gulzarsaab- panchamda anecdote
All of us have heard the famous, the classic Mera kucch saamaan…from ijazat. It was written by Gulzar and composed by Panchamda. Of course not many know the story behind the song…how it was composed. (I had the privilege of hearing it from Gulzarsaab and so sharing it with you guys)
Gulzar and Panchamda were thick friends, who could talk about anything under the sun. All of Gulzarsaab’s songs in his films were composed by Panchmda…It was like friends working together, composing, writing and singing….
On One such afternoon Gulzar saab telephoned Panchamda and told him “I have written something which I want you to hear.” Panchamda immediately called him to his studio. Ashaji was with him.
Gulzarsaab arrived. Panchamda ordered Tea for them. Tea arrived. They decided to hear it after having the tea. Now, not many know this, but Panchamda didn’t like his tea hot. It had to be cold for him to drink. Gulzarsaab finished his tea and while Panchamda hadn’t touched it as it was too hot for him to drink. But Panchamda was also a very impatient man by nature. He was excited to hear what Gulzarsaab had written. He asked someone to bring tap water. When water came, he poured that water in the hot tea to cool it and gulped it down…this is what he generally did…
And Gulzarsaab began reciting…
Mera kuch saamaan tumhare paas pada hai
o o o ! saavan ke kuch bheege bheege din rakhe hain
aur mere ik khat main lipti raat padi hai
vo raat bhulaa do, mera vo saamaan lauta do
mera kuch saamaan tumhaare paas pada hai
patjhad hai kuch … hai na ?
o ! patjhad main kuch patton ke girne kee aahat
kaanon main ek baar pahan ke laut aai thee
patajhad kee vo saakh abhi tak kaanp rahi hai
vo saakh gira do, mera vo saamaan lauta do
ek akeli chhataree main jab aadhe aadhe bheeg rahe the
aadhe sookhe aadhe geele, sukha to main le aaye thee
geela man shayad bistar ke paas pada ho
vo bhijwa do, mera vo saamaan lauta do
ek so sola chaand ki ratain ek tumhare kaandhe ka til
geeli mahendi ki khushbu, jhoot mooth ke shikwe kuch
jhooth mooth ke wade sab yaad karaa do
sab bhijwa do, mera vo saamaan lauta do
ek ijaazat de do bas, jab isko dafanaaungee
main bhi vaheen so jaungee
main bhi vaheen so jaungee
Finally Gulzarsaab finished. He looked at Panchamda for his reaction…
Panchamda took a long pause…..then said “accha scene hai!”
Gulzaar saab was surprised. This wasn’t what he was expecting. He said “yeh scene nahi hai…yeh gaana hai..aapko compose karna hai”
Panchamda got wild. “yeh kya mazaaak hai…tum kucch bhi likhkar aate ho aur kehte ho isspar gaana banao…kal tum times of India lekar aaoge aur kahoge isspar dhun banao…na meter hai na kucch, kaise hoga?”
Gulzarsaab said “who mujhe nahi pata…aap compose kijiye”
Then Ashaji, who had been sitting quietly, listening to all this, said “yeh jo last line hai… ‘lauta do’…usse iss tarah gaana chahiye”…and then she began humming the way it is…
Hearing Ashaji hum the song Panchamda got all excited and began composing….and so began the composition backwards…after a few hours the song was ready and recorded…
And it won the national award and the filmfare award for the best lyrics in 1988…
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
- WOW WOW WOW… Thank you for this NU!
@ Nu.. Nice bit of Info… Some fantastic lyrics. Panchamda was right, it was a story… the lyrics made the story move forward. It sums up exactly what Anuradha Patel was going through when Nasser married Rekha in Ijazat
- My favorite though remains Katra Katra and then Choti si Kahani se. I remember taking the bus from Karnal to Delhi in ‘88, its raining real heavy, I’m kind of sad and both katra katra and choti si kahani se are playing on my walkman on repeat… your article just brought back that scene from my past.
“ek akeli chhataree main jab aadhe aadhe bheeg rahe the
aadhe sookhe aadhe geele, sukha to main le aaye thee
geela man shayad bistar ke paas pada ho
vo bhijwa do, mera vo saamaan lauta do”
Romanticism at its very best. This takes us back again to the topic that Nu had written earlier about the dying art of lyrics. Compare the above lyrics to one crappy
“Chatri na Khol Barssat mein.. Bheeg Jaane de… Bheeg Jaane de.. Bheegi raat mein”
wtf?
Have you guys read this:
http://www.gulzaronline.com/gulkahani.htm
?
- HG, I’ve been there a couple of times though I didn’t read this strange story before.
@ nu: Your post brought me back a few memories from my teenage – when I used to pretend that I am a grown up – used to lock myself up in my room – and used to listen to songs on a 2-in-1 as it was called then, and then Gulzar, RD, KK, Hemant, Asha, Bhupinder, Manna da, would walk into my room one after another playing/singing songs like “iss mod pe jaate hain; hain apna dil to awara; musafir hoon yaaro; badi sooni sooni hain; phir wohi raat hain; hum bewafa har kiz na the; do diwane shahar mein; oh maajhi re; tere bina zaindagi se koi” oh man! It was a mehafil every night! But again, as Gulzar said “ek baar waqt se lamha giraa kaheen, wahan daastan milii, lamha kahin nahin – hosake to iss mein zindagi bitaa do, pal jo yeh jaane wala hain”.
Thanks for the post, the lyrics and especially the memories.
@ Sumeet: Re decadence in the new gen lyrics – I just found this article online where Gulzar says (answering one of the questions) “Kavi ke corrupt hone ka khayaal aapko kahaan se aaya? Kavi ke peechhe baitha manushya be-imaan ho sakta hai, zaroori nahin ki kavi bhi vaisa hi nikale. Corruption insaan ki kamzori ho sakti hai.. uska dosh kavita ko mat dein.”
http://www.gulzaronline.com/chat14may2k.htm
Kavita chahe woh kaise bhi ho, woh kavita hii hain. Ands to quote Gulzar “Mushkil hai aakaash pe chalana, Taarey paaon mein chubhtey hain.” Not everyone can moonwalk mate!
“Mushkil hai aakaash pe chalana, Taarey paaon mein chubhtey hain.”
i like that quote. we all know that particular website, but we don’t know everything that website consists of, do we? it got some kind of hidden gold somewhere.
HG – Spot on! I know… it’s a bummer. In spite of it’s not so great usability the site has tons of info – I usually google it out.
and to think this song is amongst the few of Gulzaar saab’s which i understand…
amazing lyrics… mere raungte khade hoo rakhe hai abhi on reading the lyrics again after a long time…
aadhe sookhe aadhe geele, sukha to main le aaye thee
geela man shayad bistar ke paas pada ho
vo bhijwa do, mera vo saamaan lauta do
fuckawright !!!!!!!!!!!! it is senstivity presonified. How can you get over something like this.
>
one line I memorize from his song ‘O maajhi re’
…koi kinaara jo kinaare se mile wo, apna kinaara hai…..O maajhi re…
…miracle words!!