Music of Bhupen Hazarika

It is not an exaggeration if one claims that Bhupen Hazarika single handedly helped Assam's film industry get a firm foothold and brought it to the cultural front of contemporary India. In this respect, his contributions have been many.

He is a poet. He wrote lyrics for many Assamese films. He published over a thousand poems. He also published ove 15 books that include short stories, esays, children's work, and travelogues. He is a singer. He had this crisp baritone voice. His flawless diction can be heard in the songs he sang in the film "Rudaali (1993)". He composed music for many films. These compositions touching wide range of themes are known to reflect his rich poetic imagination. Again the film "Rudaali" is an excellent example of this. His enriched music compsitions use Assamese folk music with a slight touch of the contemporary. Rudaali's songs abundantly reflect this observation. He is an actor. He acted on stage as well as in movies. He is a journalist. For the past twenty plus years he has been publishing monthly magazines "Pratidhwani" and "Amar Pratinidhi". He prduced and directed several Assamese and Bengali movies.

Dr. Hazarika has been conferred with many richly deserving honors. Also, his doctorate is not an honorary one. He earned it studying at Columia University in New York City. He is the recepient of Padma Bhushan award. He was awarded many times for his accomplishments both at the state as well as the national level. He is widely revered in Assam, West Bengal, and Bangladesh.

Hazarika was introduced to the mainstream film industry by Hemant Kumar whom he met years before. His association with Kalpana Lajmi (niece of late Guru Dutt) resulted in several fine movies. These include Rudaali, Darmiyan, and Daaman.

We will take a look at some of his work through his film music contributions.

Following filmography is due to Mahesh.

1 1960 dui bechara- karo na phere gali ke mere-geeta,manna dey-gulzar
[his first? hindi song in a bangla film]
2 1974 aarop,
3 1976 mera dharam meri maa,
4 1979 chameli memsaab,
5 1979 chhath maiya ki mahima,
6 1985 ek pal,
7 1992 rudaali,
8 1994 papeeha,
9 1996 saaz [1 song],
10 1997 darmiyaan,
11 1997 mil gayi manzil mujhe,
12 2000 daman,
13 2002 gajgamini,

non-film work

1 mein aur mera saya,
2 ganga,
3 lohit kinare

Rudaali (1993)

Here is an example of a rich movie experience. Made in breathtakingly beautiful desertscapes of Rajasthan the picture paints an incredible portrait of the people of the bygone era. In the lead, Dimple Kapadia, the same coy girl of "Bobby" fame, gives one of the stunning performances of her life. This exercise richly fetched her the national award as a best actress. To complement this there is the music of Bhupen Hazarika. Haunting, mystic, sweet, and lingering. All at the same time. This was the first Indian movie to win an international award (Japan) for its refreseshingly reverberating music.

There are eight songs I am uploading here in the first post. There are eight more music interludes that I will upload in the second post. According to "EarthMusic" network, I am apparently missing the songs marked in red italics in the table below.

Here is the first set of songs ...

Instrumental Music Of "Rudaali (1993)"

Here are eight instrumental music pieces from the movie "Rudaali (1993)" ...

Earth Music is wrong. To the best of my knowledge there is no tandem song called Ja Ja Ja in Rudaali.

Aditya

Another interesting thread from SP!!!

Agree with Erum ji. Waiting for the rest.

Aarop (1973)

Here is another delightful album from Hazarika. There are eight songs in this album. The songs came from various sources including CD and from the Forum. Therefore you may find their quality to be not uniform.

The details of the songs are given below ...

I vaguely recall reading an old Rakhi interview which said one song picturised on her (with her on a camel) was deleted from Rudaali. Any idea which song was this?


Thanks SP for Aarop

Beete Na Raina was picturized on Raakhi, but that was in the film. I think she could be referring to the Lata version of Samay O Dheere Chalo. Only the Asha version of this song was used during the credits in the beginning and in snatches on 1-2 places during the film. Is is also possible that one snatch from the Asha version was picturized on Rakhi but deleted later.

Aditya

Thanks for the clarification Aditya. The deleted song was a lata sung one. So it must be the Lata version of Samay O Dheere Chalo.

Here is another take on this.

Rakhee originally was under the impression that she was going to have a major and pivotal role in the movie. As the movie was unfolding, during its production, it was becoming obvious to her that she had a very secondary role and all the limelight was on Dimple. With this realization Rakhee apparently started giving Kalpana Lajmi lot of headache on the sets by being either late or have everyone wait for her or not cooperating in the scenes or not show up at all as scheduled. Fed up with this attitude, Lajmi decided to cut down Rakhee's final minutes in the movie even further.

When the movie was released, all the adulation was on Dimple and Rakhee's name was hardly mentioned. This made Rakhee even more furious. She started giving interviews and downplaying Lajmi's superior product. I am not sure whether Rakhee ever made amends with Lajmi or not.

Swarapriya

Ek Pal (1986)

Here is another movie made by Kalpana Lajmi with its music composed by Bhupen Hazarika. The music has Hazrika impressions all over it. There are eight songs in this album. I am uploading seven of them. According to EarthMusic I am missing one song, shown in red italics in the table below. Here are the deatils of the songs and the songs themselves ...

Here is the missing song. I think previously uploaded by AKF? or Neeraj ji. Not sure about the source.

SP is the CD of this on HMV?

Click to view attachment

Thanks for the song and the quick response. I am sorry I can't answer your question definitively. I have converted almost all CDs I have into MP3s and will be hard pressed to locate the orginals even if I tried to. But I am assuming it was on HMV.

Thanks again for the missing song.

Cheers,
Swarapriya

Thank you very much Swarapriya for this wonderful music of Bhupen Hazarika. One question, are there any songs rendered by Mohd. Rafi for Bhupen Hazarika?

Thank you very much Akbaralibahi. I don't have all of Hazarika's albums but from what I have, Rafi Saab didn't sing any songs for Bhupen.

Cheers,
Swarapriya

Thanks for the take on this SP and the uploads.
Thanks to Sangeet ji as well for completing the album.

Darmiyaan (1997)

From early life Kalpana Lajmi was involved with theater and cinema. Niece of great Guru Dutt, she grew up in the film making atmosphere. She assisted Shyam Benegal in his “Mandi”. She designed costumes for Smita Patil in Shyam Benegal’s “Bhumika”. Later on she became an independent producer and made several highly acclaimed documentaries. Finally in 1986 she decided to enter the mainstream movie making and produced and directed her first feature film “Ek Pal”. The movie won critical acclaim and won the National award for best creative sound.

“Rudaali” was her very next film. She cowrote its screenplay with Gulzar and also directed it. The movie was a sensation at both national and internationnal level. It won over 30 awards. It won the National award for best actress. Its music fetched the Japanese International Film Festival award. It won for Dimple Kapadia the best actress award at the Damsacus International Film Festival. “Rudaali” also was a foreign language film entry for Oscars.

Lajmi went on to make several other movies including “Daaman (2001)”, “Kyon? (2003)”, and “Chingari (2006)”. She even wrote dialogues for “Kyon?”. She had Bhupen Hazarika as the music director for several of her movies. Currently she is having a live-in relationship with him.

I am uploading songs of "Darmiyaan" in two separate but back to back postings. Here is the first set ...

Songs Of "Darmiyaan (1997)" Continued ...

Here are the rest of the songs from this album ...

bhupen hazarika composed one assamese song for rafi sahab-''ramzan re roza gol''.

regards,
mahesh

its strange that gulzar wrote only twice for rakhi films-basera and rudaali.

regards,
mahesh

swarpriya,
thanks for another interesting thread.
here is hindi filmography of bhupen hazarika compiled from various sources.for convenience,you can include it in first post.


1 1960 dui bechara- karo na phere gali ke mere-geeta,manna dey-gulzar[his first? hindi song in a bangla film]
2 1974 aarop,
3 1976 mera dharam meri maa,
4 1979 chameli memsaab,
5 1979 chhath maiya ki mahima,
6 1985 ek pal,
7 1992 rudaali,
8 1994 papeeha,
9 1996 saaz [1 song],
10 1997 darmiyaan,
11 1997 mil gayi manzil mujhe,
12 2000 daman,
13 2002 gajgamini,

non-film work

1 mein aur mera saya,
2 ganga,
3 lohit kinare

regards,
mahesh

Thanks Mahesh for the Hazarika filmography.

Thanks, SP for Darmiyaan!

Chaath Maiya Ki Mahima (1979)

Here is a devotional album by Bhupen Hazarika. I am uploading seven songs here. Apparently there are three I am mising from the following list. I do not have any details of this but if any of the members have them, please share.

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

swarpriya,
thanks for the rare album.all the songs sung by vindhyavasini devi were composed by her.rest of the songs were composed by bhupen hazarika.the three songs missing are-

1 rasik bhanwre o re-asha,
2 o pinjre ke tote bata-usha,
3 arre mala japo re chhath maiya ki-mahendra,usha
all the non-vindhyavasini songs were written by pradeepji;while vindhyavasini devi wrote her own songs
regards,
mahesh

Thanks swarapriya for Darmiyaan.-Sita.

Arre maala japo re chhat maiya ke naam ki

is uploaded here:

http://www.hamaraforums.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=596561



Now following two songs are missing:

Rasik Bhanwre O Re, Ek Kamsin Kali Ka Ras Lele (Asha)

O Pinjre Ke Tote Bata, Bata Mere Roothe Piya Ka Pata (Usha Mangeshkar)

Chameli Memsaab is uploaded here:

http://www.hamaraforums.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=596582

You're very welcome, Erum.

Thank you very much Sita for taking time to show your appreciation. Many cheers to you.

Thanks a lot for details of the songs, pointers to songs and other albums of Hazarika.

Thanks SP for the uploads and mahesh ji for filmography/details.

Thank you Hildebrand. Appreciate it. Cheers.

here are the two remaing songs from chhath maiya ki mahima[sourced from vinyl]-

1 rasik bhanwre o re-asha-192-4.33,
2 o pinjre ke tote bata-usha-192-3.37,


enjoy,
mahesh

Thanks for the songs Mahesh.

Mil Gayee Manzil Mujhe (1998)

Here is another beautiful album for which Javed Akhtar wrote lyrics. Akhtar wrote lyrics for several Hazarika movies. Here are the details of the songs of this album...

Thanks, Maheshji!

swarpriya,
thanks for the lovely album.

regards,
mahesh

You're very welcome indeed.

Love all the Bhupen Hazarika albums being uploaded in this thread. Thanks.

Thanks Swarapriya for Mil Gayee Manzil Mujhe album. -Sita.

Thanks for the appreciation.

You're very welcome Sita. Cheers.

Saaz (1998)

Strictly speaking this is not a Hazarika album. In fact, he composed only one song in this album. I thought it would be better to post the whole album instead of just one song from it.

The story of "Saaz" apparently is the story of Lata (played by Aruna Irani) and Asha (played by Shabana Azmi), the Mangeshkar sisters. Zakir Hussain, the tabla wizard and virtuoso, stars in this movie in the role of R.D. Burman. He also composed several songs for the movie. Lyrics for all the songs were by the incomparable of contemporary writers, Javed Akhtar.

Because of the number of songs, I will upload all of them in two separate back-to-back posts. Here is the first set ...

Songs Of "Saaz (1998)" Continued ...

Here are rest of the songs from this album ...

Thanks for SAAZ, SP!

You're very welcome. Cheers.

Thanks mahesh ji for completing the album.

Thanks SP for latest uploads. I didn't know that Devaki Pandit has sung songs in movies other than Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na. She has an interesting voice not explored much.