Mujhpe toofaan uthhaaye logon ne

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.

Khalid Mohamed, the journalist, the film critic, the former editor of Filmfare magazine and The Hindustan Times, started his career in Hindi film industry when he wrote the story and screenplay for Shyam Benegal’s trilogy on Indian Muslim Women – Mehmooda Begum in ‘Mammo’ (1994), ‘Sardari Begum’ (1996) and Zubeida Begum in ‘Zubeida (2001). All these three women were the relatives of Khalid Mohamed, Zubeida Begum being his mother. After working with Shyam Benegal, Khalid Mohamed turned director with his first film, ‘Fiza’ (2000). This was followed by ‘Tehzeeb’ (2003) and ‘Silsilay’ (2005). While ‘Fiza’ (2000) was a box office hit, his next two films were box office disasters. The last film he directed was ‘Katha’ – a remake of ‘Katha’ (1983) which has remained unreleased after the completion of the film in 2016.

‘Tehzeeb’ (2003) is Khalid Mohamad’s second film as a director for which he also wrote story and screenplay. The film is based on Ingmar Bergman’s Swedish drama film, ‘Höstsonaten’ (English title: ‘Autumn Sonata’, 1978). It is a woman-oriented Muslim social film with story mainly hovering around the mother-daughter relationship. The cast includes Shabana Azmi, Urmila Matondkar, Arjun Rampal, Dia Mirza, Namrata Shirodkar, Diana Hayden, Satish Kaushik, Palak Jain, Rekha Rao, and Rishi Kapoor in a special appearance. The gist of the story is as under:

Rukhsana (Shabana Azmi) and Anwar (Rishi Kapoor) have been married for long time with two daughters – Tehzeeb (Urmila Matondkar) and Nazneen (Dia Mirza) who is mentally challenged. Anwar is not doing well in his business and is depressed. Rukhsana on the other hand, is a popular and ambitious singer who has been doing very well in her career. One day, the depressed Anwar after some heated argument with Rukhsana commit suicide. This was seen by Tehzeeb (as a child) from a distance. Rukhsana is suspected to have killed Anwar for which she is arrested and jailed. However, she is released from the jail for the lack of evidence. She rebuilds her career as a singer and looks after her two daughters as a single mother.

As Tehzeeb grows into her adulthood, she develops some sort of grudge against her mother. She feels that during her childhood, she had not given enough time to them by spending more time in furthering her career as a singer. She also feel that her mother was responsible for her father’s suicide. Another friction point between mother and daughter is that Tehzeeb got married to Salim Mirza (Arjun Rampal), a writer, against her wishes. After marriage, Tehzeeb shifts to her husband’s place along with Nazneen.

Five years have passed since the marriage and Tehzeeb is happy in her married life. She also looks after her mentally challenged sister, Nazneen. At this juncture, Rukhsana decides to make a visit to Tehzeeb’s house to meet her and Nazneen. Both are happy to renew their ties after 5 years but at the same time there is some apprehensions as to how the visit will go. For the first few days, their relations are cordial. But eventually, the bent-up tensions between them surfaces on some occasions with arguments and counterarguments. Nevertheless, both have some happy moments too and recall their childhood nostalgia. So, mother and daughters become close to each other.

When things were looking normal, one day, Nazneen shoots herself with a gun which was in fact used by Anwar for his suicide. Luckily, she survives after some anxious moments. But this incidence indirectly facilitates removing Tehzeeb’s misunderstanding about her mother. She feels guilty about her attitudes towards the mother until now. She wants to say sorry to her mother and seek pardon for her misunderstanding. She approaches her mother who is sitting on a swing and apologises for the way she has treated her so far. But it is too late. Rukhsana does not respond as she has died of heart-attack. The film ends with Tehzeeb singing one of her mother’s favourites songs.

When I started watching the film, I was not very optimistic as to how the theme of mother-daughter relationship will be handled. My fear was that there would be a lot of melodrama with high-pitched arguments. The director has handled the grudge of a daughter against her mother very sensitively without appearing too melodramatic. At the same time, he has taken care to show in a subtle way that there is love and respect for each other. I liked the scene in which mother and daughter who are scheduled to personally meet after 5 years, start rehearsing in front of the mirrors in their respective homes as to how they would greet each other. The confrontation scenes between mother and daughter have been gracefully performed by both Shabana Azmi and Urmila Matondkar without sounding too melodramatic.

I felt that scenes involving Namrata Shirodkar as a budding singer and Diana Hayden as a publishing executive who flirts with Arjun Rampal looked superfluous. These two characters were like speed breakers to the smooth progression of the main theme of the story.

‘Tehzeeb’ (2003) has six songs of which Javed Akhtar wrote two and Blaze wrote one English song. The remaining songs are ghazals written one each by by Urdu poets Momin Khan Momin, Daagh Dehlvi and Shaad Azimabadi. All songs were set to music by A R Rahman.

I am presenting the first song from the film to appear on the Blog. It is a ghazal ‘mujhe pe toofaan uthhaaye logon ne’ written by Urdu Poet, Momin Khan Momin (1801-1852). In the soundtrack version, the film ends with two couplets of this ghazal picturised on Urmila Matondkar.

The ghazal is rendered by Sujata Bhattacharya and I have become a fan of her in recent times. Most of the time, I am not able to differentiate her voice with that of Shreya Ghoshal whom I also admire among the current playback singers in Hindi films.

Kolkata born Sujata Bhattacharya (later renamed herself as Madhushree) is a trained Hindustani classical vocalist with specialization in Khayal and Thumri. She was trained by Pandit Amiya Ranjan Bandopadhyay of Bishnupur Gharana. She completed her post graduate degree in music from Rabindra Bharati University. She was deputed to Surinam by Government of India to teach Hindustani classical music where Indian origin people form a bulk of the population. When she found that her students were more interested in light music and Hindi film songs, she had to change her teaching syllabus. At this juncture, she also felt that she should pursue more of playback singing career than the career as a Hindustani classical vocalist.

Javed Akhtar was instrumental in introducing Sujata Bhattacharya in Hindi films as playback singer when he recommended her name to Rajesh Roshan for a song in the film ‘Moksha’ (2001). Thereafter, she has sung under many prominent music directors, majorly with A R Rahman and M M Kreem (Keeravani) in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu films. It is at the instance of A R Rahman that she changed her name from Sujata Bhattacharya to Madhushree since Rahman had many Sujatas in his music team.

Madhushree’s forte is semi-classical and the light musical genres of songs comprising ghazal, thumri, devotional, folk and romantic though she has also sung under A R Rahman, some peppy songs. In ‘Tehzeeb’ (2003), she has sung 3 ghazals including the one under discussion.

Coming back to the ghazal under discussion, I find this ghazal unique in the sense that all the couplets are thematically inter-linked whereas in traditional ghazal, they are supposed to be autonomous. Another uniqueness in this ghazal is that Momin imagines a situation ahead of falling in unrequited love that normally is the subject matter of the ghazal. This will become clear from what Momin has conveyed in this ghazal.

The poet is sad that that people have created storms with accusation and have spread baseless stories about their love. He was only longing to meet his beloved but people have fabricating stories as if we have already met. It is strange that people are forcing us to see as our grand show of love which we ourselves have not personally experienced. All these rumours and fabricated stories have deprived them of the excitement of falling in love and have upset his beloved. It is pity what the people have done to Momin.

Another uniqueness of this ghazal is that A R Rahman has composed this ghazal in ‘nazm’ format. This is evident from the fact that the musical interlude comes after every two couplets. The background music sounds like symphony orchestra when the song is rendered. Overall it is a melancholic ghazal.

Audio Clip:

Video Clip:

Lyrics (Based on Audio Clip)

mujhpe toofaan uthhaaye logon ne
mujhpe toofaan uthhaaye logon ne
muft baithhe bithhaaye logon ne ..ae ae
muft baithhe bithhaaye logon ne..ae ae
kar diya apne aane jaane ke ae
kar diya apne aane jaane ke ae
tazkire jaaye jaaye logon ne
mujhpe toofaan uthhaaye logon ne
muft baithhe bithhaaye logon ne ae

vasl ki baatein kab ban aayin thh…ee ee
dil se daftar banaaye logon ne
baat apni wahaan na jamne dee
apne naqshe jamaaye logon ne ae
mujhpe toofaan uthhaaye logon ne
muft baithhe bithhaaye logon ne ae
muft baithhe bithhaaye logon ne ae

sunke udti si apni chaahat ki
sunke udti si apni chaahat ki ee
donon ke hosh udaaye logon ne ae
bin kahe raaz aaye pinhaani
bin kahe raaz aaye pinhaani ee
usey kyunkar sunaaye logon ne
mujhpe toofaan uthaaye logon ne

kya tamaasha hai jo na dekhe thhe
kya tamaasha hai jo na dekhe thhe ae
woh tamaashe dikhaaye logon ne ae
kar diya ‘Momin’ us sanam ko khafa
kya kiya haaye re haaye logon ne ne
kya kiya haaye re haaye logon ne
mujhpe toofaan uthaaye logon ne
muft baithhe bithhaaye logon ne
mujhpe toofaan uthhaaye logon ne
mujhpe toofaan uthhaaye logon ne ae
mujhpe toofaan uthhaaye logon ne