This article is written by Gajendra Khanna, 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 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.
Atul ji’s 10K Song Milestone Celebrations – 10
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Congratulations Atul ji for this unparalleled effort of ten thousand posts. You are truly an inspiration! We have a lot to learn from you and Thanks from the bottom of my heart for all that you do
Today, I write this post with a gamut of emotions running through my mind. I still remember the year was 2008. A team of music lovers including me had got together and launched the website on www.geetadutt.com It had been a labour of love for us to make a digital temple dedicated to our beloved singer. We had spent countless hours discussing over the internet on what all should be put on the website and then doing the needful to make it happen. Our small team was very dedicated and the beauty of all of it was that we all had never met till then.
Among the sections lyrics was one area where we had to put considerable amount of effort as no major reference was available for the same other than the ITRANS song book (ISB) made collaboration of many RMIMers since 1995 (The “Indian languages TRANSliteration” (ITRANS) is an ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts particularly for Devanagari script). Though it had many songs, the format wasn’t something that could be directly used by the common public and many of her rare song lyrics were not available on it. Lots of effort had to be done to listen to Geeta ji’s songs by the team in charge for the lyrics. Repeated listenings were required for getting the words just right for some songs as the audio quality available for a few left something to be desired.
Later that year after the site launch, I came to know of an effort being done to put together lyrics of Hindi film songs on an innocuous blog called Atul’s Song A Day thanks to an internet search. I liked the way the song lyrics were being presented and that is how I was introduced to Atul ji. Then later a search for list of hit songs in Binaca Geetmala songs led me there again. Sometime later a post on Greta’s blog Memsaab Story led me back to it and this return to the blog started happening more frequently for me. (It was a lot later that I “formally” got introduced to him via mail thanks to Arunkumar Deshmukh ji). At some point of time, I had subscribed to the blog’s RSS feed and I started getting glimpses into the dedication of Atul ji. Thanks to encouragement by fellow Atulites I started writing a bit as guest posts and my association has only gone deeper (no going back now! Aapka peechha nahin chhodenge Atul ji!!).
In many ways I found a kindred soul in Atul ji (as if lost in the proverbial Kumbh Mela!). Having worked personally on four websites and now working on the fifth one (three of them single handedly) I am in a position to understand how much efforts the job requires. One has to work on both the technical as well as content related aspects which is quite a complicated task. It includes maintenance of the pages, looks of the blog, moderating the comments, replying to people’s messages, coordinating with people for information, making lists, classifying and organising things, planning, doing your own research for articles, double or triple cross checking the information and being under the scanner at all times among other things. Many times the job can be strenuous particularly when officio-personal requirements demand your attention, putting pressure on the time duration available to you and sometimes some events make you feel as if its a thankless job in many ways. One has to dig deep into ones internal resources to come out on top of all these situations. Atul ji has been doing all this service with a smile for nearly nine years now. Its only words and words are all I have to say – thanks to Atul ji for doing all this for lovers of Hindi film music dedicatedly. Will probably never be able to thank him enough for the humongous efforts he puts on a regular basis on the posts that appear on the blog.
As I interacted with Atul ji more and more over time, I realised how we are so similar in many other ways – background, work profile, approach towards things, attention to detail and above all fascination for the same type of artists and songs! Even though we are yet to meet physically till date, it does not feel like that. He is always available to discuss things and He has shown huge amount of patience during discussions whether they be via mail or messages on social media or SMS. Over the years, Atul’s song a day friends have become a family that shares everything and really cares about each other. All this was possible thanks to Atul ji’s efforts and interactions with everyone. He is responsible for nurturing the seed that has become a huge tree now and is growing rapidly. Indeed, such relationships and the joy they bring is what one searches for everywhere in the world (Dhoondhta Hoon Har Jagah!). Atul ji has earned lots of respect (Izzat) with everything he does and is a great mentor for the ASAD family. I am sure this effort will only go from strength to strength in his capable hands. May God bless him and all of us as we continue this journey together for decades to come. I hope to see more like minded people join the “karwan” started by our lone ranger Atul ji (Akele Chale The Woh… Na Aaye Akele!).
Now coming to the song post today which I am making in his honour to commemorate the personal milestone of ten thousand posts he has achieved on the post single handedly. It is a very rare song which I am extremely fond of. It had originally come into my collection through a share of Dr ML Kapur ji of Virginia who is another great music lover whom I hope to meet one day!
The song is from the movie ‘Izzat’ (1952). This was a social movie made by Taimur Art Productions, Mumbai. It was produced and directed by Taimur Behramshah. The cast of the movie included Nirupa Roy, Amarnath, Manorama, Agha, Rajni, Jeevan, Veera, P Kailash, Pesi Patel, Ramesh Thakur, Baby Kalpana, Pyaare and Nazira. The music for the movie was composed by one of my favourites Bulo C Rani. It is sung by the honey voiced Ghulam Mustafa Durrani (GM Durrani). Raja Mehdi Ali Khan has written lovely lyrics for the song and I count it one of the best works of the trio. The movie print is unfortunately not available as I would have loved to see its picturisation. I would like to think that it would have been picturised on Agha for whom G M Durrani has sung comic songs earlier (or Jeevan?). Hope one day the movie will turn up or someone who has seen the movie will throw more light on it.
On one hand, there is a touch of comedy in the song (mixed with sarcasm as a subtext) while on the other hand, it has many layers of emotion as one treads in the search for happiness, contentment and escape from the existential difficulties that any regular day presents. The song is in a way, a tongue-in-cheek prayer to the Almighty who is not seen and in whose existence the person praying wants to believe in the hope that He will enlighten the path leading to the solution for all the ills affecting his day to day life.
Before going on to the lyrics, I once again thank Atul ji (and indeed all fellow Atulites) for all that you have come to mean for me. Indeed, I was searching for friendships like yours all everywhere!
Here’s the beautiful and very rare song for your listening pleasure.
Song – Dhoondhta Hoon Har Jagah (Izzat) (1952) Singers – GM Durrani, Lyrics – Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, MD – Bulo C Rani
Lyrics
dhoondhta hoon
hoooon
dhoondhta hoon har jagah
arre kahin nahin tera pata
humen na sata
maalik bata …
meri khata
haaye
gareebon ke bhagwan
haaye
gareebon ke bhagwan
teri ameeron pe nazar hai
gareebon ke bhagwan
teri ameeron pe nazar hai
palat kar dekh idhar
tera dhyan
tera dhyan
tera dhyan kidhar hai
palat kar dekh idhar
tera dhyan
tera dhyan
tera dhyan kidhar hai
gareebon ke bhagwan
teri ameeron pe nazar hai
duniya ko dete ho chhapar phaad ke bhagwan ji
hum pe bhi to meherbani karo shiriman ji
kabhi na humse poochcha mister
teri kya khabar hai
palat kar dekh idhar
tera dhyan
tera dhyan
tera dhyan kidhar hai
gareebon ke bhagwan
haaye
gareebon ke bhagwan
teri ameeron pe nazar hai
dekho mera bura haal
dekho meri taraf
sabki jeb garam garam
meri jeb … baraf
sabki jeb garam garam
meri jeb baraf
tere kaarobar mein kuchch reh gayi kasar hai
palat kar dekh idhar
tera dhyan
tera dhyan
tera dhyan kidhar hai
gareebon ke bhagwan
haaye
gareebon ke bhagwan
teri ameeron pe nazar hai
kisi ko di naukri
kisi ko lakhpati chhokri
hamaare sar pe kyon rakh di hai museebaton ki tokri
museebaton ke bojh se chakra gaya mera sar hai
palat kar dekh idhar
tera dhyan
tera dhyan
tera dhyan kidhar hai
gareebon ke bhagwan
haaye gareebon ke bhagwan
teri ameeron pe nazar hai
gareebon ke bhagwan
teri ameeron pe nazar hai
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Hindi script lyrics (Provided by Sudhir)
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ढ़ूँढ़ता हूँ
हूँSSSS
ढ़ूँढ़ता हूँ हर जगह
अरे कहीं नहीं तेरा पता
हमें ना सता
मालिक बता …
मेरी ख़ता
हाय गरीबों के भगवान
हाय गरीबों के भगवान
तेरी अमीरों पे नज़र है
गरीबों के भगवान
तेरी अमीरों पे नज़र है
पलट कर देख इधर
तेरा ध्यान
तेरा ध्यान
तेरा ध्यान किधर है
पलट कर देख इधर
तेरा ध्यान
तेरा ध्यान
तेरा ध्यान किधर है
गरीबों के भगवान
तेरी अमीरों पे नज़र है
दुनिया को देते हो छप्पर फाड़ के भगवान जी
हम पे भी तो मेहरबानी करो शिरीमान जी
कभी ना हमसे पूछा मिस्टर, तेरी क्या खबर है
पलट कर देख इधर
तेरा ध्यान
तेरा ध्यान
तेरा ध्यान किधर है
गरीबों के भगवान
हाय
गरीबों के भगवान
तेरी अमीरों पे नज़र है
देखो मेरा बुरा हाल, देखो मेरी तरफ
सबकी जेब गरम गरम मेरी जेब … बर्फ
सबकी जेब गर्म गर्म मेरी जेब बर्फ
तेरे कारोबार में कुछ रह गई कसर है
पलट कर देख इधर
तेरा ध्यान
तेरा ध्यान
तेरा ध्यान किधर है
गरीबों के भगवान
हाय, गरीबों के भगवान
तेरी अमीरों पे नज़र है
किसी को दी नौकरी
किसी को लखपति छोकरी
हमारे सर पे क्यों रख दी है मुसीबतों की टोकरी
मुसीबतों के बोझ से चकरा गया मेरा सर है
पलट कर देख इधर
तेरा ध्यान
तेरा ध्यान
तेरा ध्यान किधर है
गरीबों के भगवान
हाय गरीबों के भगवान
तेरी अमीरों पे नज़र है
गरीबों के भगवान
तेरी अमीरों पे नज़र है
