The music of Kamal Dasgupta
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Kamal Dasgupta (1912-1974)
In the Hindi film Jawab (1942), singer-actress Kanan Devi lulls a restless, and rather childlike, P. C. Barua into sweet sleep. The song is “Ay chand chup na jaana,” and it is great for frayed nerves. Given my own battles with sleep—the activity that consumes nearly a half of our lives—I feel compelled to attest to the wonder of this lullaby by music composer Kamal Prasanna Dasgupta (1912-1974), with lyrics by Pt. Madhur. Here it is: Song 1:
Considering the extraordinary melody of Kamal Dasgupta’s music (he was also a singer), it is surprising that today very few remember this prolific genius who composed nearly 8000 songs that spanned quite a range—from films (Hindi, Bengali, and—most astonishingly—even Tamil, which I have not yet had the luck of encountering) to non-film categories such as Meera bhajans, Nazrul geet, kirtans, and ghazals, to name just a few.
Here is a composer who gave Jagmohan and Juthika Roy some of their best songs ever, a composer who shaped the early careers of Talat Mahmood and Hemant Kumar, much before they got a break in films as playback singers. And yet, woefully, it is not easy to find detailed, authoritative information on—as Sarwat Ali puts it, “the first million copy seller of golden discs in [the] Indian music industry.”
I am guessing that S. M. Shahid’s book (with accompanying CDs) called Kamal Dasgupta: Unforgettable Songs, whose existence I only recently discovered through the Internet, and which I have not seen, should fill the void to some extent. Certainly it is on my buying list now.
And here comes a pleasant discovery that I made from the tracks listed in Shahid’s book/CDs—a piece of information that thrilled me indescribably: for many years now, I have been enthralled by singer Jagmohan (or Jaganmoy Mitra, 1918-2003)—another largely forgotten figure—without knowing that many of his gut-wrenchingly beautiful songs were composed by Dasgupta.
Although I knew that Dasgupta had composed Jagmohan’s eponymous “O varsha ke pehle baadal mera sandesa le jaana” for the film Meghdoot (1945), I had no idea that it was the same genius composer behind other Jagmohan numbers (largely non film) such as “Dil dekar dard liya” or “Deewana tumhaara kahta hai afsaana.” (By the way, the lyricist for these songs is yet another forgotten figure—Fayyaz Hashmi, 1920-?)
I wonder why the old HMV audiocassettes of Jagmohan’s songs never ever mentioned the name of the composer. That has been a huge disservice to the legacy of Kamal Dasgupta—and that damage has stayed on: even now, when I look up Jagmohan’s songs, or the more well-known Talat Mahmood’s early songs, on the Internet, usually there is no mention of the music composer. Why does this information have to be so arcane? Why should one have to burrow one’s way through to know the name of the creator of some of the sweetest melodies? It is utterly deplorable.
I will suspend my outrage for a while and return to Jawab (1942), possibly the first Hindi film for which Dasgupta composed music. One of its best-known songs is Kanan Devi’s “Toofan Mail” (in recent times, Lata Mangeshkar sang it for her Shraddhanjali series that celebrated all-time memorable songs), and it certainly ranks as one of the most unforgettable train songs in Indian film music. Lyricist Pt. Madhur sure nailed it when he wrote “Ek hai aata, ek hai jaata, sabhi musaafir, bichhad jaayenge.” Song 2:
From a soothing lullaby to a sprightly train song—and now to a “dulhaniya” song from Jawab: here is Anima Dasgupta (no relation of Kamal Dasgupta) singing “Dulhaniya chhama chham chhama chham chali” for actress Jamuna, who looks on dotingly at the bashful bride-to-be, a charming Kanan Devi in all her bridal finery. Song 3:
In keeping with the grand tradition in Indian films of double versions of the same song—happy versus sad, or fast versus slow, or solo versus duet—here is the second, shorter version of the “Ay chand chup na jaana” lullaby that appears towards the end of the film, when love triumphs. It is sung by, I believe, Kamal Dasgupta himself, along with Kanan Devi. Song 4:
While researching on Dasgupta on the Internet (a very frustrating endeavor), I found a particularly poignant statement by him. An article by Khalid Hasan mentions a line from Dasgupta’s 1971 letter to a friend in Bengali—and I quote the quote: “‘The pictures you see in front, everybody remembers them and praises them. But nobody wants to know the people who work behind the scenes, nor talk about them. That is the nature of the world.’” Guess that sums it up.
Tags: 1942, 1945, Anima Dasgupta, Fayyaz Hashmi, Hemant Kumar, HMV, Jagmohan, Jamuna, Jawab, Juthika Roy, Kamal Dasgupta, Kanan Devi, Lata Mangeshkar, Meghdoot, P.C.Barua, Pt. Madhur, Talat Mahmood
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
Nivedita, Thanks a lot for remembering Kamal Dasgupta. He is all but forgotten now. His non-film compositions for Juthika Roy are simply out of his world.
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Thank you for the comment. Yes, the songs for Juthika Roy are indeed priceless… some of the most uplifting melodies ever.
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Thanks Nivedita…for bringing back some lost credit to an artist. I didn’t know anything about this man…but now know something.
By the way did you check this book on Hindi Film Music by Ashok D. Ranade? It’s supposed to be the best researched account of Hindi film musicians, including the arrangers, instrumentalists, sound recordists and accompanists, all in a single volume. That one should have something about Kamal Dasgupta.
(A friend, who himself is researching Hindi film music has that book, and i will check and post here soon.)
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Thank you; I have seen the Ranade book– there is some mention of Dasgupta but not a whole lot. And I don’t have it here with me readily, but I remember it being an enjoyable read. I need to revisit it again. Please do post anything you find relevant.
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That was some effot Nivedita. Never knew about Kamal Dasgupta. It just blew me when you said he also composed in Tamil. Will surely listen to film songs composed by him and also the non-film ones.
Good effort again!!!
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Thank you, Sridhar. I wonder where Dasgupta’s Tamil songs are lost.
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Wow!Nivedita I certainly have no words to describe your effort
. Its remarkable how you are able to remember these people who have been all but forgotten.Even I hardly had any clue about Kamal Dasgupta and it is now that I’ve felt the urge to actually check out on him.
Here’s the link you’ve referred to in the end -
http://members.tripod.com/oldies_club/kamaldas.htm
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Hey! Nivedita- great work here in trying to highlight people who’ve been all but forgotten.Hadly knew anything about Kamal Dasgupta , but this post has given me the urge to check out on him.Here is the link you’ve referred to in the end of the post-
http://members.tripod.com/oldies_club/kamaldas.htm
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I am so glad to read your comments. Thank you. And great that you added the link. Hopefully, in the years to come, more people will discover the genius of Dasgupta.
(I typed this and it disappeared, hence this comment may appear twice.)
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I remember all the three songs very well- esp Eh Chand
and toofan-a-mail. All India Radio used to braoadcast
these frequently in my boyhood days in the late 40’s
I still remmember those days when we had one of the few
radios in Kumbakonam (definitely the only one in our
street!)- an old Valve set “Crystaltone” make which was going
strong when we donated to a a friend in 1957! Thanks for the
background info in your post.
Prabhu 27th )ct
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Nice to know that. Thank you!
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HI Nevedita, A great effort on your part to revive the beautiful song. Yes I have it heard a few times and it brings back memories of my mother humming this beautiful melody. Would love to hear more such songs and such
charming lyrics.
Thank you,Kusum
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It is fscinating to read your article. 1930s-1950s constitutes the Golden age of Bengali music, but as it is a well established fact that we Bengalis are not proud of our heritage; otherwise, we would have been cherishing the music of yesteryear masters like Kamal Dasgupta, Pankaj Kumar Mallik and Raichand Boral.None of the younger generation talks about such music, preferring to listen to Bands & Remix. Let us not forget that these music masters form the backbone strength of what is Indian Film Sangeet.
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