1945 - Many firsts

LATA MANGESHKAR, born on September 28, 1929 at Indore, sings
and acts for the first time in a Hindi movie, called ba.Dii
maa.N, produced by prafull pictures, Bombay, directed by
vinaayaak, music by dattaa koragaa.nvakar. The movie starred
Noorjahan, Ishwarlaal and Lata was mentioned at the end at
number 11. The movie had 10 songs, 4 by Noorjahan, 3 by baby
Alkaa, one by Miinaakshii. The two songs which Lata sang
were:

maataa tere charaNo.n mai.n ...... ham chho.D ke
with others,
written by ziyaa sarahadii,

janani janmabhuumii ......tum maa.N ho ba.Dii maa.N
with miinaakshii and others,
written by anjum piiliibhiitii,

These are the only songs by Lata that are in movies released
in 1945. Her total numbers of songs for the next few years
are

1946 - 5,
1947 - 5,
1948 - 54,
1949 - 161,
1950 - 147,
1951 - 225,

the last of which (1951 - 225) is her largest number of
songs in any given year. Her first song ever was a playback
song in the maraaThii movie kitii hasaal (1942), MD
sadaashivaraav nevarekar, "gaDe kheLuu saarii, manii haus
bhaarii". She has acted in 5 maraaThii and 5 hindii movies.

Quite a lot of info on her and many other singers is already
available on the RMIM Automailer. For the sake of com-
parison, I mention the following.

RAFI
was born in koTalaa sultaan sinha on December 14, 1924
and sang first for the panjaabii movie, gul baloch
(1944) under the music direction of shyaam sundar. In
hindii, he sang and acted for the first time in lailaa
majanuu (1945), with svarNalataa and naziir. The song
was a qavvaalii:

teraa jalavaa jisane dekhaa vo diivaanaa ho gayaa
with baatish and others,
written by tanaviir naqavii,
music by gobindaraam.

Apparently his name was not mentioned in the credits at
all. Curiously, he sang two male duets, "tum dillii
mai.n aagaare mere dil se nikale haay" and, "ek baar
unhe.n milaa de phir merii taubaa maulaa" with shaam,
in the movie pahale aap, which was released earlier in
1944, had music by naushaad and lyrics by d. n. madhok.

It may be presumed that the song from lailaa majanuu
was recorded earlier. In this movie too his name is not
mentioned in the credits. His name appears for the
first time in the credits of arab kaa sitaaraa (1946)
at number 4, right after the famed dancer Cuckoo, whose
second movie this was, her first being circus king
(1946). Unfortunately, no info on the singers of any of
the 10 songs of arab kaa sitaaraa is available [Check!].

MANNA DEY
sang for the first time in a hindii movie in 1942 for
the movie tamannaa, with music by his uncle K. C. Dey.
But even he does not remember which of the 10 songs it
was! Interestingly, he does remember that "baby"
surayyaa sang a duet with him in the same movie and
that she had to stand on a stool! He became famous
after he sang, "tyaagamayii tuu gayii terii amar
bhaavanaa" in the all-india hit movie raam raajyaa
(1943), music by shankar raav vyaas, lyrics by ramesh
guptaa.

HEMANT
sang his first songs for a hindii movie in 1944 for MD
amarnaath in the movie iraadaa, produced by indrapurii
studios, Calcutta. He sang two solos,"phir muhabbat ke
pyaam aane lage", and, "aaraam se jo raate.n kaaTe.n vo
ashq bahaanaa kyaa jaane.n" written by aziiz kaash-
miirii, and a duet with raadhaaraanii,"nit nit ke
ruuThane vaale saajan, tum diip bano".

MUKESH
shot to fame with two movies released in 1945. His
first ever playback song was, "badariyaa baras gayii us
paar," with hamiidaa and khurshiid for the movie muur-
tii (1945), starring khurshiid and motiilaal. Accord-
ing to the music director Bulo C. Rani, the song was so
popular that in a "faramaishii" radio program of 20
minutes, this song was played again and again for about
16 minutes. In pahalii nazar (1945), he again gave
playback for his cousin motiilaal and sang two duets
and two solos, of which, "dil jalata hai to jalane de"
with lyrics by Dr. Safadar "Aah" and music by Anil
Biswas has become a classic.

TALAT MEHMOOD
sang two solos, "jaago musaafir jaago" and, "tuu sun le
matavaale" [Check!] and acted (name mentioned at the last,
eleventh place in the credits) in the movie raaj
lakshamii (1945) produced by M. P. Productions, Cal-
cutta. MD was either robin chatterji or dhiren mitra,
lyrics were by suresh chaudharii. These two appear to
be his first two songs for a hindii movie. Before join-
ing the film business, he was already an established
radio singer of Gazals of Galib, iqabaal, daaG and oth-
ers. He sang from the radio stations in Delhi, Lahore,
Peshawar and others. His first musical broadcast was
in 1939 from All India Radio, Lucknow.

Following in the footsteps of vish, it may not be out of
place here to record the early history of radio in India.
All of the info below on radio comes from, The Limca Book of
Records, 1993.

1921:First broadcast was from Bombay, in English and it was
a music program.

1924:First regular service of two and a half hours daily, by
the Madras Presidency Radio Club. It lasted until 1927.

1927:First broadcasting company was the Indian Braodcasting
Company, Calcutta.

1936:The name All India radio is adopted.

1942:The maharaja of Mysore called his radio station
aakaashavaaNii. The AIR took this name in 1958.

1957:Vividh Bharati starts on October 3.

1967:The first commercial service of AIR starts.

1970:Appropriately, the first sponsored radio program was
called "saridon" ke saathii, started on May 3. Some
kids may know that "saridon" is a headache medicine.

A discussion on radio in India cannot be complete without
mentioning Ameen Sayani, whose elder brother Hameed was a
bit actor. [You can see Hameed in Taxi Driver (Dev, Kalpana)
as the guy who performs magic tricks for Kalpana Kartik and,
quite naturally, gets into trouble with his wife.] Ameen
started his radio carreer in 1951. He has compered over
10,000 commercial radio programs and produced over 38,920
publicity programs for movies. He has participated in more
than 52,700 radio programs of all kinds.

At the end of 1945, the score is as follows: Lata 2 songs,
Mukesh 14 songs, Manna Dey 15 songs, Rafi 12 songs, Talat 2
songs, Hemant 4 songs. Kishor and Geetadutt are still wait-
ing in the wings, as are Asha, Usha and Mina.

Here are some more movies that happened in 1945.

dhannaa bhagat
Baby mumtaaz, later Madhubaalaa sang two duets, "merii
mayyaa mai.n gayyaa.n charaauu.N", "manamohan bansii
vaare re" with brijalaal, MD Khemchandra Prakash, lyri-
cist Pandit Indra.

hamaraahii
First hindii movie by Bimal Roy, starred raadhaamohan
bhaTTacharya, binataa bose. Music by Raichandra Boraal,
lyrics by munshii zaakir hussain. It was a remake of
his banglaa movie udayer paathe (1944).

kurukshetra
Saigal sings four solos, which include, "kidhar hai tuu
ai merii tamannaa" and "muhabbat ke gul haay tar guun-
dhataa huu.n", music by Pandit gaNapat raav, lyrics by
jamiil mazaharii.

laakhaaraanii
Gurudutt appears for the first time, he is mentioned at
number 9. Much more about him later.

nala damayantii
Nutan debuts as a child actress, in a movie directed by
her father kumaarsen samarth starring her mom shobhanaa
samarth and prithviiraaj kapuur. She is not mentioned
in the credits even though a bird called raajahans is.
Everybody knows the important role played by a swan in
this mythological story.

phuul
K. Asif directs his first movie, he made only two in
his life time and the third was completed in 1986.

tadabiir
Saigal and surayyaa sing their hearts out. He sang six
solos which include "janam janam kaa dukhiyaa", "mai.n
qismat kaa maaraa bhagavaan". She sang 3 solos which
include "jaag o sone vaale", and "tumane naa sunaa
jisako jo hamane sunaanaa thaa". They sang a popular
duet,"raanii khol de apane dvaar milane kaa din aa
gayaa". Songs were written by svaamii raamaanand and
music was provided by laal muhammad.

village girl
Noorjahan shines brightly under the musical direction
of shyaam sundar and sings 4 songs,"ye kaun hansaa
kisane sitaaro.n ko hansaayaa", "sajan paradesii balam
paradesii man ko sataaye", "kis tarah bhuulegaa dil
unakaa Kayaal aayaa huaa" and "baiThii huu.N terii yaad
kaa le kar ke sahaaraa". Lyricist was valii saahib. Rafi
durraanii and chorus sing,"mai.n kheto.n kaa panchhii." [Check!]

ziinat
This was a very popular movie starring Noorjahan, Yakub
and Bibbo. Noorjahan sang 4 solos including the
classic,"bulabulo mat ro yahaa.N aa.Nsuu bahaanaa hai
manaa" and "naacho sitaaro nacho ab chaa.Nd nikalane
vaalaa hai", "aa.Ndhiyaa.N Gam kii yuu.N chali.n baaG
uja.D ke rah gayaa", "aa jaa rii aa nindiyaa". The
music director for these solos was hafiiz Kaa.N. The
center-piece of the movie was the first all-female qav-
vaalii for a hindii movie, "aahe.n naa bharii shikave
naa kiye" by kalyaaNii, zoharaabaaii and Noorjahan. It
was written by nakshab and MD was again hafiiz Kaa.N. A
very young shashikalaa and Baby Khurshiid, later known
as shyaamaa can be seen in this qavvaalii.

Most of the info comes from the following:

"The Encyclopaedia of Hindi Film Songs," vol. II
"Listeners' Bulletin"
"Star-Portrait"
"Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema"
"Limca Book of Records 1993"


Reproduced here with the Kind permission of Shriman Surjit Singh