Geeta Dutt Fans' Blog

Fragrance of the soil of Punjab

The love story of Heer and Ranjha must have been attracting the film makers over and over again. A quick glance on IMDB shows that it must have been made at least ten times by now. There was a film made in the year 1948 starring Ghulam Mohammed and Mumtaz Shanti. Composer duo Khayyam and Reheman Verma gave the music for this film under the name of Sharmaji-Vermaji. Geeta Roy had made her debut on the playback scene in the year 1946 and had risen to the top spot with the success of her songs in the film Do Bhai (1947). She was the natural choice of the lead singer for this film and sang as many as six songs for this film. One wonders how this 17-18 year old girl from East Bengal was singing Punjabi songs with such a great fluency. (The fact not known to many is that she did not know any language other than her mother tongue Bengali till as late as 1949, when she mastered Hindi and Urdu.)

Here is a song that will bring back the fragrance of the land of Punjab. Here is an interesting and nice appreciative comment from our friend “Vipin ji” about this lovely song sung by Geeta Dutt (nee Roy):

I never thought I would say this,but Geeta Dutt’s Punjabi accent sounds more firmly rooted in Punjabi soil than that of the other non-Punjabi vocalists– as great as the rest are. I love them all, but this Bengali lady’s Punjabi is so native it’s a killer! She could truly give native Punjabi singers a run for their money. What a joy to listen to her!! The rhythm and fast tempo of this song are of course quintessential features of celebratory Punjabi folk songs. Geeta Dutt’s voice was well suited to such songs. To borrow a sports metaphor,she shot this one out of the ball park– a home run in music.

Meera Bhajan from a Bengali film

Suchitra Sen (born April 6, 1931) (original name : Roma Dasgupta) is a popular Indian actress of the yesteryears who has attained legendary status because of her performances in Bengali cinema. In particular, the movies in which she paired opposite another legend in Bangla films, Uttam Kumar, are all-time classics in Bengali cinema. She now lives a life of a recluse rarely making any public appearances. She is the first Indian actress to be awarded in an international film festival (Best Actress award for the movie Saat Paake Bandha in 1963 Moscow film festival). Her films with Uttam Kumar are still shown as re-runs on Bengali TV channels. Notably, she allegedly refused the Dadasaheb Phalke Award (the Indian equivalent of a lifetime Oscar) in 2005, preferring to live in seclusion out of the public eye.

Here is a song from a Suchitra Sen starrer Bengali film “Grihaprabesh” released in the year 1954. This is a famous Meerabai bhajan (devotional song) in Hindi filmed on Suchitra Sen. Geeta Dutt sings for Suchitra Sen while co-singer Krishna Banerjee sings for the child artist.
The song has some dialogues by Uttam Kumar in between as well.

The music of this film was composed by Mukul Roy (Geeta Dutt’s composer brother). More details about him can be found here.

This is a very melodious, meaningful and soothing bhajan by Meerabai. It has been sung by several singers in the past.

Note :

Many thanks to our friend Guha ji for providing the video of this extremely rare song and the other details about the song.

Sweet club song filmed on Nadira

Police (1958) is a suspense thriller film produced by Deep & Pradeep Productions (most likely actor Pradeep Kumar’s own film company). It starred Pradeep Kumar with “Venus of Indian cinema” Madhubala. The film’s music was composed by Hemant Kumar and the lyrics were penned by Majrooh Sultanpuri. It was directed by Kalidas (who had earlier directed Pradeep Kumar for the film “Ek Jhalak” , again which had memorable music by Hemant Kumar). It seems like the team of “Ek Jhalak” repeated with Police, with one change being Madhubala in place of Vyjantimala. It is rumoured that Hemantda had some legal troubles due to the copyright issue over the song “Oh oh oh baby” (Hemant and Geeta Dutt) from this film.

The film Police has one of the sweetest and loveliest romantic duet in the voices of Hemantda and Geeta Dutt “Chale hum kahan” filmed on Pradeep Kumar and Madhubala. This song was Hindi re-make of Hemantda’s original tune “Tumi je amaar” from the Bengali from Harano Sur released one year ago, sung by Geeta Dutt with her magic touch.

The song we are seeing today is filmed on vivacious Nadira and is a theater song at the end of which some precious necklace gets stolen.
Nadira and the chorus dancers slowly waltz on the stage while Geeta Dutt and her chorus singers glide through the tune. The song begins with the words “Mini mini chik chik…”. Hemantda has composed highly westernized yet a soulful tune for this song. The song also has that sweet humming of Hemant Kumar in between, he does not sing any lines in this song.

The team of Hemant Kumar, Majrooh and Geeta Dutt weaves a dreamy and magical song, to be listened to over and over again! Nadira adds the right amount of oomph to it and Pradeep Kumar looks so charming and handsome.

A lullaby so soothing…

Hindi films have always had beautiful, hummable and soothing lullaby (Lori) songs right from the thirties and forties. K L Saighal’s “Soja rajkumari sojaa” is one of the foremost popular filmi lori.

Geeta Dutt also sang some lori songs in her career, one of them being quite popular (“Nanhi kali sone chali , hawaa dheere aana” from Sujata). Today we will be discovering a sweet lori composed by Vasant Desai for the film Pyar Ki Pyaas (1961). The film was made in color and the lyrics are penned by Bharat Vyas. The same lori is sung by Lata Mangeshkar as well in the film. Geeta’s lori is in 2 parts:

Here is the first part:

Chanda dhale pankha jhale (part-1)
Film – Pyaar Ki Pyaas 1961, MD – Vasant Desai, Lyricist – Bharat Vyas, Singer – Geeta Dutt

and here is the second part

Chanda dhale pankha jhale (part-2)
Film – Pyaar Ki Pyaas 1961, MD – Vasant Desai, Lyricist – Bharat Vyas, Singer – Geeta Dutt

Westernized song on Nishi

Here is a lovely song composed by the (very talented but unfortunately almost forgotten) Chitragupt for the film Kangan (1959). The film had a decent star cast of Dadamuni Ashok Kumar and Nirupa Roy. The film nor its music created big waves at the box office, yet it has some charming numbers by Geeta Dutt.

No other female playback singer would have sung songs with such a wide range of variety of emotions for the same film.

1) Aag lagaana kya mushkil hai – A club song in a highly westernized tune filmed on Nishi
2) Bees baras tak laakh sambhaala – A dance song based on folk music filmed on Helen
3) Javaab nahin gore mukhde par til kaale ka (with Rafi sahab) – Fun-filled romantic song filmed on Shammi
4) Likh padh padh likh likh padh ke – (with Usha Mangeshkar) – A song for loving mother teaching her kid filmed on Nirupa Roy

The lyrics are by Rajinder Krishan, another great artist. Very few music lovers talk about lyricists in general and Rajinder Krishan in particular.

Geeta Dutt’s songs with O P Nayyar, S D Burman and Hemant Kumar are relatively more popular. Yet, the fact is that she sang the most songs for Chitragupt, about a hundred of them.

Kaise rokoge aise toofan ko..an inspirational song!

Geeta Bali is a household name for any fan of golden era of Hindi films. She was one of the most charming and spontaneous actresses gracing the Hindi films.

“Anand Math” is a popular Bengali novel, written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay which was later adapted into a film, Anand Math in 1952. The film was directed by Hemen Gupta, starring the great Prithviraj Kapoor, Pradeep Kumar and Geeta Bali. The film’s music was by Hemant Kumar (his debut film as a solo composer). The song “Jai jagdish hare” (Hemant Kumar and Geeta Dutt) and “Vande Mataram” (Hemant Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar) are very popular songs from this film.

Today we are looking at a relatively less popular yet very inspiring song from this film. The singer who sang “Jai jagdeesh hare” for the same film is singing this heart-warming song.

This is an excellent case of an inspirational and melodious song composed by Hemantda. Kaviraaj Shailendra ji has penned the beautiful lyrics.

Pay special attention to the line “Jiska koi nahin kinara, aisa sagar sukhaoge kaise”

Magical voices of Geeta ji and Talat ji complete this song par excellence and make it a memorable experience.

Lyrics:

Geeta : Kaise….
Kaise rokoge
Kaise rokoge
Kaise rokoge aise toofan ko

Kaise rokoge aise toofan ko
yeh umagein yeh dil hain jawan ho…
Kaise rokoge aise toofan ko
yeh umagein yeh dil hain jawan ho…
Kaise rokoge aise toofan ko
yeh umagein yeh dil hain jawan ho…
Kaise rokoge aise toofan ko
yeh umagein yeh dil hain jawan ho…

Geeta : Boond kal ki banin aaj dhaara
bah chala jismein jeewan hamara
Boond kal ki banin aaj dhaara
bah chala jismein jeewan hamara

Talat : Jisko chhoon kar ke doobe hazaron
Jisko chhoon kar ke doobe hazaron
dhhondhata hain yeh dil wo kinara
dhhondhata hain yeh dil wo kinara
Geeta : Man ke panchhi ki pagal udan ko
Man ke panchhi ki pagal udan ko
Kaise rokoge aise toofan ko
yeh umagein yeh dil hain jawan ho…
Kaise rokoge aise toofan ko

Talat : Apne man ko manaoge kaise
aag faili bujhaoge kaise
Apne man ko manaoge kaise
aag faili bujhaoge kaise

Geeta : Jiska koi nahin hain kinara
Jiska koi nahin hain kinara
aisa sagar sukhaoge kaise
aisa sagar sukhaoge kaise
Talat: Kaise baandhon ge aasman ko
Geeta : Kaise baandhon ge is aasman ko
Kaise rokoge aise toofan ko
yeh umagein yeh dil hain jawan ho…
Kaise rokoge aise toofan ko…

This post first appeared here.

Tags: Geeta Dutt, Geeta Roy

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 11:42 am and is filed under Geeta Dutt and her singing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.