Old songs, new discoveries – I
It started off as a very bad day. A holiday…everything is closed and I realize that I have nothing to eat, my net is not working properly and I am supposed to give a talk on wednesday! How can so many bad things happen at same time? I spent last two days watching 5 movies: ‘Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind’, ‘3 iron’, ‘Double indemnity’, ‘Checkmate’ and ‘Lust Caution’ – and now I feel guilty for spending all my time watching these movies for some of them were repeat watch. Depressing thoughts!
So I decided to postpone padhai-likhai for a little more time and settled down to browse through my music collection. If there’s one thing that can lift my spirits, no matter how depressed I am, it’s music.
I was looking at all the old songs I had discovered recently on youtube. YouTube – undoubtedly one of the best things that has happened to netizens in recent times. It helps me get through such depressing days.
So allow me to share some of the gems…some of them I had heard for the first time and some of them I had never watched before.
apne kiye pe koi…
It’s a one-of-its-kind song with so many couplets spoken by Ajit…it still doesn’t become irritating at any point. A wonderful song written by Khumaar Barabankvi.
apne kiye pe koi pashemaan ho gaya
lo aur meri maut ka saaman ho gaya
I didn’t know Khumaar saab had written for a number of movies before I stumbled upon this song. I had to confirm from the experts that the song was indeed written by him. I only knew Khumaar saab through some amazing youtube videos of his mushairas. One of the couplets that I heard for the very first time is:
suna hai humein wo bhulaane lage hain.
to kya hum unhe yaad aane lage hain?
It still sounds same – wonderfully wicked!
It was a pleasant surprise to discover that he wrote for movies too.
aankh khulte hi tum…
First time I heard this song, it seemed very familiar but I was sure I had not heard it before. For some reason it seemed like a song I have been hearing for ages….may be because it is so easy to connect to the emotion.
aankh khulte hi tum chhup gaye ho kahan
tum abhi the yahan tum abhi the yahan
Dreams and reality!
‘jeevan ke safar mein raahi…’ from Munimji is a must for every Kishore Kumar collection but there are other songs in the album which deserve to be remembered as much. This one being one of them. Then there is Ghayal Hiraniya and fun-filled Dil ki umangein hain jawaan – another song which I had not watched but only heard and had never imagined Pran as the guy they were making fun of in the song.
Listen to Hemant Kumar singing:
sadiyon puraani ye zameen
hai aaj itni haseen
aaja nahi hai yakeen
hota nahi hai bayaan
Heavenly! (Ah! it brings back college memories!)
I wish there was a version without the stupid interruptions and fun-making. Is there?
pyaas kuchh aur bhi bhadka di…
Again Rafi’s ‘hai kali kali ke lab par…’ from the same movie (Lala Rukh) is perhaps a more famous song. Sad that I hadn’t heard this one before.
tujhko dekha, tujhe chaaha, tujhe pooja maine
bas yahi iske siwa meri khata kya hogi?
maine achha kiya ghabra ke jo muh pher liya
isase kam dil ke tadapne ki saza kya hogi?
Yes, it’s Talat himself on the screen with Shyaama.
It’s one of those sawaal-jawaab kind of songs….similar to ‘hum aapki aankhon mein…’ from Pyaasa. Why don’t people write such songs anymore?
muskuraao ke jee nahi lagta…
I knew that Nirupa Roy has played lead roles and characters other than ‘bechari maa’ (Please read Oz’s brilliant Torture-series article here to read more about Nirupa Roy!) but I could never imagine it until I found this song. Later I also discovered the songs from ‘Heera Moti’ on youtube (Link). My first Premchand story! 
Coming back to the song, it yet again reminded me what a great actor Ashok Kumar was, before he landed on that sick-bed in Clerk!
majha hoshil ka… (will you be mine?)
Finally I leave you with a marathi song by Asha Bhosle from the film ‘Lakhachi Goshta’. Unfortunately I remain highly ignorant of marathi songs. I chanced upon this one while searching for something and for some reason decided to listen to it. Lucky me, for it turned out be an amazing song.
I am sorry but I do not trust myself with translating the entire song. May be someone with a better knowledge of Marathi can do that.
I am sure there are a lot more amazing songs yet to be discovered and talked about.
Until then, keep surfing!
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
You tube indeed rocks!!
Nowadays it has become an indispensable tool for baby sitting kids..
Neerja,
a good package of some real good ones!.. really enjoyed the song selection.. btw Khumar saab had penned for a few films in 50s and 60s.. most notable in Baradari for Nashaad (not Naushasd), Tasveer banata hoon, tasveer nahin banati or lata’s bhula nahin dena…
There are many such gems… hidden away unknown to many of us
Thank you Pavanji!
I didn’t know ‘Tasveer banata hun..’ was penned by Khumaar saab. I used to forward that song whenever I played the Talat collection…I found it very depressing.
My kind of post. I am equally fond of old Hindi songs, particularly B&W ones. They are a treat to watch on screen, not just to listen to.
Thanks for the collection. Nice post!
I remember watching an old Nirupa Roy-Bhart Bhushan film, Rani Roopmati with some hit songs. My dad (when he was alive) used to hum this song a lot.
This song reminds me of him every time I hear it..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNfDJT8ZT4
It’s a lovely song.
Rani Roopmati, my mother tell me, was her first movie watching experience in a theatre.