Geeta Dutt Fans' Blog

Geeta ji had a 25 year long career as a leading playback singer singing songs in many languages. She sang in Hindi, Bengali, Gujrati, Marathi, Bhojpuri, Assamese, Udiya, Nepali, Maithili and many other languages. Majority of her work is in Hindi followed by Gujrati and Bengali. Several persons have estimated the total number of songs in a wide range from a thousand to close to five thousand. There was no place to find some realistic data about the songs Geeta ji sang in the above three languages.

As a part of an important mission for our website dedicated to Geeta ji, having a database of her songs was of utmost importance for us. With a lot of efforts and with help and inputs from various resources, we finally came up with the databases of her songs in Hindi, Bengali and Gujrati. The following menu path on our website shows where one can find the databases.

The direct link to the database page is here. Earlier the databases were provided as direct downloads in MS Excel format. Now, We have them available in Adobe PDF format for the benefit of those who do not have the proprietary MS office installed.

Hindi Songs Database:

Geeta ji migrated to Mumbai at a very young age and got her first break to sing for a Hindi film at the tender age of 16. She continued to stay in Mumbai and sang for Hindi films (and several Hindi non-film songs) till she breathed last. Among all the databases, compiling the Hindi songs database was the most challenging and the most compelling task.

Shri Har Mandir Singh “Hamraaz”

The necessary groundwork for building this database for Hindi film songs was already done by Shri Har Mandir Singh “Hamraaz” ji. As all the music lovers are aware, Har Mandir Singh ji has published the volumes of Hindi Film Geet Kosh (HFGK) after intensive research. His volumes were the primary resource for our database.

We are extremely grateful to Har Mandir Singh ji for his pioneering work in putting together the Hindi Film Geet Kosh. His Geet Kosh volumes will continue to serve as the “Encyclopedia” for people interested in the Hindi film music.

Dr. Mahesh

Although it is true that the HFGK had most of the information on the Hindi film songs, there are a few cases where some of the rare songs are not listed in the HFGK. When it comes to songs of Geeta ji in the forties, there are several songs which were either missed in HFGK or the HFGK did not have the singer names listed against them. In addition to the above cases, there are some more songs where
– the song was released on the records but the film was not released
– the song was on the film soundtrack but not released on the records
– the song got deleted from the film due to censor problems or other reasons
– the song was recorded by Geeta ji as a version song
– the song was released on the records and later on re-recorded in the voices of other singers
…and many such cases !

There is one music lover who has been collecting and researching on the songs of Geeta ji (in all the languages). It is because of his research, analysis, facts and shared information that we could identify so many more songs of Geeta ji over and above the ones found in the HFGK.

We are extremely grateful to our dear friend Dr Mahesh ji for his path-breaking and pioneering work regarding the songs of Geeta ji. His passion and willingness to share the information has in fact inspired us to add so many features to our main website. The rarest of the rare songs of Geeta ji and so much of information about her songs (and her life) he has shared with us is absolutely priceless. Dr Mahesh, we are so thankful to God that you are one of the mentors of this website (and the blog) dedicated to our beloved Geeta ji.

Shri Romesh Vohra

It is one thing to say that a lot of information is available in the HFGK (spread across as many as four volumes) and in many posts on our parent website Hamara Forums, but it takes one “Bhagheerath” effort to compile the information together. “Bhageerath” was instrumental in bringing the river Ganga on the earth, in our case, it is our dear friend Romesh ji who brought the Hindi songs database in its current format to its life.

Romesh ji is another passionate music lover who loves a wide variety of songs (mostly from the golden era of the Hindi film music). He kept his personal interests aside and dedicated himself to just one cause : compiling the database of Hindi songs of Geeta ji by taking help of the four volumes of HFGK and all the information shared in various threads on our parent website Hamara Forums plus many other resources. It is a humongous task and it has taken over three months of dedicated and focused efforts by Romesh ji to make this happen. Even now, it is possible that the Hindi songs database is not one hundred percent complete. The amount of efforts put in by Romesh ji in compiling this information and the passion in which he has done this to help us is simply unparalleled. Romesh ji, we can not thank you enough for your sincere, dedicated and selfless efforts in making this database a reality.

Gujrati Songs Database:

When we began our research for our website, we were surprised to find out that Geeta ji has sung close to a hundred songs in Gujrati. The information we provided on our website on the Gujrati songs section was not only unique but was also shared for the first time on the internet. This definitely aroused our interest in attempting at putting together the database of Geeta ji’s Gujrati songs (film songs and non-film songs).

Shri Harish Raghuvanshi
Just like the HFGK compiled by Shri Har Mandir Singh ji, we came to know that Shri Harish Raghuvanshi ji had compiled the Gujrati Film Geet Kosh (GFGK). Harish ji is a very famous film music historian from Surat in Gujarat. He is the compiler of “Mukesh Geet Kosh”, “Gujarati Film Geet Kosh” and the writer of “Inhe Na Bhulana”.

We are extremely grateful to Harish ji for his untiring efforts in putting together the information on Gujrati film songs. Since most of the Gujrati songs of Geeta ji are from the late forties and the fifties, it is in difficult to get information about the films. It was with the help of the pioneering work done by Harish ji that we were able to compile the database of Gujrati songs of Geeta ji. Our sincere thanks to Harish ji for giving us the permission to use the information from his work and reviewing our database.

Chetan Vinchhi

Even though most of us enjoy Gujrati (and Bengali for that matter) songs of Geeta ji we do not understand the language fully. We are not familiar with the Gujrati script (even though it is very close to that of Sanskrit/Hindi/Marathi). The GFKG is in Gujrati script and obviously none of us could not read the script to gather the information on Geeta ji’s songs from there. So, we went back to our dear friend Chetan ji who has been helping us right from the time of the inception of our website. In spite of busy work schedules and personal commitments, Chetan was more than willing to help us with this noble cause.

He not only compiled the database of Gujrati (film and non-film) songs of Geeta ji, he also requested Harish ji to review the same. It was so nice of Chetan and Harish ji doing so much for us. Without help from these two greats, we would have never been able to compile this database. Chetan, you are a true friend, who has always helped us in whichever way you could. We are extremely grateful to you.

Bengali Songs Database:

This is one language where Geeta ji has sung almost equal number of film songs and non-film songs. Since there is no “official” Bengali Film Geet Kosh available (to the best of our knowledge), compiling this database was probably the most difficult task. Getting information on Geeta ji’s non film songs was going to be even harder. We all are a persistent force when it comes to doing something related to our beloved Geeta ji. So we did not give in.

Dr Jyoti Prakash Guha

Music lovers know Guha ji as the force behind the lovely website on the legendary actress-singer Kanan Devi ji. Guha ji has been associated with us right from the inception of the website and is one of our mentors. So it was natural that we approached him for his help on the database of Bengali songs of Geeta ji. Based on his research and his personal collection of songs, Guha ji compiled this information for us in the shortest amount of time.

Guha ji not only got the information on the songs but also the record numbers for those songs. Once again, getting information on Geeta ji’s non-film songs was a much tougher task. Guha ji patiently kept on searching for the relevant information. He kept on improvising on the information he was compiling. Finally after several iterations, the database of Bengali songs of Geeta ji is ready.

Guha ji has been another mentor for our website and has guided us in every possible way in bringing it to what it is today. His passion, enthusiasm, dedication and affection for us is what we cherish the most. We are indebted to him forever.

We also take this opportunity to thank our friends Saunak Gupta, Debabrata (Indydave), Aditya Pant, Exon , Waheed Dehelwar and of course Prof Surjeet Singh ji, Mahesh Sharma ji and every one who contributed in building these databases.

We ourselves are confident that there could be some more undiscovered songs of Geeta ji in the above three languages. So we will keep searching and exploring them. We will keep updating these databases on regular basis (subject to availability of new information). Please feel free to reach out to us at geetaduttfans [AT] gmail [DOT] COM with suggestions/corrections etc.

Finally, looking back at whatever we have been doing for past two years or so. These little things we are doing are our small tributes to the singer par excellence who has enriched our lives through her voice. Geeta ji, we will always have you in our hearts.

Na yeh chaand hoga, na taare rahenge
magar hum hamesha tumhaare rahenge…

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The authors:

Our technical wizard Gajendra N.K (aka “hildebrand”) has always been there for us wherever we needed his help. He not only helped in identifying many rare songs of Geeta ji through this wonderful post but also helped us in uploading these databases on the server.

His technical expertize combined with his passion for bringing out the past glory of the legendary artists is unparalleled. We are so honored to have you on our team.

And here is yours truly (Parag) who has been a mere catalyst behind all these activities of building the databases of songs of Geeta ji.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2010 at 9:36 pm and is filed under About Geeta Dutt Website, 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.