Latest revision as of 19:47, 20 November 2023

Vyjayanthimala in the song Sun Rasiya, Kaahey Ko Jalaye Jiya, Aa Ja from the film Nagin.
Original colours.
The last 17m11sec of Nagin were in colour and consisted of one long sequence of songs. However, none of them made it to the BGM annual charts. Two other songs from the film did, including the no.2 song of the year.

[edit] The 39 most popular/ significant Hindi-Urdu songs of 1954

[edit] Notes about the credits

Dev Anand and Kalpana Kartik in the song Jayein To Jayein Kahan from the film Taxi Driver

i) Who sang the song Chhota sa ghar hoga badloñ ki chhaoñ meiñ in the film Naukri ? An otherwise reliable website writes: Kishore Kumar and Usha Mangeshkar. But Prof. Anil Bhargava, Mr. Harmandir Singh ‘Hamraaz’ and countless websites write that the female singer was Shaila Bellé and not Usha Mangeshkar. The film’s credits give the names of make up assistants but not of singers. SaReGaMa, that ultimate repository of Indian popular music, credits only Usha Mangeshkar (there is no mention of Kishore, though in the 60-second excerpt that you hear on SaReGaMa you hear only Kishore’s voice). This glaring omission reduces the credibility of the SaReGaMa website. However, because of SaReGaMa’s stature, Indpaedia has gone along with it.

ii) Who wrote the lyrics and music of the song Chandamama door ké pooé pakaaéiñ boor ke in the film Vachan? Hindi Geet Mala credits Ravi Shankar with the music and Ravi with the lyrics.

However, But Prof. Anil Bhargava, Mr. Harmandir Singh ‘Hamraaz’ and YouTube say that Ravi composed the music and Prem Dhawan wrote the lyrics. Indpaedia has followed them.

iii) Who composed the music of the No. 2 song of the year, Man Doley Mera Tan Doley? More than one YouTube upload credits the tune to ‘Ravi and Kalyanji,’ adding that the two were assistants to Hemant Kumar. One assumes that the Ravi in question would be the man who later created hit after hit for producer- director BR Chopra (e.g. Waqt). However, the credit titles of the film mention only Hemant Kumar, and Indpaedia has gone along with the official credit.

The back cover of the LP and the label in the centre of the EP (a disc with two songs on each side), all mention only Hemant Kumar as the composer of this particular song.

‘Ravi and Kalyanji’ are not mentioned as assistant music directors in the official credits of the film. However, we are informed that the assistant music director of the film was a person called Ravi Shanker.

Surely not the maestro?

Not likely. The full name of the Chopras’ favourite was Ravi Shankar Sharma, so it must have been he.

Indpaedia has been able to get hold of several black discs, of the type that used to be called SP (Standard Play, i.e. only one song on each side), which credit the been played in the film to ‘Ravi Shanker and Kalyanji.’ In both Hindi and Urdu, this instrumental track has been described as a gat (a composition). The Urdu credit tells us that the track is ‘bhaag 2’ (part 2).

The word before ‘gat’ in Urdu could possibly be been . In Hindi, it reads more like ‘bom.’

[edit] Binaca Geetmala’s Top 16 songs of 1954

[edit] 11 songs in the ‘next rung’

The Geetmala ki Chhaon Mein CDs have only five ‘songs in the shade’ (chhaoñ songs) from 1954. Prof Bhargava has compiled a list of seven. The two lists have only one song in common. Thus, in all there are eleven songs in the ‘next rung’

GC: Geetmala ki Chhaon Mein is a set of 50 CDs issued by Saregama in instalments that continued into 2012-13. The set concentrated on songs that had ‘remained in the shadow’ (chhaoñ) of the main annual list of Binaca and its successor Geet Malas. These, thus, were the ‘next rung’ of songs, which were popular but did not make it to the main annual list.

AB: Bhargava, Anil, Binaca Geetmala ka Sureela Safar (Hindi; 2007; Rs.1,200), Vangmaya Prakashan, Jaipur-302015.  vangmaya_jpr@yahoo.com)