This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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Today’s song is from film ‘Aaj Ki Baat’ (1955).
In one of his earliest posts, Atul ji had said that the Indian people like to talk about 3 things – politics, films and cricket. How true it was. . . till Whatsapp and Facebook became an obsession for most people in India. Now you see different, sometimes even strange topics being discussed with taste. Additionally, there are wise people to give you free doses of a variety of knowledge. In all this crowd, sometimes one finds even a few intelligent posts too !
Recently, I saw a video by National Geographic. It showed how a mother bear saves her wayward baby bear, from almost certain clutches of a hungry lion. Motherly love or love for children is a common factor among animals and humans. While animals try to protect their babies from enemies, starvation and life threatening situations, human parents try to provide the goodies of life and a paying career line to their children.
Film people are no different in this. Almost every successful star wishes that his children join this line and be famous and successful. However, they forget that in their own case they had struggled hard to earn their place in the life and more importantly they forget that talents are not necessarily hereditary !
When I chose today’s Talat song from film ‘Aaj Ki Baat’, I realised that this was the launching film for Ajit Chitnis – son of ace actress Leela Chitnis. Unfortunately, the film career of Ajit Chitnis never took off beyond his first and the only film. Actually, Ajit was a qualified commercial pilot, but he could not get a job in any air line. Consequently, he became a victim of alcoholism and was spoiled further. To help him settle in life, his mother-Leela Chitnis tried to bring him in film line. When she noticed her contemporary, Shobhana Samarth produced a film ‘Hamari Beti’ (1950), to launch her daughter Nutan, Leela too decided to produce a film to launch one of her two sons as an actor. She chose Ajit as he was elder and needed help. Manvendra (Leela used to call him as ‘Meena’) was not launched ceremoniously, but later he acted in 4 films in side roles. In his last film,’Ramu To Deewana Hai’ (1980) he even shared the credits with his mother. The history of most star sons in films is not very encouraging. In fact, success and failure ratio may be 10 to 90 percent in success and failures.
It is said that ‘No tree can grow under a Banyan tree’. This is absolutely true and applicable in film industry. Except in cases like the Kapoor family, i.e. Raj, Shammi and Shashi,who made their bright careers despite the shadow of their father and other brothers, we find that many of the sons, daughters, brothers or sisters of many popular and famous film stars were failures and never made it big in Hindi cinema.
We know cases like Suneil Anand, Nasir Khan, Tony Walker, Naina Sahu, Meera Joglekar, Ajit Chitnis, Rajendranath, Narendranath, Anoop Kumar, Mallika, Khursheed Jr., Simple Kapadiya, Shivangi Kolhapure, Preeti Ganguly and many more. In spite of having all the backing of the famous family member, these and such many others just did not make it, because Talents are not always hereditary !
They all were given a fair opportunity to display their talent on the screen , but unfortunately despite their honest effort their skill could not come out & the viewers were left unimpressed . They were selected by big banners and well experienced directors were there to guide them. But their talent remained hidden inside them and with their nonexistent artistry they disappointed their mentors. Non-actor Sohan Kapila was in the romantic lead of Filmistan’s ‘Babar’, which was released in 1960. This film was directed by Hemen Gupta, the distinguished director, who earlier had directed ‘Anand Matth’ (1952) for Filmistan. The film, also had the winning combination of Sahir and Roshan. Dependable character actor Gajanan Jagirdar played the role of the great Mughal Emperor Babar . But the movie flopped, as the new hero failed pathetically to register any emotion on his face. A big jolt for Seth Tola Ram Jalaan, who was already facing financial problems. Mr. Kapila appeared in 2-3 movies in inconsequential roles and disappeared from scene for ever. His daughter Padmini Kapila also pursued a career in films, but could not achieve much success .
There were many other actors like him, who got a chance to appear opposite illustrious heroines, unfortunately their effort did not make any impact on the cine loving public. Watching their miserable performance on the screen, no film maker came forward to sign them. Out of sight is out of mind, it was matter of time when public as well as film industry forgot them.
‘Malhaar’, as the name suggests, is a musical film produced by the great singer Mukesh in 1951 . It had story by veteran actor SK Prem and its evergreen music was composed by Roshan. The movie had new comers Arjun and Shammi (Nargis Rabaadi). Arjun did get another chance in ‘Daku Ki Ladki’ (1954) to please the viewers with his emoting before the camera, but could not succeed and it was end of his career.
Rattan Chopra, the lucky boy was selected for films, among hundreds of aspirants. Mohan Kumar had suffered a huge set back when ‘Aman’ flopped. He took the newcomer for ‘Mom Ki Gudia’ (1972) opposite Tanuja, with great hopes. Unfortunately, the film failed to dispel the gloom and sank to the rock bottom. Acting was not his cup of tea, Rattan Chopra understood and wisely opted out of the race of stardom.
Director Amarnath introduced new comer Vijay Kumar in his 1954 offering ‘Alif Laila’ opposite Nimmi and Asha Mathur. Sohan Kapila and Vijay Kumar had impressive physique, but had no clue about acting. The movie had lilting music by Shyam Sunder, which was his last contribution towards film industry. Helen for the first time got a chance to perform solo in the movie and for many decades she remained on top. But for Vijay Kumar it was his first & last chance.
Another non actor Premendra was introduced by old timer Vijay Bhatt in ‘Holi Aayee Re’ (1970), which was directed by his younger sibling Harsukh Bhatt. It was pathetic to watch Premendra unsuccessfully trying to show case his imaginary ability in the field of acting .The movie flopped phenomenally and a huge investment made by Bhatt Brothers went up in a cloud of smoke.
There were some more like Pratibha Sinha, Archan Gupta, Jayant Gupta, Ashok Sharma, Nusrat Kardar, Rajeev Kapoor, Manish Kumar, Navin Chandra, Aroop Kumar, Prashant, Shalini, Kaycee Mehra, Vikram, Shekhar Suman, Deepak Kumar, Ajay, Som Dutt and many more. Among them, some film names which I remember off hand are Deepak Kumar in ‘Aabroo’ (1968), ‘Ajay’ in ‘Wapas’ (1969), Som Dutt in ‘Mann Ka Meet’ (1968), Vikram in ‘Julie’ (1975), Rajeev Kapoor in ‘Raam Teri Ganga Maili (1985), Shekhar Suman in ‘Utsav’ (1984), Kaycee Mehra in ‘Chhabilee’ (1960) and Mem Didi (1961), Prashant in ‘Sehra’ (1963), Ashok Sharma in ‘Hamari Yaad Aayegi’ (1961), Ajit Chitnis in ‘Aaj Ki Baat’ (1955), Nusrat Kardar in ‘Dard’ (1947), Manish in ‘Saraswati Chandra’ (1968), Rajiv in ‘Nayi Umar Ki Nayi Fasal’ (1965), Aroop Kumar in ‘Bezubaan’ (1962) etc. There could be more such examples. Readers can give their comments.
According to what Leela Chitnis wrote in her autobiography, ‘Chanderi Duniyet’ (‘चंदेरी दुनियेत’), during the period 1952-53 she was in a very bad financial position. Her health had worsened due to a wrong operation and then a corrective surgery. Valuable time and all money was lost in this. To come out of this situation, she planned to produce a film launching Ajit. As the luck would have it, the film started in 1953, but took 2 years to complete. The rights were sold to a distribution company. They released the film first in Punjab, where it flopped miserably. Then it was not released anywhere at all and went into the cans forever. This was a great shock to Chitnis family.
The film had 8 songs. 2 songs are already discussed here. This is the 3rd song, sung by Talat Mehmood. Written by Raj Baldev Raj, it was composed by the ‘Gentleman Maestro’ – Snehal Bhatkar.
White full shirt, ironed white Pyjama, spectacles with big powerful lenses and the trademark white Gandhi Topi. He could easily be mistaken for a ‘Pandharpur Warkari‘ (a regular pilgrim to Pandharpur) or a member of a ‘Bhajani Mandali’ or simply a middle class ‘Marathi Manoos’. Such was the appearance of one of Hindi filmdom’s talented yet not so famous, music maestro VASUDEV GANGARAM BHATKAR or Snehal Bhatkar as we all love to know him.
In Hindi film music field, there were some talented composers like Ghulam Mohd, Mohd Shafi, Iqbal Qureshi, Daan Singh, C Arjun, Ramlal, Sardar Malik, Ajit Merchant, Jamaal Sen, Dattaram, Ganesh, Snehal Bhatkar etc., who could never reach the peaks of their careers. They really deserved this, but luck did not favour them. Big Banners never approached them and the losers were the lovers of music in India. They did not know, perhaps, how to sell their art. May be, they never wanted to enslave the music to gain name and fame, instead they preferred to settle for service to the music!
Bhatkar was one such composer. ‘Simple living and high thinking’ – never worked in this mayanagari, but he had no regrets. Till the end he was contented with whatever God gave him, whatever name and success he achieved. He was born into a family and grew in such atmosphere which was surrounded by traditional devotional music all around. In the lower middle class, the people had their entertainments in singing bhajans and doing keertans in temples en masse.
He was born on 17-7-1919. Vasudev G. Bhatkar knew at least 100 Bhajans by heart by the time he was in his 10th class. He was invited to sing in Ganesh Melas and other celebrations and soon became a well known name in the locality. Because of his singing and skills in playing harmonium and other instruments, he got a job in HMV in Bombay. Here he used to give accompaniment on harmonium to renowned classical singers. At the same time, taking cognizance of his singing skills, many Marathi bhavgeets and bhajans were recorded by HMV in those days. Some of them are popular in Maharashtra even today.
All the while, Bhatkar was looking for opportunity to compose in films. Sudhir Phadke, who too served in HMV and recorded some songs from 1943 to 1945, joined hands with Bhatkar and made a pair – Vasudev-Sudhir. They got a film of Baburao Painter ‘Rukmini Swayamvar’ in 1946 for music direction. The problem was due to his service in HMV, he could not openly work outside, hence he only gave his name as Vasudev. After this film the pair separated and Phadke went to give music to films like ‘Gokul’, ‘Aagey Badho’ etc. Due to financial constraints Bhatkar was unable to leave the job also.
In 1941, Bhatkar had come to know Kidar Sharma while recording songs for his film ‘Chitralekha’, which he was making for Ranjit Studios. Sharma had just come from Calcutta, to establish himself in Bombay. He had a knack of identifying talents. He gave chance to Bhatkar first to sing some songs with Leela Sawant in his film ‘Kaliyan’ (1944). After ‘Rukmini Swayamvar’, Kidar Sharma gave him his first break as independent composer in his ‘Neel Kamal’ in 1947. For this film, Bhatkar used the name B Vasudev. Kidar Sharma had launched Raj Kapoor and Madhubala in adult roles as the lead pari in this film. It also launched Bhatkar, albeit in a pseudo-name. In the subsequent years Bhatkar used different names for different films-
- ‘Suhaag Raat’ (1948) – as Snehal
- ‘Sant Tukaram’ (1948) – as VG Bhatkar (he sang 6 songs also)
- ‘Thes’ (1949) – as Snehal
- ‘Sati Ahilya’ (1949) – as VG Bhatkar
- ‘Pagle’ (1950) – as VG Bhatkar
After completing ‘Thes’ and ‘Sati Ahilya’, Bhatkar resigned from HMV.
He and Kidar Sharma were very good friends. Kidar gave him ‘Neki Aur Badi’ in 1949. He started the work. Meanwhile, Kidar Sharma met Roshan Nagrath in some musical event. Sharma was terribly impressed with Roshan and wanted to give him a break in his film. At that point of time, Kidar had just started work on ‘Neki Aur Badi’. He had a heart to heart talk with Bhatkar and Bhatkar gladly left the film for Roshan. Thus Roshan got his break with this film. Roshan never forgot Bhatkar’s magnanimity in his life and always respected Bhatkar.
In return Kidar Sharma gave ‘Hamari Beti’ (1950) to Bhatkar. As he was a free bird now, Bhatkar started using the name Snehal Bhatkar from this film onward. Snehal was the short form of Snehalata, his daughter. Snehal Bhatkar did many Marathi films and recorded many bhajans in Marathi, which are ever popular. He did 27 films in Hindi and 12 films in Marathi. Out of 27 Hindi films, 9 were made by Kidar Sharma.
The song which made Mubarak Begum and Bhatkar famous in India was “Kabhi Tanhayion Mein, Hamari Yaad Aayegi” from the film ‘Hamari Yaad Aayegi’ (1961). (This film was was originally named ‘Jawaan Muhabbat’). Actually this song was to be done by Lata Mangeshkar. Lata had already recorded two songs for this film. Due to her extremely busy schedule she was unable to do this song, so she suggested the name of Asha Bhosle. However, already upset over Lata’s refusal, Kidar Sharma opted for Mubarak Begum and the rest is history-as they say. She made a gold of this song with her special voice.
After 1960, the musical scene in India was undergoing drastic changes and there was no space for composers like Bhatkar, who used minimum orchestra and dwelt upon melody. His films came after long intervals. Even Kidar Sharma left him after ‘Fariyad’ (1964) (only to return in ‘Pehla Kadam’ in 1980). Finally Bhatkar did his last film ‘Sehme Huye Sitaare’ in 1994, which featured his son Ramesh Bhatkar-who was already a popular hero in Marathi film, stage and TV. This obscure film did nothing good to Bhatkar.
After retirement Bhatkar devoted his time for children’s welfare and his original love – bhajan mandali singing.
Snehal or Vasudev Gangaram Bhatkar, together with cousin Devji Bhatkar and Panchambuwa Pandurang Shivalkar, was the founder member of ‘Vishwambhar Prasadik Bhajan Mandal’ in Dadar. It is still in operation after 50 years, with new set of singers. Bhatkar was very kind hearted. Every year, during Ganapati festival he used to visit his ancestral village ‘Bhate’ in Ratnagiri district and participate in singing bhajans.
Lata, Talat and Mukesh were his favourite singers. Talat, though has not sung many songs for him, his song “Zindagi Kis Mod Pe Laayee Hamein” from ‘Diwali Ki Raat’ (1956) was very popular. When rehearsals for this song were being done, Bhatkar had used only tabla and sitar for the practice session. The producer who chanced upon this rehearsal was so much impressed with this that he insisted recording the song only with minimum instruments. So, this song has only tabla, Sitar and another instrument for accompaniment.
Though there were many melodious songs composed by Bhatkar like, Khusro’s “Lakhi Baabul More Kaahe Ko Deeni Bides” sung soulfully by Mukesh in ‘Suhag Raat’ (1948); “Ro’oge Pachhtaoge” by Mukesh and Rajkumari in ‘Thes’ (1949); Lata’s “Chanda Tumko Laaj Na Ayee” from ‘Bhola Shankar’ (1951); Suman Kalyanpur’s “Haal e Dil Un Ko Sunaana Tha” from ‘Fariyaad’ (1964), except Kidar sharma no other big banner producer opted for Snehal Bhatkar. May be, his compositions were not so simple for common man to hum or sing, although they were quality songs.
Inspite of several melodious songs Bhatkar was never counted among the 1st line composers. Kidar Sharma also returned to him in 1980, but by that time Snehal Bhatkar was already on a descending track.
Snehal Bhatkar, a talented but not much applauded music director died peacefully on 29-5-2007 at his Dadar home.
Here is the song by Talat Mehmood from film Aaj ki baat-1955.
(My thanks to Shri MN Sardana ji for his post in ‘Voh Din Yaad Karo’ on Facebook, from which some information has been used herein.)
Song – Pyaar Ki Nazron Se Un Ko Dekhta Jaata Hai Dil (Aaj Ki Baat) (1955) Singer – Talat Mehmood, Lyrics – Raj Baldev Raj, MD – Snehal Bhatkar
Lyrics
aaaaaa aaaaaa
aaaa aaaaa aaaaaa
aaaaaa aaaaaa aaaaaaa
aaaa aaaa aaaa aaaaaa
pyaar ki nazron se un ko
dekhta jaata hai dil
pyaar ki nazron ki nazron se un ko
dekhta jaata hai dil
baat un ke saamne kehne se
ghabraata hai dil
kya hua mujhko
hai mere dil ki dhadkan tez tez
kya hua mujhko
hai mere dil ki dhadkan tez tez
thaamna mujhko ke seene se
uda jaata hai dil
baat un ke saamne kehne se
ghabraata hai dil
aaye hain wo zindagi
aaye hain wo zindagi
kadmon mein un ke daal de
kadmon mein un ke daal de
dil ko samjhaati hain nazren
mujhko samjhaata hai dil
baat un ke saamne kehne se
ghabraata hai dil
ho gai shaayad mohabbat
ho gayi un se mujhe
ho gai shaayad mohabbat
ho gayi un se mujhe
jab khayaal aata hai un ka
khud behal jaata hai dil
baat un ke saamne kehne se
ghabraata hai dil
———-———————————————–
Hindi script lyrics (Provided by Sudhir)
———————————————————
आsssss आsssss
आsss आssss आsssss
आsssss आsssss आssssss
आsss आsss आsss आsssss
प्यार की नज़रों से उनको
देखता जाता है दिल
प्यार की नज़रों से उनको
देखता जाता है दिल
बात उनके सामने कहने से
घबराता है दिल
क्या हुआ मुझको
है मेरे दिल की धड़कन तेज़ तेज़
क्या हुआ मुझको
है मेरे दिल की धड़कन तेज़ तेज़
थामना मुझको के सीने से
उड़ा जाता है दिल
बात उनके सामने कहने से
घबराता है दिल
आए हैं वो ज़िंदगी
आए हैं वो ज़िंदगी
कदमों में उनके डाल दे
कदमों में उनके डाल दे
दिल को समझाती हैं नज़रें
मुझको समझाता है दिल
बात उनके सामने कहने से
घबराता है दिल
हो गई शायद मोहब्बत
हो गई उनसे मुझे
हो गई शायद मोहब्बत
हो गई उनसे मुझे
जब खयाल आता है उनका
खुद बहल जाता है दिल
बात उनके सामने कहने से
घबराता है दिल
Serene unhurried batting. Perfect forward defence, occasional singles, and some delicately placed boundaries on some rare occasions. No agricultural shots whatsoever.