Best songs of 1940: Wrap Up 2

And the Award for the Best Female Singer goes to?

The year 1940 also shows preponderance of Female Solos over Male Solos in total numbers, in line with the  long-term trend, as evident in the list of MEMORABLE SONGS in the Overview Post. But there the comparison ends. Music is never about total numbers, it is about overall impact. If you see the Wrap Up 1 about the best male solos of 1940, the year witnessed overwhelming dominance of the New Theatres stalwarts, KL Saigal, Pankaj Mullick, and KC Dey. Their songs are top of the recall.

Were the female solos a wash-out? No, with a little nudging one recalls several gems. For example, Kanan Devi’s Tum Manmohan tum sakhiyan sang hans hans khelo phaag (Har Jeet) is my great favourite. Naacho naacho mere pyare man me mor by Snehprabha Pradhan has enthralled me right since I first heard it, primarily because of her graceful dancing, and her great singing. So much so that I did not notice Rajkumari’s excellent mujra Sainya tu ek beri aa ja. I have to thank Hans Jakhar for mentioning it in his comments.

Bombay Talkies composers had the great ability to turn non-singers too into no mean singers with songs which are remembered till today. We see the same phenomena with Leela Chitnis’ Kaise chhipoge kaise chipoge, O slaone saajna kaise chhipoge with Bandhan. It had two composers Saraswati Devi and Ramchandra Pal, but the songs are separately credited in HFGK. This one is shown composed by Saraswati Devi as expected.

I have another great favourite, Na tum mere na dil mera na jaane naatwan meri – a non-film song by Kamla Jharia. This song has come in for some discussion earlier on the blog. I has some recollection that she belonged to Jharia town in Bihar (now Jharkand state after bifurcation). But our resident scholar, Venkataramanji, gave a complete sociological explanation of her surname that it had nothing to do with the town Jharia. I bow to his superior knowledge, but we are on the same page as far as this early NFS ghazal’s timeless appeal is concerned

Let me start with the number of female solos and singers included in the overview post. This is not in order of preference, but in the order of number of songs and alphabetical order of names.

One can see, though in the overall average, the number of female solos outnumber male solos by a wide margin, in the year 1940, in MEMORABLE SONGS it is not the case. It is because the New Theatres stalwarts like KL Saigal, Pankaj Mullick, and KC Dey. If you include the NFS, too, it becomes more skewed in favour of male solos – in a list of 22 NFS in the year, 21 were by male singers, and a lonely one by Kamla Jharia which has long since been my favourite and rightly figures at the top in the main list of the best ten.

Since the number is quite manageable, I propose to complete the best ten, and put the remaining in Special Songs.

Special Songs

1. Sanwariya se hamri naahi bani re by Menaka Bai from Main Haari (1940), lyrics Kamal Amrohi, music Mir Saheb

2. Lat uljhi suljha ja baalam haathon mein mere mehdi lagi by Jyoti from Pooja (1940), lyrics Shatir Ghazanvi, music Anil Biswas

This popular bandish in Raag Bihag is sung by every prominent singer. The version I like most of this popular bandish is by Noorjehan in Pakistani film Sawal.

3. Mere to Giridhar Gopal doosra na koi by Mukhtar Begum from Matwali Meera (1940), lyrics Meerabai, music Brijlal Verma

Mukhtar Begum has sung some exquisite Meera bhajans in the film based on her lfe. I have selected two ascribed to her, in the list of MEMORABLE songs. Jogi mat ja is too good to be left out of the Main List. The other one I am putting in Special Songs.

4. Aaye re pi ki nagariya se aaye re by Sharda from Prem Nagar (1940), lyrics DN Madhok, music Naushad Ali

Does Naushad show the spark of his genius in his debut film? If you are curious, here is a sample for you to judge. The movie seems to be placed in a rural setting, Naushad creates a nice folk song. The lady starts with the sentence Aaj se mera Prem Nagar bas gaya, and she starts the happy and chirpy song, Aaye re pi ki nagariya se aaye re. I don’t know if Sharda was singing for herself, the cast is led by Bimla who is also listed as a singer of some songs. Quite intriguing, but one can’t get all the information about the film. The song is nice enough.

5. Daras bina dukhan laage nain by Miss Bibbo from Sneh Bandhan (1940), lyrics Meera Bai, music Pannalal Ghosh

Here is another Meera Bhajan. Someone else is credited as lyricist, but it is a well-known Meerabai bhajan. Hear this early version predating all the popular versions we might have heard.

6. Aaj suhag ki raat sej meri ban gayi phuwari by Rajkumari from Suhag (1940), lyrics Pt. Indra, music Timir Baran

I remember Timira Baran composing Suhag ki raat aayi sajni kaahe bhare tore naina in Adhikar (1938). From that poignant song to the joyous …sej meri ban gayi phulwari must be quite a jump. Rajkumari does the honours. The uploader transcribes it as —teri meri ban gayi phulwari. I don’t blame the person, it does sound like this, but ..sej meri ban gayi phulwari makes more sense.

Best songs

1-3.  Na tum mere na dil mera na jaan-e-naatwaan meri by Kamla Jharia (NFS 1940), lyrics Faiyyaz Hashmi, music Zamiruddin Khan

ASAD ascribes it to the year 1940, but it may be approximate. It has long been my great favourite. It would be sad if I exclude it from the main list of the best songs just because it is a non-film song. Thus, just as the Wrap Up 1 of the male solos included some NFS in the main list including one at the top, I put it at the top female solos of the year. Those were the heydays of NFS which held their own without the crutches of a film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVTfuaHpMQg&list=RDBVTfuaHpMQg&start_radio=1

1-3. Naacho naacho pyare man ke mor by Snehprabha Pradhan from Punarmilan (1940), lyrics Pradeep, music RC Pal

I was first aware of its audio, when I got to see the video the graceful dance took my breath away. Punarmilan’s success brought Snehprabha Pradhan close to the hero Kishore Sahu in 1940, but it didn’t last long and within a year they got separated. She was quite a charmer and a regular at local British Army Officer’s mess. They had never seen a beauty like her, with impeccable accent. She had a torrid love affair with a British RAF officer, Edward Sparkes, and also visited Britain to see if she could adjust there. I recall from what Arunkumar Deshmukh shared with me, that though she stayed with Edward’s mother, too, for some time, she decided she could not live there and came back. Quite a feisty woman for those days, who did a thorough 360⁰ check of the lover’s environment, and precedes the famous femme fatales like, Sonali Dasgupta, whose love affair with Roberto Rossellini often surfaces in the media. Less known was a South Indian heroine, Suryakumari, who also acted in Udankhatola. She turned many heads during her visit to the US for her beauty and grace, stayed there and she worked in the story department of ‘Hitchcock Presents’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbLwDIouAZE&list=RDbbLwDIouAZE&start_radio=1

1-3. Tum Manmohan tum sakhiyan sang hans hans khelo phaag by Kanan Devi from Har Jeet (1940), lyrics (?), music RC Boral

The lyricist has to be one of Kidar Sharma and Arzoo Lakhnavi. My hunch is it should be Kidar Sharma. One of my great favourites of Kanan Devi. The stress on every letter is a sweet feature of her singing. She must have developed it to mask her Bengali accent. The link can create a havoc. As if not satisfied by video of some other film, they have transcribed the song as …hans hans ke lo bhaang. Nice one though inadvertent – taking cannabis in Holi is a done thing.

4. Kaise chhipoge kaise chhipoge, O salone saajna ab kaise chhipoge by Leela Chitnis from Bandhan (1940), lyrics Kavi Pradeep, music Saraswati Devi

Saraswati Devi had the knack of making her heroines sing simple tunes which became roaringly popular. A memorable song by Leela Chitnis. We are lucky  that the link is a good quality video.

5. Sainya tu ek beri aa ja by Rajkumari from Punarmilan (1940), lyrics JS Kashyap, music RC Pal

I had missed to include it in the list of my overview post. I am thankful to Hans Jakhar for mentioning it. One can easily call Rajkumari the mujra Queen. A beautiful mujra in a home mehfil with gestures but without dancing. Those were the days of aristocracy which patronised these art forms.

6. Koi bajaao na prem ki veena by Khursheed from Achhoot (1940), lyrics PL Santoshi, music Gyan Dutt

I was surprised that this song I had not heard. I am very fond of Khursheed’s voce. It seems her fame started 1941 onwards. It is a very good song you like to listen again.

7. Saajan mohan waari, tum mere main tumhari by Hansa Wadkar from Aazad (1940), lyrics JS Kashyap ‘Naatwan’, music Saraswati Devi (and RC Pal)

Hansa Wadkar is the lead female singer in the film Aazad. She is in the cast, therefore, I presume the lady in the following video link must be the singer, and the song picturised on her. She was a bilingual (Marathi/Hindi) stage and film actor-singer. She has been made famous by Shyam Benegal’s film Bhumika (1977), based on her autobiography, in which Smita Patil essayed her role. It is a sad tale of women in show-business facing exploitation and pain in life. This is a nice song sung by her.

8. Jogi mat ja by Mukhtar Begum from Matwali Meera (1940), lyrics Meerabai, music Master Brijlal Verma

Meera’s bhajans have cast their spell on Hindi films and several non-film and classical singers. We have come across Mukhtar Begum as a superb ghazal singer in Chori kahin khule na naseem-e-bahar ki in Raag Darbari. In this well-known Meera bhajan, Mukhtar brings out the pathos of this bhajan in Raag Bhairavi.

9. Zara muskura kar milaao nazar hi by Zohra Jan from Bahurani (1940), music Rafiq Ghazanvi

The HFGK only mentions Zohra in the singer’s name. Sadanand Kamath has written a nice article on Atul Song A Day, and makes a convincing case that the singer was Zohra Jan who was also a good mujra dancer. This song is written in ghazal style and sung as a mujra. The music director Rafiq Ghazanvi married Zohra Jan in the 1930s. After divorcing her in the early 1940s, he married her sister Khursheed who had taken Anuradha as the screen name, This Anuradha was also there in the cast of Bahurani, though Zohra Jan was not mentioned in the credits. A memorable song.

10. Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye je peer parayi jaane re by Amirbai Karnataki from Narsi Bhagat (1940), music Shankar Rao Vyas

This bhajan was famous by Gandhi ji by using it in his public meetings which started with singing some bhajans, including this one. The association with the Mahatma, and Vishnudatt Phagnis living the role of the saint-poet Narsi Bhagat made this film a landmark. Amirbai Karnataki with her melodious voice moves you.

And the SOY Award for the Best Female Singer goes to?

I am quite confused between the first three songs, and I would ideally like to declare the first three as joint best female singer of 1940.

In conclusion,
The SOY Award for the Best Female Singer of 1940 goes jointly to Kamla Jharia, Snehprabha Pradhan and Kanan Devi.

Acknowledgement and Disclaimer
The song links have been given or embedded only for the listening pleasure of the music lovers. This blog has no commercial interest, and makes or suggests no claim of copyright over these songs directly or indirectly, which vests with the respective copyright holders.