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.
Some established producer-directors generally have their wish list to make a film or two on the subjects that are close to their hearts. The fulfilment of their wishes gets postponed until such time the producer-directors are able to make the successful films in normal course of their career. After all, they need the financial security to take risk in producing films of their personal choices irrespective of the outcome at the box office.
Producer-director Guru Dutt had one such subject on which he was keen to make a film on a life of a successful director whose career is ruined by the will of the financiers and the personal circumstances in his life. Ultimately, the director dies as a lonely and forgotten man. The film was ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’ (1959). The film was said to be based on the life of his mentor Gyan Mukherjee, one of the successful directors of Bombay Talkies.
Given the depressing theme of the story with a tragic end, Guru Dutt seems to have been aware of the box office risk of such a film. He took to produce and direct this film only after his three successive films became the box office hits – ‘Aar Par’ (1954), ‘Mr & Mrs, 1955’ (1955) and ‘Pyaasa’ (1957). Now he was ready to show his mastery over the artistic films and the use of the latest techniques in the film making. Guru Dutt’s expectations about his pet project was very high.
Unfortunately, ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’ (1959) was a disaster at the box office putting Guru Dutt in dire financial difficulties. But what affected Guru Dutt more than the box office failure was that even the film critics had branded this film as boring and incoherent. But today, this film is regarded as one of the classics in Hindi films’ history.
Producer-Director Raj Kapoor, after producing a series of box office hits, produced ‘Mera Naam Joker’ (1970) which he had called his favourite film under RK Banner. The film was in the making for about 5-years. Because of the length of the film, it had two intervals. Raj Kapoor may have felt unsure about the risk at the box office. For that, he had some box office ingredients in the film and had roped in Rajendra Kumar, Dharmendra, Manoj Kumar and Dara Singh in the star cast. As usual, the expectation from the director’s pet project was very high from the financiers and distributors.
The film failed at the box office and Raj Kapoor was put into financial distress. Today, ‘Mera Naam Joker’ (1970) is regarded as the best films from RK Films banner.
Something similar happened to Mehboob Khan in 1942 when ‘Roti’ (1942) was released. After directing films like ‘Alibaba’ (1940), ‘Aurat’ (1940) and ‘Bahen’ (1941), which achieved the tremendous successes at the box office, Mehboob Khan announced the film ‘Roti’ (1942) which went to the floor in June 1941. The theme in the story of the film was the class conflict or disparity between rich and poor, a subject close to the heart of Mehboob Khan if one goes by the logo of Mehboob Productions.
I have seen in an advertisement of National Studios in which along with the names of the then current films under productions, the name of ‘Roti’ (1942) was written in bold letters with a statement ‘Mehboob’s Pride Picture With 5 Renowned Stars’. This shows the status of and the high expectations from the film.
The five ‘renowned stars’ of the film were Chandra Mohan, Sheikh Mukhtar, Sitara Devi, Akhtari Faizabadi (Begum Akhtar) and Ashraf Khan. For the first time, Chandra Mohan worked under the direction of Mehboob Khan in the film. Chandra Mohan was known to be a tough actor to handle as he was frank in giving his opinions to the directors about the shots to be framed on him. I had read in his interview taken sometime in 1941 in which he spelled out the director’s and actor’s roles in the film making. While the director sets his requirement of the scene to the actor, it is the actor who decide how to portray the acting for the scene. In other words, Chandra Mohan did not like to follow the director’s inputs in the acting.
Begum Akhtar who had not worked in the films after 1936 was roped in probably with the recommendation of Anil Biswas. It was doubtful whether she would accept the offer to act in the film. But for her, the offer had come at the right time. At that time, she was the court singer in the state of Rampur and the Nawab of Rampur wanted to marry her. She was not interested in marrying the already married Nawab. So she shifted to Bombay (Mumbai) in the guise of working in the film to wriggle out of Nawab’s marriage proposal.
The film took more than one year to complete and its release was delayed due to a last minute problem. Megaphone Recording Company brought a stay order as Akhtaribai had an exclusive singing contract with the Company. Finally, the stay order was withdrawn and the film was released only after all her six songs were deleted from the film. Later, Megaphone released 78 RPM records of these six songs. The film was released in Bombay (Mumbai) on 25/08/1942.
The film did not create ripple on the box office front though it ran for few weeks. I have watched the film on YT and my take as to why the film did not click for Mehboob Khan as much as it was expected is as under:
1. It was expected that with Chandra Mohan in terms of star value, Begum Akhtar in terms of her singing, and Sitara Devi with her dances would attract the audience to the theatres. The deletion of all the six songs of Begum Akhtar from the film would have definitely disappointed her fans.
2. With the deletion of all the six songs of Begum Akhtar, continuity in the film was lost. One can notice the abrupt moves from one scene to another scene in the film. Also Begum Akhtar did not look like a sophisticated daughter of a businessman. For her fans, she was engraved in their minds as a vocalist in semi-classical music.
3. In the traditional definition of the hero and the heroine of the film, Chandra Mohan and Begum Akhtar had leading roles with Chandra Mohan one sided love with Begum Akhtar. But Chandra Mohan had also had the role of a villain as he was responsible for murdering his partner whose daughter he now loves. Under such a situation, unless the director is able extract the emotional scenes to bond with the audience with such a character, it is difficult to maintain the interest of the audience in the film.
4. The class conflict as the main theme of the film was not brought out in a manner which could have kept the audience interest intact. The whole idea of bringing the life style of Sheikh Mukhtar and Sitara Devi in their forest dwelling in contrast with that of Chandra Mohan as a rich and greedy businessman in a palatial residence did not create a forceful anti-capitalist impact in the film. The scenes of Ashraf Khan giving his philosophical preaching was boring.
Later, Mehboob Khan adopted the sickle and the hammer as the logo for his film production company, Mehboob Productions in 1942 in accordance with the main theme of his film ‘Roti’ (1942).
‘Roti’ had 14 songs of which Begum Akhtar had 6 songs. 7 songs (3 Begum Akhtar’s songs) have already been covered in the Blog. I am presenting the 8th song from the film which is a ghazal rendered by Begum Akhtar. The ghazal is ‘wo hans rahen hain aah kiye jaa raha hoon main’ written by Aarzoo Lucknowi. After listening to the style of rendition of the ghazal, I feel that it has more of Begum Akhtar’s contribution than that of Anil Biswas as a music director.
Song – Wo Hans Rahe Hain Aah Kiye Jaa Raha Hoon Main (Roti) (1942) Singer – Akhtari Bai, Lyrics – Aarzoo Lakhnawi, MD – Anil Biswas
Lyrics
wo o o o
wo o o o o o
wo hans rahe hain
aah kiye jaa raha hoon main
main
wo hans rahe hain
aah kiye jaa raha hoon main
main
pathar ke dil mein raah
kiye jaa raha hoon main
main
pathar ke dil mein raah
kiye jaa raha hoon main
bahr e karam ko ..oo
josh mein
laane ke wa..aaste ae
ae ae ae ae
ae ae ae ae
aen aen aen aen aen
daanishtaa
daanishtaa kuchh gunaah kiye
jaa raha hoon main
main
daanishtaa kuchh gunaah kiye
jaa raha hoon main
main
daanishtaa kuchh gunaah kiye
jaa raha hoon main
aadat ke ba..aad
dard bhi dene lagaa aa mazaa
aaa
aa aa aaa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aaa
hans hans ke
ae ae ae
ae ae ae
hans hans ke
aah aah kiye
jaa raha hoon main
main
hans hans ke aah aah kiye
jaa raha hoon main
aen aen
———————————————————
Hindi script lyrics (Provided by Sudhir)
———————————————————
वो ॰॰ओ॰॰ओ
वो ॰॰ओ॰॰ओ॰॰ओ
वो हंस रहे हैं
आह किए जा रहा हूँ मैं
मैं
वो हंस रहे हैं
आह किए जा रहा हूँ मैं
मैं
पत्थर के दिल में राह
किए जा रहा हूँ मैं
मैं
पत्थर के दिल में राह
किए जा रहा हूँ मैं
बहर ए करम को॰॰ओ॰॰ओ
जोश में
लाने के वास्ते॰॰ए
॰॰ए॰॰ए॰॰ए॰॰ए
॰॰ए॰॰ए॰॰ए॰॰ए
दानिश्ता
दानिश्ता कुछ गुनाह
किए जा रहा हूँ मैं
मैं
दानिश्ता कुछ गुनाह
किए जा रहा हूँ मैं
मैं
दानिश्ता कुछ गुनाह
किए जा रहा हूँ मैं
आदत के बा॰॰आद
दर्द भी देने लगा मज़ा
॰॰आ
॰॰आ॰॰आ॰॰आ
॰॰आ॰॰आ॰॰आ
॰॰आ॰॰आ॰॰आ
हंस हंस के
॰॰ए॰॰ए॰॰ए॰॰ए
॰॰ए॰॰ए॰॰ए॰॰ए
हंस हंस के
आह आह किए
जा रहा हूँ मैं
मैं
आह आह किए
जा रहा हूँ मैं ॰॰एं॰॰एं
