for doing research on the poetry of Arzoo Lucknowi. But I did not get any reference on the internet on their thesis.
A brief introduction of Aarzoo Lucknowi in http://www.rekhta.org indicates that he studied Arabic and Persian at home. He lost his father during his childhood and the Urdu poet Jalal Lucknowi took him under his wing. However, we have at least some information on his filmy carrier as lyricist and dialogue writer. Surprisingly, he joined his filmy carrier when he had already crossed 60 sometime in mid-30s with New Theatres, Calcutta (now Kolkata). He continued in Calcutta up to 1941 writing lyrics and dialogues for some of the films produced under the banner of New Theatres such as ‘Manzil’ (1936), ‘Mukti’ (1937), ‘Street Singer’ (1938), ‘Jawaani Ki Reet’ (1939), Dushman’ (1939), Kapal Kundla’ (1939), ‘Lagan’ (1941), ‘Doctor’ (1941) etc. Kidar Sharma and Pandit Madhur were his colleagues in New Theatres. Kidar Sharma had a very high regard for Arzoo Lucknowi for his command over Urdu language and also as a soft spoken person. In his autobiography ‘The One and Lonely Kidar Sharma’, he has addressed Aarzoo Lucknowi as ‘Allama Aarzoo Lucknowi’.
Around 1941, many film artists like Prithviraj Kapoor, Bikram Kapoor, K N Singh and Kidar Sharma left New Theatres to try their luck in Bombay. Aarzoo Lucknowi was no exception. He also joined the bandwagon to Bombay. He worked mostly as a freelancer and wrote songs for about 20 films which included ‘Yaad’ (1942), ‘Najma’ (1943), ‘Parakh’ (1944), ‘Humayun’ (1945), ‘Milan’ (1946), Tohfa’ (1947), ‘Saawan Aaya Re’ (1949), ‘Khel’ (1950), ‘Beqasoor’ (1950) etc. Since his age was catching up with him and with the new breeds of lyricists joining the film industry, his assignment started dwindling.
After partition in 1947, some of the film artists migrated to Pakistan mostly during 1947-50. Sometime in 1950, on an offer from Radio Pakistan when Karachi station was being opened, Arzoo Lucknowi migrated to Pakistan to join Radio Pakistan at Karachi. From the website of Radio Pakistan, it is observed that the Karachi station of Radio Pakistan was opened sometime in 1950. However, after few months of joining Radio Pakistan, Aarzoo Lucknowi left for the heavenly abode on April 16, 1951.
Three collections of Aarzoo’s ghazals, viz., ‘Fughan-e-Aarzoo’, ‘Jahan-e-Aarzoo’ and’ Nishan-e-Aarzoo’ have been published. But they are in Urdu and I did not find the Hindi version of these publications on the internet. He was probably, the first Urdu poet who wrote poems (geet) in Hindi and published them under the title ‘Sureeli Bansuri’.
I do not recall now as to where I had read that during a symposium on Urdu poetry, a speaker had mentioned that Urdu ghazals would lose charm if Persian words are not used. Aarzoo Lucknowi is stated to have accepted the challenge that he would write in Urdu without using a single Persian word. He wrote many ghazals without using a single Persian word which became popular. He also wrote a few ghazals in Hindi. ‘Gore gore chaand se mukh par kaali kaali aankhen hain’ was one of Hindi ghazals which was later used in the film ‘Anita’ (1967).
I am presenting here a ghazal ‘guroor-o-naaz se ghesu ka bal khaana nahin achchaa’ written by Aarzoo Lucknowi for the film PARAKH (1944). The film was produced under the banner of Central Studios and was directed by Sohrab Modi. The star cast included Mehtab, Balwant Singh, Kaushalya, Yakub, Shah Nawaz, Pratima Devi, Latika, E. Tarapore, Sadiq Ali etc. The film had 9 songs written by Gafil Harnalvi (4), Aarzoo Lucknowi (3) and Pandit Sudarshan (2) which were composed by Khurshid Anwar (7) and Saraswati Devi (2). The song under discussion was composed by Khurshid Anwar.
Only the audio clip is available but it is apparent that Kaushalya has sung this ghazal on herself.
The ghazal is simple, yet beautiful. Kaushalya’s amateur voice adds lustre to the ghazal. The composition of this ghazal by Khurshid Anwar is the icing on the cake. The net result is that I am now addicted to this ghazal.
Song-Guroor o naaz se gesoo ka bal khaana nahin achchaa (Parakh)(1944) Singer-Kaushalya, Lyrics-Aarzoo Lucknowi, MD-Khursheed Anwar
Lyrics
guroor-o-naaz se gesu ka bal khaana nahin achchaa
sulajh jaana to achchaa hai
ulajh jaana nahin achchaa
guroor-o-naaz se gesu
khushi ki shaan ka gham se badal jaana nahin achchaa
khushi ki shaan ka gham se badal jaana nahin achchaa
hansi mein aankh se aansoo nikal aana nahin achchaa
hansi mein aankh se aansoo nikal aana nahin achchaa
guroor-o-naaz se gesu
hawa se jhoom kar daalen aen aen aen
darakhton ki ye kaisi hain
hawa se jhoom kar daalen aen aen
darakhton ki ye kaisi hain
gale milna to achchaa hai
ye takraana nahin achchaa
gale milna to achchaa hai
ye takraana nahin achchaa
guroor-o-naaz se gesu
kaho kyun Arzoo wo baat jismein baat ban jaaye
kaho kyun Arzoo wo baat jismein baat ban jaaye
na kehna hi hai achchaa
kehke pachhtaana nahin achchaa
na kehna hi hai achchaa
kehke pachhtaana nahin achchaa
guroor-o-naaz se gesu ka bal khaana nahin achchaa
guroor-o-naaz se gesu
