This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
BADALTE HUYE SAATHI- Episode No. 6 (Hamida Bano sings with Shyamkumar)
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When I planned this series I knew that this subject is very vast and it was not possible to cover all major singers in such a sahort series. According to a source,from 1931 to year 2000,a total of about 7000 actors (male and Female) acted in Hindi Films in small and big roles. There must be atleast 1500 well known actors and the pity is ,we do not have complete information on even 500 actors. For majority actors,there are no Photographs ( remember,for a considerable time,how difficult it was to get a photograph of Shamshad begum or Madhubala Jhaveri ? ). So we know nothing about them except their names.
Same is the case with Singers Barring 100 odd singers,no details are available on other singers. What a Pity ! For a country known for a heavy output of films,Hindi and Regional,no records are available on films,actors,singers or composers. Don’t even think of directotrs, producers and Cinematographers. Add to this confusions arising out of similar names in actors, actresses, Singers and composers.
In these days of Internet,hundreds of sites claiming to be the storehouse of complete information on films and songs have come up.Most sites have half or wrong information. They carry such faulty informationn from each others without verifying or corroborating at all.A genuine student of Film history is misled by such information and does not know where to look for genuine sources. Even books carry wrong information.
People like us find it extremely difficult to collect and verify data before using it.Thanks to some genuine workers in this field like, Dhananjay Nanivadekar, Kamalakar Pasupuleti, Dr. Surjit Singh, Shri Harish Raghuvanshi ji, Shri Harmandir Hamraz ji, Nalin Shah, Biren Kothari, Rajnikumar Pandya ji, Shishir Krishna Sharma ji and few others, there is some hope in this field to get correct informations.
So far, we have we have heard and discussed 5 songs from the period 1937 to 1951. From today, we will start again from 1943 and go upto 1961, listening to 5-6 singers. Today’s song is from film Sanjog-1943 where Hamida Bano sings with Shyam Kumar. In fact this is a DEBUT song for Hamida Bano,about whom we have learnt in our last episode. She began her singing with a singer who is the cause of a ” same name confusion.”. In those days there was an actor called SHYAM, who was only an actor and never sang any song in any film. The singer was SHYAM KUMAR who was an actor cum singer. As both operated in the same time zone,there was lot of confusion due to their similar names. here is an extract from my own article ” Same name Confusions”, about these 2 Shyams….
” Actually Shyam the actor NEVER called himself Shyam Kumar and Actor singer Shyam Kumar never called himself only Shyam. It is those many writers, sites,HFGK and UT uploaders that have caused blunders by mixing these two and calling both of them as Kumar at different times. This not only caused but also escalated the confusion and wrong crediting was done. Most of the time the aggrieved party was the singer Shyam Kumar only.
Let us first be clear on two things. ONE- Actor SHYAM NEVER sang any song in any film in his life. He had no singing training, inclination, nor talent nor a desire of singing any time.
TWO- Singer Actor SHYAM KUMAR was only a Playback singer and never sang for himself in any film.
Actor Shyam (Shyam Sunder Chaddha) was born on 20-2-1920 at Sialkot. His father was a medical store keeper in a Hospital. After graduating from Punjab University in 1941, he gave a screen Test in Bombay Talkies and failed. He worked as an Assistant to director for J K Nanda and also worked in a Punjabi film. He came to Bombay and did his first film Mann ki jeet in 1944. he worked in Aaj aur kal, Shikayat, Raat ki Rani, Patanga, Kaneez, Dillagi, Chandni Raat, Bazaar, Sangeeta, Samadhi and Shabistan.
He had married a Punjabi Muslim girl, Mumtaz Qureshi (Taji for him). He had a daughter from her-Sahira and later a son was born to her twomonths after Shyam was dead. Shyam liked wine and women. His affairs with Diamond and Kuldeep Kaur were the cause of Taji leaving him and going back to Lahore. Shyam died while shooting for the film Shabistan-51, ( The film was completed with his duplicate Alam Butt), on 25-4-1951.He NEVER sang any song, not even ‘Tu mera chaand main teri chandani’ from Dillagi-49. Playback singer Shyam Kumar has sung it with Suraiya. Let us be very clear on this.
Playback singer SHYAM KUMAR (real name Syed Hamid Gul) was born in 1913, in a Pathan’s family settled in Poona. Due to his handsome and muscular physique, Master Bhagwan featured him in ‘Sukhi Jivan’-1942, as a Hero. He started singing from the film Namaste-1943. While Shyam Kumar acted in 91 films( and 3 unreleased films), he sang only in the following 14 films-
Namaste, Sanjog, Kanoon, Pehle Aap, Rattan, Sanyasi, Sagar Tarang, Dillagi, Lachak, Mamta, Nirmal, Chacha Chaudhari, Gujara and Vijaygarh.
He acted as a Hero in 5 films-Vijaygarh,Rashtraveer Shivaji,Jungle Boy,Krishnavatar and Char Chakram.
Though he was an actor ,it is sad for him that none of his songs were ever filmed on him in any film. He always sang for other actors. He sang for actor Shyam in Dillagi,though He too was in the film.
He stopped singing from 1954 due to Throat problem, but continued to act in films till Dus Numbari-1976. After his wife’s death he lived alone and died of Throat Cancer on 22-4-1981.
To conclude once again,these 2 Shyams were different and actor Shyam never sang any songs in any film. “
Film Sanjog-1943 was a landmark film for its songs and for its Hero comedian NOOR MOHD. CHARLIE.
These days everyone likes the comedy of Amitabh Bachhan His many films became Hits due to his comedy work.Today most of the Heros do the comedy part in the film,themselves. But till 1970,there used to be a separate slot for a comedian. Today’s generation knows comedians like Paresh Raval, Anupam Kher etc. For them older comedians are Johnny lever,Satish shah or Rajpal yadav. before that,they can think of Johnny Walker, Mehmood, Keshto Mukherjee, Asit Sen, Dhumal, Jagdeep, Asrani or Deven Verma. But the art of Comedy had started much earlier, in the 30s and 40s. Comedians like Ghori, Dikshit, Fatty Prasad, V H Desai, Bhudo Advani were famous Amongst all the comedians of that era, there was ONE superstar of Comedy- NOOR MOHAMMED CHARLIE.
Noor Mohd. was born on 7-1-1911 at Ranavava, near Porbandar, Gujarat,in a Memon family (Later, comedian Mukri was also a Memon from Konkan area). Not intersted in studies,he was very fond of seeing films, even by stealing money from house,at times-if need be. He was sent to Bombay and worked as an Umbrella Repairer in a shop. His desire to become an actor was so strong that one day he straightaway went to Imperial Film Company’s owner and asked for a job. In the tradition of those days, he was asked if he could sing… His reply was,” I can sing, act, ride, run, fight, cry, laugh, quarrel, dance,play or swim”. He was hired instantly at a salary of Rs. 40 pm. From 1925 to 1931 he did 9 silent films.
In one of these films he did the acting of Charlie Chaplin. It became so popular that he made this get up his Trademark and developed Toothbrush Moustache ,like Charlie Chaplin. He also added ‘Charlie’ to his name. He did his first talkie film ” Zarina” in 1932 and then there was no looking back.
Initially with Sagar movietone, he shifted to Ranjit and did 17 films with Ranjit. He became so famous and Popular that films were sold on his name. He started to get special songs shot on him in almost every film-much before Johnny Walker in the 50s. He sang his own songs. He left Ranjit and he was the first actor to became a ‘Free-lance’ breaking the Studio system. Some of his films and songs therein were famous over all India . In the film Sanjog, he sang ” Palat, tera dhyan kidhar hai “. This line became so famous that young boys in colleges used this line for calling girls, in those days. In the film Dhindhora,he sang ” ek do teen char panch chhe saat aath nau dus gyara bara,teri nazar ne mujhe mara”. ( Raj kapoor used ‘Ek do teen aaja mausam hai rangeen’ and later madhuri Dixit’s ‘Ek do teen” was very famous.) In film Taqdeer he sang “Thank you mention not” and ” I am very very Sorry”. This too became popular.
There was a time when Charlie drew more salary than even Prithwiraj Kapoor ! He did about 100 films in all. He was the Hero opposite Swarnalata in Chand Tara-45, hero opposite Leela Chitnis in Gazal-45 and hero opposite Chandraprabha (Saraswati devi’s sister) in Dulha-46.
After partition he opted for Pakistan. He did 6 Urdu, 2 Sindhi and 1 Punjabi films there but they failed and he colud not beecome popular. He came back to India in 1960, but by then here too the position had changed. He did 3 films here. De to Visa problems, he had to leave India. He went to USA to live with his son, who had dairy farming business there. He had 6 sons and 6 daughters. Only 1 son-Latif Charlie became an actor In Pakistan. (He died on 19-7-2011). Charlie came back to Pakistan when his wife expired,but later he himself died in Karachi on 30-6-1983.
If he had not gone to Pakistan, who knows he would have prospered here. Mehmood and Johnny Walker considered him as their GURU and they have copied his mannerisms in films many times. Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt were also his fans. His film Manorama was remade here as Manchala in 53 with Agha in his role. Thokar was remade as Mai Baap and Taqdeer was remade as Duniya ka Mela, with Mehmood in Charlie’s role.
When he died in Pakistan, no film personality from Pakistan Film industry attended his funeral. He died unsung !
Films with the title SANJOG were made in 1943, 61,72 and 85 also. Sanjog-43 was a Kardar Production, produced and directed by A R Kardar. Lyricist was D N Madhok and the MD was Naushad Ali. There were 9 songs in the film. One interesting thing of this film was that Suraiya had given playback to actress Mehtab (who married Sohrab Modi,later) in as many as 5 songs-4 solos and a duet with Shyamkumar.
Today’s DEBUT song of Hamida Bano with Shyam kumar was filmed on( according to our reader derubala ji’s comment on the You Tube) some professional dancers from a dancing company and not on any regular actors.
In the next episode, Shyam kumar sings with….. Let us now enjoy this duet from film Sanjog-1943….
Song-Kaun gali ka chhora pukaare (Sanjog)(1943) Singers-Hamida Bano, Shyam Kumar, Lyrics-D N Madhok, MD-Naushad
Lyrics(Provided by Nitin Shah)
o o
ae ae
o o o o
ae ae ae ae
kaun gali ka chhora pukaare
ae ae ae
kaun gali ki chori lalkaare
o o o
o o
ae ae
gali hamaari
hamaari atariya
gali hamaari
hamaari atariya
jiya chaahe so lalkaare
haan haan
jiya chaahe so lalkaare
jiya hamaara
hamaara karajwa
jiya hamaara
hamaara karajwa
jaan pe chalen ishaare
ishaare dekho
jaan pe chalen ishaare
o o o o
ae ae ae
kaun gali ka chhora pukaare
ae ae ae
ae ae
kaun gali ki chhori lalkaare
o o o
o o
sochh samajhkar baat karo ji
hoga bada jhamela
sochh samjhkar baat karo ji
hoga bada jhamela
aaye akela
jaaye akela
kaahe rahe akela
aaye akela
jaaye akela
kaahe rahe akela
phir kaahe rahe akela
o o o
ae ae ae
kaun gali ka chhora pukaare
ae ae ae
ae ae
kaun gali ki chhori lalkaare
o o o
o o
