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.
India is a unique country. It has the second largest population among all the countries of the world. India has 9 officially recognized and over 100 unrecognized religions thriving in the country. It has, besides Hindi and English, 21 other officially recognized languages. Other than this India has 122 major and 1599 other languages.
The climate of India, being a vast country, varies from East to West and North to South. Therefore the harvesting seasons vary according to locations. Broadly, India has two types of regions, based on geographical and meteorological considerations. One having the Northern and Eastern states ( except West Bengal and Assam) and the other South and Western states. Because of this, even the Hindu Calendar for these two regions differ by about 15 days.
Thus, while the holy month of Savan/Shravan has come to an end in the North and East, on the 18th August 2016 ( Purnima), it still continues in the South, West and Bengal and Assam states till the 1st of September 2016 ( Amavasya). The counting of months in the North / East starts with next day of Purnima, whereas in South /west it is counted from the next day of Amavasya.
Fortunately, since the counting of the 15 days’ period between the Purnima and Amavasya is counted uniformally in both regions-like Pratipada, dwitiya, tritiya etc till the 15th day, the major festivals fall on the same dates-albeit in different Hindu months in both regions. for example, Janmashtami falls on 25th August 2016-all over India. It is Shravan krishna paksha ashtami in South/west and Bhadrapad krishna paksh astami in North/east.
So, accordingly, Shravan month is still going on in South and West. In the month of Shravan every Monday is supposed to be very auspicious for Lord Shiva’s pooja. I am not aware of other regions, but at least in Maharashtra, many people keep fast on Monday and Non Veg is avoided in the month of Shravan.
Therefore in this holy month, like earlier years, I would like to present a Shiv Bhajan from the film “Ganga Maiyya”-55. This film makes its debut on this Blog with this song. The first song from this film is a Shiv- Stuti by his devotees trying to please Him. As the name indicates, this film depicts River Ganga’s story.
Shiv Maha Puran describes the story how River ganga-which flowed only in The Heaven, was brought to the Bhu-lok or our world. Like many other topics from our Puranas, even the story of Ganga’s descent on this Earth has been a subject of our films. The first film on the coming of Ganga or “Gangavataran” was made by Madon Theatrs in Calcutta in 1922. Miss Patience Cooper had done the role of Ganga in it.
With the same topic and same Title, came the first talkie by Dadasaheb Phalke in 1937. This film “Gangavataran”-37 was made by Kolhapur Cinetone- a company promoted and financed by King Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur. This was the only Talkie film Dadasaheb Phalke ever made in his life. After this film he retired, settled in his hometown Nashik and died there on 16-2-1944.
Incidentally, this was the film in which the famous character artiste Leela Mishra made her Debut. However, since this film was delayed inordinately in making, her second film “Honhaar”-36 released first. After this film, 3 more films, besides ‘Ganga maiya’-55, came on this subject. Ganga-74, Ganga Saagar-78 and Gangotri Ganga-2007. In the Television serial “Mahabharat” by B.R.Chopra, story of Ganga was shown. Ganga’s role was done by
Vivana Singh
Kiran Juneja in this serial.
I had seen the film “Ganga Maiyya”-55, in Prabhat Talkies, Hyderabad and as usual, I led a flock of about a dozen senior citizens and women from our joint family to the theatre and back. Most of the audience was seniors and women. Everytime Lord Shankar made an appearance on the screen, there would be an ear shattering chant of “Jai Mahadev” in the theatre. Luckily, Trilok Kapoor, the usual actor foe Bhagwan Shankar was only a ‘Guest artiste’ and had very few appearances on the screen limiting the enthusiastic chants !
The cast of the film was Prem Adeeb, Sumitra Devi, Asha Mathur, Jeevan, Sapru, S N Tripathi, Vithaldas Panchotiya etc etc.
Prem Adeeb is well known. Here is some information about Sumitra Devi….Sumitra Devi was born in 1923 as Nilima Chatterjee, in an orthodox bramhin family at Shiuri village, Birbhum in East Bengal (now in Bangladesh). She was educated and grew up in Bihar. In young age, lured by the emerging cinema, she sent an application to New Theatres in Calcutta, without informing the family. She was called for interview and against the wishes of her family,she went to Calcutta,was interviewed and got selected. She was given a new name of Sumitra Devi.
Her first films were Sandhi (Bangla) and My Sister (Hindi). her acting was so good that in her First film itself she won the prestigious Bengal Journalist Association award for Best Actress. She soon got married and also divorced quickly.
After doing many films in Bangla, she came to Bombay and acted in a Bi-lingual film Mashal-50 Hindi and Samar-Bangla. She acted in 24 Hindi films like Raja Harishchandra, Mayurpankh, Mamta, Deewana, Arabian Nights etc. She used to shuttle between Bombay and Calcutta, doing Hindi and Bangla films. After her work in ‘Jagte Raho’-56, she became a member in a Film Delegation to China. Her last film was Wafaadaar-1985.
She had married Devi Mukherjee, but he committed suicide in 1947. In her later age,she married Sharma,a Bombay Businessman.
Sumitra Devi died on 28-8-1990.
The film had music by Shankar rao Vyas ( 23-1-1898 to 17-12-1956 ), who was an expert classical singer himself.From film ‘His highness-37 to film ‘ Bal Ramayan ‘-56, he gave music to 34 films. Most of his songs used to have Raga base. He was the paid MD with Praakash pictures for most time and gave music to famous films like ‘Ramrajya’-43 and ‘Bharat Milap’-42 etc. He composed 304 songs in all.
Film Ganga Maiya-55 had 7 songs in all. Today’s debut duet is sung by Rafi and Geeta Dutt. HFGK is silent on singers’names, but the uploader Gajendra Khanna ji has confirmed the singers’names.
The story of film Ganga maiya-55 is
Once upon a time, long ago, demons and gods were at war. To defeat the gods, the demons made a plan. During the day, they hid in the ocean and at night they attacked the gods. Afraid of being defeated in this way, the gods went to Sage Agastya for help.Agastya solved their problem by drinking the whole ocean. Now as the demons had no place to hide, the gods easily defeated them. The gods then asked Agastya to bring the ocean back. Agastya said that he could not do that because he had already digested the ocean.
The people of the earth now had no water, as the ocean was empty, The gods were worried and went to Vishnu and requested him to bring water on earth, King Sagara, who had sixty thousand sons, was performing a yagna to conquer the whole world. According to custom, he had sent out a white horse, the ruler of that kingdom would either have to fight with Sagara or give him his crown. In this way, Sagara was conquering the whole earth and wanted to be the most powerful. Indra, took the horse and hid it in sage Kapila’s ashram. Sagara sent his sons to search the horse. They reached Kapila’s ashram. Sage Kapila was meditating and was disturbed. Greatly annoyed, with one look of his eyes. Kapila burnt all of them to ashes. Sagara was very sad at the death of his sons. He wanted to purify the souls of his sons but only river Ganga could do that by washing their ashes. Ganga had to be brought to earth. So Sagara performed tapasya to please Brahma. But he died before finishing the tapasya. His grandson then continued to perform the tapasya.
The seventh descendent of Sagara, Bhagiratha, was able to please Brahma. Brahma granted him his wish and asked Ganga to flow to earth. But Ganga didn’t want to leave heaven and go to earth. She threatened to destroy all life on earth by the pressure of her flow. Only Shiva’s powerful hair could control the force of Ganga. Bhagiratha requested Shiva to help him. Shiva spread his hair and covered the sky. As soon as Ganga flowed down, he collected her water in his hair in the form of many small streams. She then followed Bhagiratha to the place where the ashes of his ancestors were lying. Being young Ganga flowed carelessly. She flooded the ashram of Sage Jahnu. Jahnu was performing a yagna at that time the water put out all the fires. Angry Jahnu swallowed Ganga. But when he came to know about the long tapasya that had been performed to bring Ganga to earth, he agreed to let her go. He cut open his left thigh and Ganga flowed out of it. Ganga came to be known as Jahnvi, the daughter of Jhanu.
Ganga flowed on and purified the ashes of Bhagiratha’s ancestors. Therefore, Ganga is also called Bhagirathi. There after, Ganga flowed and filled the empty ocean.
The ocean came to be known as Sagara after the name of King Sagara. the people of earth now had water to drink.
Song-Har Har Shiv Bam Bam Bhole (Ganga Maiyya)(1955) Singers-Geeta Dutt, Rafi, Lyrics-Ramesh Chandra Pandey, MD-Shankar Rao Vyas
Chorus
Lyrics
har har shiv bam bam bhole ae
har har shiv bam bam bhole ae
jai mahaadev jai vishvnaath
jai mahadev jai vishvnaath
jai jai girijaapaati bhole ae
har har shiv bam bam bhole ae
har har shiv bam bam
jata joot sir mund maal ??
tan vibhuti aur kanth halaahal
ang ang lipte bhujang
kar mein trishul
damru dam dam dam bole
har har shiv bam bam bhole
har har shiv bam bam
tum ho kitne bhole bhaale
daan bhi utne hi niraale
hey shiv shankar daya tumhaari ee
hey shiv shankar daya tumhaari
vish mein amrit ghole ae
har har shiv bam bam bhole ae
har har shiv bam bam
sharan tumhaari jo bhi aaya
vardaanon se use sajaaya
badal di tumne karam ki rekha aa
badal di tumne karam ki rekha
dwaar swarg ke khole ae
har har shiv bam bam bhole ae
har har shiv bam bam bhole ae
har har shiv bam bam bhole ae
har har shiv bam bam bhole ae
har har shiv bam bam
