Raj Kapoor

Sargam (1950)

Here is a movie in which Raj's costar was not Nargis. It was Rehana. Rehana started in bit roles early in her career and rose to be a popular heroine. She was mostly noted for her "sexy" looks rather than her acting skills. Her major breakthrough came with "Hum Ek Hain" made in 1946. Her costar was Dev Anand. P.L. Santoshi, who also was a noted lyricist, made his debut as a director with this movie. It was rumored that he was smitten by the charms of Rehana. She acted in more films he directed than anyone else. These films included "Shehnai (1947)", "Khidki (1948)", "Sargam (1950)", "Chham Chhama Chham (1952)" and also "Shi Shinaki Boobla Boo (1952)".

Her early major hit was "Shehnai (1947)". She went onto act with all top actors of her time. But her fortunes changed dramatically from 1952 onwards. Almost all films she made during this period were commercial failures. She soon was releagted to a second string status. Not satisfied with where her career was going, she migrated to Pakistan in 1956. She acted only in few films in Pakistan where she had very limited success. She retired from films after 1963.

In this movie Raj's voice is Chitalkar. We have already seen Rafi, Mukesh, Kishore and even Raj himself singing for Raj. Mukesh was still not the voice of Raj.

There are 11 songs in this movie. Most of the songs as well as the movie were hits. I am able to upload only eight of them here. I am missing three songs. I am requesting the Forum members to share these missing songs if they can. The missing songs are shown in red italics in the following table.

Now for the details of the songs and the songs themselves ...

Swarpryia,

Thanks for continuing this thread on the great actor/showman. I am not too familiar with his movies of
pre Aag/Andaz era. If I am not wrong Mukesh became RK's voice Aag, Barsat etc. I don't know if Andaz came before Aag, but as far as Andaz goes it was Naushad's conviction to use Mukesh as Dilipkumar's voice.
He had to covince Dilipkumar of his choice.

As for Sargam, C Ramchandra him self gave playback as Chitalkar in some movies . He along with OP felt that Mukesh's style did not suit thier Music and seldom used him. Although I wonder why! because ocassionally they called upon Mukesh and the songs were excellent.

Great album, Swarapriya! One small correction: the song "jab dil ko sataave Gam" is not a Lata solo but a duet with Saraswati Rane; the chorus also deserves a mention because a lot of the lines are sung by the chorus. (No, I am not thinking of "tinak tin taanii", although that too is an LM-SR duet backed by a chorus!) HMV has goofed up in crediting this song to Lata Mangeshkar alone.

You can clearly hear Saraswati Rane's voice in "jab dil ko sataave Gam" - it is very different from Lata's. SR sings the first stanza fully ("ba.Daa zor hai saat suro.n me.n, bahate aa.Nsuu jaate hai.n tham"), the second line ("kaa.nTo.n ko jo kar de.n kaliyaa.N") of the second stanza, and the first line ("saat suro.n ke saat hai.n jhuule") of the third stanza. The mukhaDaa is by Lata alone.

In "tinak tin taanii", people often wonder why Saraswati Rane is given such weird passages to sing. The answer is that, in the film, the sisters are trying to show how classical singers often sacrifice feeling and melody when showing off their vocal acrobatics; the SR portion is thus an intentional parody of overdone 'classical' jugglery.

Saraswati Rane, the younger sister of the Hindustani music legend Hirabai Badodekar, has sung a few times in Hindi films: the ones that come to mind immediately are "biinaa madhur madhur kachhu bol" from the 1943 "Ram Rajya", and the classical piece "mondar baajo" in the film "Bhumika" (the scene where the heroine's grandmother is teaching her the bandish). You might come across some songs (in Marathi and Hindi) credited to Saraswati Mane; she is the same person (Mane before marriage).

Warm regards,
Abhay

Thank You for the Sargam songs Swarnapriya

Swarapriya,

Thanks for the Sargam album. I found a missing song among your uploads.
'Muasam-e-bahaar' and 'Yaar Vai Vai' are one and same song. I think, they are in two parts in some audios.

Exon

Thanks for adding more albums Swarapriya

Abhay,

Where have you been hiding all these days? You seem to be one of the early members of the Forum, yet you surfaced only recently. You are making such wonderful difference by sharing all kinds of information like this. Thank you.

I did revise the table to reflect your observations.

Cheers,
Swarapriya

Thanks for all the kind words! My presence on HF has - sadly for me - been inconsistent. I used to be quite active on the Lata, Noor Jehan, and Marathi forums a couple of years ago. Lots of reasons for hardly being here after that, but the bottomline is that I started visiting the forum again consistently only in past few weeks.

I hope I last for longer this time.

Warm regards,
Abhay