This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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Today’s song is a video song of a dance number from the film Alibaba aur 40 chor-1954.
The names Alibaba, Aladdin and Sindbad immediately revive the memories of childhood. Readers in the age group of 65+ will surely drift into Nostalgia. These are some of the popular stories from the ‘Arabian Nights’, one of the Bestsellers of the world. There is hardly any language with a script, which has not translated these stories into their literature. Out of the 1001 stories of the Arabian Nights, the other popular stories were that of Hatimtai and Gul-E-Bakavali.
Several generations grew up reading, enjoying and dreaming about these stories in their school days, all over the world. (I can not vouch for the recent generation, however). Owning these books was a treasure. No wonder filmmakers from all over the world made films on these stories and raked a lot of money. Places like Basra, tatar and Baghdad etc. became known in every country. Grandfathers all over the world made their grandchildren go to sleep while telling them these stories.
India was also not far behind other countries and many films were made on these stories. Not only this, the story departments of studios had such fertile imaginations that they created sons and daughters to all these heroes, which were not in the original stories. Thus, a variety with sureshot masala was added to such films.
It started with silent films. Films on Alibaba were made in 1927 (2), Aladdin- 1927 (20, 1928 and 1930, Sindbad in 1930 (2). After Talkie films started, films were made on Alibaba in 1940, 1946, 1976, Alibaba and 40 thieves in 1932, 1954 (2), 1966, 1977,1980 and 2004. Films on Aladdin in 1933, 1935, 1945, 2009, On Aladdin and magic lamp in 1938, 1952 (2), 1958, 1966,1978, 1982 (20. Films on Aladdin ka Beta in 1939 and 1955, Aladdin and Laila in 1941 and 1957 and Aladdin ki Beti in 1949. On Sindbad in 1946 (20, 1952 (2), 1965 and 2000. As a Bonus Sindbad ki Beti-19658 was also made. The top was, the film Sindbad- Alibaba and Aladdin-1965, sort of ALL IN ONE !
Film Alibaba and 40 Thieves-1954 was made by Basant Pictures and it was directed by its owner Homi Wadia. The music was by the pair of S.N.Tripathi and Chitragupt. In his initial days, Chitragupt had been Tripathi’s assistant for a few years. He has also sung some songs under his baton. This film was first censored on 10-3-1954 as a B & W film. However, its colour version was again censored on 22-11-1956.
A Tamil remake of this film was made in 1956 by Basant pictures with local stars. S. Dakshinmoorthy had done the music orchestration of the Tamil songs which had used all tunes from its Hindi original. The cast of the Hindi film was Shakeela, Mahipal, B.M. Vyas, S.N.Tripathi, Maruti, Sharda Deulkar, Shalini, Ismail, Dalpat, Azeem, Sardar Mansoor and many more. The original story as appeared in “The Arabian Nights’ was adapted by J.B.H.Wadia, by changing its last part of events. His name is given as the Story Writer in the film credits. Finally, the story of the film was like this……..
Alibaba (Mahipal) lives in the city of Dil Pazir. His dancer friend Marjina (Shakila) notices that he pays great attention to his sister Salma (Shalini), after his elder brother Qasim (S.N.Tripathi) has usurped all his ancestral property. His friend Abboo (Maruti) loves Sitara (Sharda Deulkar), Salma’s companion.
When Alibaba goes to the jungle for wood cutting, he accidentally sees the dacoit Abu Hasan (B.M.Vyas) and notes the password to get into his cave of treasure. In the night, Alibaba quietly opens the cave door with the password and collects a lot of wealth and becomes rich. The cunning wife of his brother comes to know and gets him arrested. Margina cleverly gets Alibaba out of jail and they run away with Salma and Abboo.
Qasim goes into the cave, collects wealth but at the time of leaving forgets the password and is stuck inside. Abu Hasan comes and kills Qasim, severing his head from body. Alibaba sees this in his next visit to the cave and brings the dead body parts to his house. Marjina brings a blindfolded tailor who sews the body with the head. This news reached Abu Hasan. To corner and kill Alibaba, he visits his house as a Saudagar along with his 40 thieves hidden in sacks. Marjina recognises him and with the help of Sitara and Abboo, they throw all sacks in a deep valley killing all thieves. Then Marjina tries to kill Abu Hasan, but he tricks her and runs away with her to the hideout. In the climax, Alibaba rescues Marjina, kills Abu Hasan and in the end all is well.
There were -for the first and last time- two Melody makers were the music Directors. Tripathi was an old horse in such types of films. He was a favourite of Wadia Brothers, who made most of these films. Tripathi had a studied knowledge of Arabian style music. Both MDs presented a bouquet of 8 lovely songs in this film. In the starcast, you will find the name Sharda. She was Sharda Deulkar, younger sister of singer lalita Deulkar, who was Sudhir Phadke’s wife. Shakila and Mahipal looked like they were born to act in such films only. Barring a few social films, Shakila was mainly seen in Costume and action films. Having worked with A class actor Dev Anand in film C.I.D.-1956 also did not help her much.
Mahipal or Mahipal Singh or Mahipal Bhandari (24 November 1919 – 15 May 2005) was a film actor who worked in Hindi cinema mostly in stunt films like Parasmani, Zabak, Cobra Girl, Jantar Mantar, Arabian nights themed movies such as Alibaba, Aladdin And The Wonderful Lamp, Roop Lekha, Sunehari Nagin, and Hindu mythological movies like Sampoorna Ramayan, Ganesh Mahima, Veer Bhimsen, Jai Santoshi Maa. He is known for playing the iconic role of Lord Vishnu, and his two avatars, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna in lot of various puranic, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavata Purana based movies, besides playing Tulsidas and Abhimanyu, and is also best known as the lead in V. Shantaram’s Navrang (1959), and the songs “Tu Chhupi Hai Kahan Me Tadapta Yahan” and “Aadha Hai Chandrama Raat Aadhi”. He acted in several well-known films of the 1950s and 1960s including V. Shantaram’s Navrang (1959) and Babubhai Mistry’s Parasmani (1963).
He was born on 24-11-1919 in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, where after his schooling, he graduated in literature from Jaswant Government College Jodhpur. Thereafter, he worked in the theatre before migrating to Mumbai in the early 1940s.
He made his film debut in the 1942 film Nazrana. However, the film didn’t work, thereafter he wrote lyrics for four films. He went on to work with directors such as Sohrab Modi and later with the Wadia Brothers, Homi Wadia and J. B. H. Wadia, however, it was his work with V. Shantaram that got him lasting acclaim. He worked in several mythological and historical films with actresses such as Nirupa Roy, Mala Sinha and even Meena Kumari.
Mahipal was never counted as an A category actor and so, leading actresses who started their careers with Mahipal in the lead were ashamed of revealing or accepting this fact. For example, In all her interviews, Mala Sinha always quoted “Rangeen Raten”-56 with Shammi Kapoor as her first film in Bombay. She was ashamed of revealing that in the film Riyasat-55, her Hero was Mahipal. She always hid this fact. Similarly, A grade Heroine Meena Kumari also had done several Mythological and costume films before Baiju Bawra took her high up and above other Heroines. Films like Shri Ganesh Mahima-50, Laxmi Narayan-51, Hanuman Paataal vijay-51 and Alladin aur Jadui Chirag-52 had Mahipal as her Hero. In her later years, she always hid her earlier film Heroes.
He also did a series of fantasy films based on Arabian Nights, including Alibaba and 40 Thieves (1954), Jennie (1953) ,Aladdin Aur Jadui Chirag (1952) and Alibaba ka Beta (1955), which gave him popularity even in the Gulf countries. Later in his career, he switched to character roles, and appeared in films such as Jai Santoshi Maa (1975), a 1970s hit.
He wrote 13 songs in 4 films,namely Mali-44, Aap ki Sewa mein-47 (Lata Mangeshkar’s first playback song was written by Mahipal in this film), Mere Laal-48 and Adalat-48. Mahipal acted in 131 Hindi films. He had also worked in Marathi, Rajasthani and Assamese films. His first film was Nazrana-42 and the last film was Amar Jyoti-84….a career spanning 42 years. He worked with Shakila in 18 films, with Anita Guha in 11 films,With Shyama in 6 films, and in 4 films with Nirupa Roy. He worked with Meena Kumari in 4 films. He is the only actor in Mythological films who sang a song on screen in the role of Shri Ram, in the film Hanuman Pataal Vijay-1951.
He died in Mumbai of cardiac arrest, at the age of 86. He was survived by his wife Akkal Kunwar and daughters Sushila Jain and Nirmala Oswal. (Thanks to book Inhe na Bhulana by Harish Raghuwanshi ji and my notes).
Today’s song is the YIPPEE song, as all songs of this film get covered here with this song. Enjoy….
Song- Zara nazren mila lo muskura lo dil sambhaalo(Alibaba Aur Chaalis Chor)(1954) Singer- Shamshad Begam, Lyricist-Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, MD-S.N.Tripathi and Chitragupt
Chorus
Lyrics
?? ??
o o o o
zara nazren mila lo
muskura lo dil sambhaalo
zara nazren mila lo
muskura lo dil sambhaalo
meri sachchi mohabbat aazma lo naaz waalon
meri sachchi mohabbat aazma lo naaz waalon
ye raaten pyaaree pyaaree
nazar ki beqaraari
ye raaten pyaaree pyaaree
ye raaten pyaaree pyaaree
nazar ki beqaraari
gire kadmon pe jo sadmon se to humko uthha lo
gire kadmon pe jo sadmon se to humko uthha lo
zara nazren mila lo muskura lo dil sambhaalo
meri sachchi mohabbat aazma lo naaz waalon
meri sachchi mohabbat aazma lo naaz waalon
?? ??
uthhi kaali ghataayen
tadapti hain adaayen
uthhi kaali ghataayen
uthhi kaali ghataayen
tadapti hain adaayen
badi mushkil mein hai ye dil
ise apna bana lo
badi mushkil me hai ye dil
ise apna bana lo
zara nazren mila lo muskura lo dil sambhaalo
meri sachchi mohabbat aazma lo naaz waalon
meri sachi mahobat aazma lo naaz waalon
?? ??
zara nazren mila lo muskura lo dil sambhaalo
meri sachchi mohabbat aazma lo naaz waalon
meri sachchi mohabbat aazma lo naaz waalon
?? ??