PROJECT iVIEW : Musafir Ka Safar
iVIEW AUTHOR:
Pavan Jha (Jaipur, India)
email:
pavanjha[at]gmail.com
A journey started with the “Parichay” of two legends Gulzar and
Pancham.. One night (sometime in early 70s) that got them together in
Pancham’s car and sets off to a journey and the night gave birth to
the brilliant “Musafir hoon yaaron”.. Well most of the gulzar-pancham
fans know about the story of that night.. us raat ki kahaani phir
kabhi.. The journey continued for many many years and the duo created
many many milestones in the journey together.
The Milestone I am standing tonight at, is a gem of a song “Main thak
gaya hoon mujhe sone do” from the film “Musafir” in early 80s…
Another legendary musafir “Kishore da” teamed up in building this
milestone…
Musafir was directed by Dr Jabbar Patel (Jait re Jait and Subah)
featured Naseeruddin Shah, Rekha, Pankaj Kapoor, MunMun Sen in the
main cast..
“Main thak gaya hoon” is very comprehensive song as far as the
picturisation is concern…and it comes at a very important time in
the film… If you’ve seen Vijay Tendulkar’s play “Panchhi aise aate
hain”… or the film “Thoda sa roomani ho jaaye” or even the Sanjay
Dutt-Urmila’s flick “Khoobsurat”.. The storyline of Musafir is
some-what on the similar lines… where a criminal [not in all the
instances] (rather a suspect) kind of personality reaches an unknown
place [running away from his past] and finds a family to stay
with…. We find the the members of the family lacks confidence in
life [specifically our heroine, in all three instances]… The hero
helps them to change their attitude towards life and build
confidence…
In Musafir, the hero is Naseeruddin Shah (Man on the run) and the
heroine Rekha [a village girl from south india]…. The song comes at
a very important place where Naseer is running away [after killing his
bewafa wife Munmun sen]… He wants to run away from his past and
reach a place where he can start afresh… The song starts Naseer’s
journey to an unknown destination…
Just after the murder, Naseer gets into a Taxi, the Taxiwala asks “Kia
sahab, kahan le chalun”.. Naseer replies “Jahan tum le chalo”.. The
song starts in night, Naseer traveling in Train… and in background
Kishore’s voice starts “Ho bahut raat huee.. thak gaya hoon mujh sone
do.. ho bahut raat huee, chaand se keh do utar jaaye bhut baat huee”..
The interlude after the mukhda carries on in the daylight and naseer
is shown traveling in the truck…. during the stanza he gets down and
walks thru the landscapes in the heat of the day… “Dhoop se keh do
utar jaaye bahut baat huee”…
The next stanza begins with some place in Kerla… sunset time…
Naseer is shown traveling in a boat… thats where Pancham does his
usual Maanjhi act… [Malaiyya chalo
dheere dheere, which is very close to Rehman's maanjhi act of "Dil
hai chhota sa".. a south indianish maanjhi pattern by Pancham.. infact
the whole film had some beautiful south indianish background pieces by
Pancham]..
Gulzar saab comes this time with “Waqt se keh do gujar jaaye.. bahut
baat huee”.. slowly this sunset turns to night with “Mein thak gaya
hoon”…and the song ends with the morning where naseer is shown
sleeping on a sea shore.. [some village in South India].. from this
point to the end, the film lives on in this village only (Naseer
meeting Rekha’s family.. The family is unable to find a suitable match
for Rekha)… [a sidenote for Pankaj Kapoor's fans on this forum, this
was his first prominent screen appearance...]
Coming back to the song, The Singing, Lyrics, Composition and
Picturisation every aspect of the song is just perfect…
Aashiyane ke liye chaar tinake bhi the
Aasre raat ke aur din ke bhi the
Dhoondhte the jise wo zara si zameen
Aasmaan ke tale kho gayee hi kahin…
The song travels from Train to Truck to Boat, from Railway track to
Road to River to Sea.. from night to morning to day to evening.. One
of the best traveling song of our times? 
Hats off to the Team of Gulzar-Pancham-Kishore…
Remember another great traveling song by the same team “Raah pe rahate
hain…” ?
Kishore da and Pancham da “khush raho ahale watan, ham to safar karate
hain” gaa kar alvida kah gaye….gulzar saab aaj is safar mein akele
khade hain..
Keep listening the immortal melodies…
Song : Thak gayaa hoon, bahut raat huee
Film : Musafir (1984)
Music : RD Burman
Lyricist : Gulzar
Singer : Kishore Kumar, Pancham
Kishore:
Ho.. bahut raat huee
thak gaya hoon, mujhe sone do
Ho.. bahut raat huee
chaand se keh do utar jaaye
bahut baat huee
thak gaya hoon…… bahut raat huee
aashiyaan ke liye chaar tinake bhi the
aasare raat ke aur din ke bhi the
dhoodhate the jise, wo zara si zameen
aasamaan ke tale kho gayee hai kahin
dhoop se keh do utar jaaye, bahut baat huee
main thak gaya hoon… bahut raat huee
zindagi ke sabhi raaste sard hain
aznabi raat ke aznabi dard hain
yaad se keh do guzar jaaye, bahut baat huee
main thak gaya hoon… bahut raat huee
[pancham sings O Malaiyya, chalo dheere dheere]
yaad aata nahin, ab koi naam se
sab gharo.n ke diye bujh gaye shaam se
waqt se keh do gulzar jaaye, bahut baat huee
main thak gaya hoon, mujhe sone do, bahut raat huee
[fades out in pancham's voice "O malaiyya chalo dheere dheere"]
So thats all folks for tonight….
Main jaata hoon, mujh sone do, bahut raat huee…
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
Hey Pavan,nice post ya. And i think this song is similar to the one that Gulzar wrote recently for Guru…der tak jaage hai,kuch der sone do. raat abhi baki hai,subah to hone do. And i luv this song.
Gulzar saab remains the last in the lineage of poet lyricists like Sahir Ludhianvi, Kaifi Azmi,Qateel Shifai and Shakeel Bidayuni rather than just plain songwriters. And it was genius of R D Burman indeed that could provide the composition to Gulzaar Saab’s lyrics that defied conventions of meter and rhyming. His use of dialects of various languages, especially Panjabi,Awadhi and Urdu is unmatched.He came out with an innovation in Hindi/Urdu poetry called Triveni. But he is now the sole surviving member of Trinity comprising of other two- RD & Kishore Kumar. May God give Gulzaar Saab many many more years to serve with his golden touch. Tum aa gaye ho noor aa gaya hai, nahin toh chiragon se lau ja rahi thhi. Pavan let the light remain kindled even when you are asleep.
Good article pavan….Is there a video of this song?
Oh Yes, I have the audio and video (not great quality though, I converted it from a VHS) of the song.. but it would against the guidelines of this group to post a link.. let me know your email..
Pavan
Please send me the video, Pavanji! I am sending you a mail with my request.
Hi Pavan,
Really great info !!!
Thanks
Yasharth
I love this movie and all the songs…
KK’s BAHUT RAAT HUI is my fav.
I watch the video almost everyday.
I love this film. It is a shame that Musafir has not been released on dvd. I’ve been searching for a good copy of this film for a long time.
Anyway, this article brought back some cool memories. Thanx for that.