This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular 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 an obscure film from Calcutta,- Arzoo-1944.
It is my observation that barring very early Talkie films made by Madan Theatres, Calcutta, films made by other film makers of Calcutta – other than New Theatres – were, generally, not successful or popular in the Hindi belt. At the peak times in the 30’s, there were about 20+ film making companies in Bengal, but New Theatres alone had got the best of Hindi artistes in almost every department of film making and Music, available in the Eastern sector. Accordingly, even Arzoo, made by I.B.Films, Calcutta also did not create any ripples in the Hindi belt. It was directed by R N Vaidya (a successful Silent Film maker ) and M.Issa. The Lyricist was Khwaja Kidwai and the Music was by Subal Dasgupta. The cast of the film was, Dhiraj Bhattacharya, Panna, Pramod Gangully, Renuka Roy, Fazal, Shanta etc.etc.
In Hindi film arena, there were many brother pairs as Music Directors like Husnalal-Bhagatram, Kalyan ji-Anand ji etc. Most of them were prolific and successful too. But there were no cases worth noticing, where two brothers operated separately as MDs, in the same period but never worked as a Team. Two such cases were from Calcutta. The first was that of Timir Baran and Mihir Kiran and then Kamal Dasgupta and Subal Dasgupta. Neither Timir-Mihir nor Kamal-Subal worked as a pair and individually only one became famous in Hindi films. Mihir kiran gave music to only 1 film- Kaarvan e hayat-35 and Timir Baran did 11 Hindi films compsing 86 songs.Subal Dasgupta gave music to only 2 films Subah Shaam and Arzoo both in 1944, Kamal Dasgupta did 17 Hindi films and composed 157 songs.
Kamal Dasgupta ( 28-7-1912 to 20-7-1974) gave music to 17 Hindi films from Jawab-42 to Phulwari-51. Subal gave music to only 2 films as mentioned. He was, however, a prolific composer in Bangla films and NFS. The credit for composing music for Talat Mehmood’s First recorded NFS, ” sab din ek samaan nahi tha” goes to Subal Dasgupta. Some sites and You Tube erroneously mention Kamal Dasgupta’s name as its composer, but it is wrong. I quote here an excerpt from the book ” Talat Mehmood-The Velvet touch” a biography by Manek Premchand,
” His first recording happened in September 1941, the song being Sab din ek samaan naheen tha, Ban jaoonga kya se kya main, iska to kuchh dhyaan naheen tha, written by Fayyaz Hashmi and composed by Subal Dasgupta. Present at this recording was the great singer-composer-actor Pankaj Mullick, who patted the young émigré for a job well done. In Calcutta, the young man started learning Bengali. After six recordings for HMV in Calcutta, Talat returned in 1942 to complete his studies at Marris and in the next couple of years, he heard a lot of Gangubai Hangal, Fayyaz Khan and Roshanara Begum. ” pp 13
Not much information is available on Subal in books or on the net. Even Dr. J.P.Guha has no information on him. Here is something from a Bangladeshi site.
Subal Dasgupta was born at Kalia (Narail) of the old Jessore district in Bangladesh. His parents shifted to Calcutta long before the partition of 1947. His eldest brother professor Bimal Dasgupta was a gifted musician, while his elder brother Kamal Dasgupta also emerged as one of the most successful music directors of his times. His sisters Sudhira, Indira, Basanti—–all were talented singers in their own rights. All of them had recorded songs under HMV banner. He belonged to an immensely accomplished musical family. At a very tender age Subal Dasgupta took lessons in classical music from Ustad Zamiruddin Khan, a renowned maestro of Kheyal and Thumri. It was here, that he met Kazi Nazrul Islam, the great poet , who also started taking classical vocal lessons from the same master. The meeting between the two, later turned out to be of historic significance. This is all that could be collated about Subal Dasgupta.
Today’s song is sung by Jagmohan Sursagar. In older times, when when films had not yet become ” inevitable ” in the society, for the period 30s to 50s, Non Film Songs (NFS) ruled the nation. The A.I.R. regularly broadcast NF Bhajans, Geets and Gazals etc. These were extremely popular and their private records used to make a big sale too. Among the NFS male singers, the best was Jagmohan and in the female group, the best was Juthika Roy.
Somewhere in the late 2011 AK ji, of Songsofyore.com, had written on this Blog about the importance of NFS. After reading his views, I too wrote a rather lengthy comment supporting the inclusion of NFS on this Blog. Our contention was that, prior to the Hindi Film Music becoming popular all over India,it was those ghazals, Geets and Bhajans, privately sung and recorded by various artists which had ruled the tastes of music lovers. In fact many famous singers had recorded NFS in the beginning phase of their singing careers. Some names are Talat Mehmood, Saigal, Pankaj Mullick, Jagmohan and JUTHIKA ROY !
I do not think there was a single singer in those days who had not sung a Non Filmi geet of some type like Bhajan or ghazal etc. I am sure many senior readers from this Blog must have grown listening to these NFS Bhajans and Geets. In fact more than a filmi song, may be these people have some old geet or Bhajan embedded in their memories with some persons, events or places.
Today’s singer Jagmohan Sursagar was very well known and close to Rajnikumar Pandyaji and he has elaborated his Bio data in the book ” Aap ki Parchhainyan”. The following information is adapted from this. Born on September 6,1918,Jagmohan whose real name is Jaganmoy Mitra came from a conservative family of land-lords.Sometime before he was born,his father died of a stomach ailment, while his mother was still in her teens. Though Jagmohan had no problems in childhood,he was to grow up an ardent devotee of his mother.When she died in 1981,and was followed by the singer’s wife,in a few months time,Jagmohan felt a terrible void in his life,something that he appears to have been unable to fill ever.
There was an atmosphere of music in his maternal grandfather’s house where they went to live after Jagmohan’s father died.He literally grew up listening to dhrupad,khayal,thumri and tappa,surreptitiously learning from his uncle’s ustads ragas and raginis as also the tabla.It all paid off when after passing his matriculation examination, Jagmohan took part in all Bengal music competition ,topping the list in dhrupad,tappa,thumri,kritan and baul,religious folk music of Bengal.The year was 1937.In the same year,his professional singing career began at All India Radio.The next year,he stood first in khayal singing in an all India competition at Allahabad.
A music recording company, HMV,grabbed him for recording.Says Jagmohan: ” I had a tune and had been trying to compose a song to suit it.But,an acquaintance, Hembabu asked me to see Kazi Nazrul Islam,the great poet.Hembabu took me to him and left me with the poet.The poet was a very kindly man and my diffidence vanished after a while. I sang the few lines I had composed.He praised my tune and music but offered to write a song for me to fit them.I sang the tune several times as the Kazi sat writing stanza after stanza;his words, as if poured after,and there nary was a change or scratching out of a word here or there.That was the song Saaon Ratey Jadi…. on which my re-cording was made.” It was a great hit.Then,in 1940, came two songs of Rabindranath Tagore,both approved by the Nobel prize winning poet.Tagore permitted him to record two more of his songs.
In 1945,Jagmoohan was given the award of Sursagar (ocean of music) in Bengal.The award has not since been given to anyone else,and the singer was only the second recipient of the honour.( The other recipient was Himangshu Datta ). In fact, most people have forgotten that Mitra is Jagmohan’s real surname; it has just become Jagmohan Sursagar, a name under which he also wrote an auto-biography in Bengali. It has recently been translated into Gujarati and brought out under the title of one his more famous songs, Dil Dekar Dard Liya Hai Maine…
Gandhiji too had appreciated Jagmohan’s singing and the singer recorded Sapt Kand Ramayana in six minutes at the Mahatma’s suggestion.Another national leader fond of his singing was Jay Prakash Narayan.
Jagmohan toured abroad also extensive and has been to among other countries East Africa,the U.K.,the U.S.A.and Canada,earning vast fan following everywhere. Speaking at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto,Jagmohan held his audience spell-bound,claiming there essentially was no barrier to music.He sang a Bengali composition in Bhairavi and followed up with an English song ,rendered in the same raga.
He came to Bombay in 1950 to become a Playback singer, but the Bombay film world atmosphere did not impress him and he did not sing in any film. In fact after 1955, he did not cut any record for Hindi films. In 1955, he sang under his own baton, for the only Hindi film for which he was the composer. This movie was “Sardaar”(1955).
A dignified individual, Jagmohan never turned bitter,became more of an introvert,paying heed to the calls of none but his inner voice.After the deaths of his mother and his wife in 1981,feeling lonely,he had moved residence thrice– from Bombay to Delhi for two years while he was a member of Censor Board,then to Calcutta and to Ahmedabad.
He did not seem to regard his moving from one city to another as something of great importance. He declared :”I crave for affection ,respect and human warmth and go wherever my inner-self tells me to. I have followed the dictates of my inner-self only all my life.”
“I can go away from a city,but I cannot go away from music”,he said.
He had become so popular due to his NFS in Hindi and Bangla, that he had neither the time nor the desire to sing for films. However Jagmohan sang 23 songs in 12 films, The films were, Bhakta Kabeer-42, Bhaichara-43, Hospital-43, Arzoo-44, Subah Shaam-44, Ameeri-45, Meghdoot-45, Krishnaleela-46, Pehchaan-46, Zameen aur Aasmaan-46, Iran ki ek raat-49 and Sardar-55.
After many attempts, it became clear as to how many Non film songs or Geets he sang in Hindi and the number is 75 songs. However. his songs are few on this Blog.The generation born in the 40s grew on Saigal,Jagmohan and Pankaj Mullick songs. There was a period when Non film Geets were extremely popular, even in the presence of film music, but gone are those days now when record collection was a respectful hobby. With this, the decline of such songs too came fast and only memories lived on.
In his book, Aap ki parchhainyan, shri Rajnikumar Pandyaji has mentioned an incident when Jagmohan went all the way to a far off place, just so that a dying fan of his songs, could listen to him while on deathbed. This is how Rajnikumar Pandya ji described this incident -in an E mail sent to me after I posted above information earlier. ” The patient was Manubhai Trivedi,father of my writer friend Niranjan Trivedi, I was knowing that Manubhai was an ardent fan of Jagmohan but due to his serious ailment it was not possible for him to come down to my place to see Jagmohanda who just arrived by morning train from Bombay .
“I therefore requested to Dada to pay a visit to Manubhai . He reluctantly agreed to it,We went to Manubhais place which was just few minutes form my place, After seeing his serious condition he expressed hid desire to sing a Bhajan before him though Manubhai was not in his senses, Anyway he sang a Bhajan “Ab tim kab sumiroge Raam, Jeevn do din ka maehamaan,’There were tears in the eyes of all who were present there including me and my small daughter who is party seen in the photograph attached with this mail. ( he attached a photograph for me).
Manubhai passed away after a week of this incident. ” The family members of the fan became eternally obliged to Jagmohan’s noble gesture.
Jagmohan returned to Bombay, after almost 2 years in Ahmedabad. He died on 4-9-2003, in Bombay.
The Hero of film Arzoo was Dhiraj Bhattacharya ( 5-11-1905 to 1959 ) worked in 10 Hindi films, namely Radha krishna-33, Seeta-34, Chandragupta-34, Balaa ki raat-36, Mandir-37, Kumkum the dancer-40, Arzoo-42, Wapas-43,Shri Ramanuj-43 and Irada-44.
Today’s song is not only a very rare song, but also an excellent Gazal. In the NFS, there is no parallel to jagmohan and Pankaj Mullick. You too will fall in love with this song, when you hear it. With this song, film Arzoo-44 makes its Debut on the Blog.
(I thank Rajnikumar Pandya ji, Manik Premchand ji, wiki and my notes for information used in the above article. )
Song- Hai kaun dil nahin jo pareeshaan e Aarzoo (Aarzoo)(1944) Singer- Jagmohan Sur Sagar, Lyricist-Khwaja Kidwai, MD- Subal Dasgupta
Lyrics
Hai kaun dil nahin jo pareeshan e aarzoo
Hai kaun dil nahin jo pareeshan e aarzoo
ye zindagi hai asal mein saamaan e aarzoo
ye zindagi hai asal mein saamaan e aarzoo
murjhaati hai jo ye ke to khilti hai doosri
murjhaati hai jo ye ke to khilti hai doosri
kaliyon se yoon bhara hai gulistaan e aarzoo
uske karam se ae ae ae
badhhta hai har dil ka hauslaa
uske karam se badhhta hai
har dil ka hauslaa
har dil ka hauslaa
phaila hua hai is liye daamaan e aarzoo
phaila hua hai is liye daamaan e aarzoo
maayoosiyaan bhi deti hain ummeed ko janam
maayoosiyaan bhi deti hain ummeed ko janam
naakaam e aarzoo ki to jaan hai aarzoo
shaayad isi tarah se khule girah phaans(?) ki
shaayad isi tarah se khule girah phaans(?) ki
girah phaans(?) ki
ham chhodte hain baandh ke paimaane aarzoo
ham chhodte hain baandh ke paimaane aarzoo