Suryatra crosses 30th milestone

July 12 was a special day for Suryatris. The dedicated group of Hindustani Film Music (HFM) buffs were attending the 30th quarterly meeting of Suryatra at Rajasthan Adult Education Association premises in picturesque Jhalana Institutional Area in Jaipur.

Journalist and film historian M.D.Soni and die hard HFM collector Arun Agrawal, who jointly started the Suryatra caravan on December 9, 2001, were, as usual, reached the venue before time to receive others. Senior hamrahi Mukut Singh Naruka too was the early arriver.

By the schedule time of 10.30 am most of the members had already gathered to share their love for HFM. The proceeding of the day began with Soni ji welcoming all by presenting a brief overview of the past journey of Suryatra Caravan. He welcomed and introduced a new hamrahi Arun Mudgal into Suryatra fold. Mudgal is a former Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) officer and a true music connoisseur.

The tone of the meeting was set by Mudgal who, while telling about himself and his hobbies, dwelled upon intricacies of HFM discussing rare qualities of music directors and singers of the past and the present.

The discussion strayed into the songs inspired by Indian or other music compositions. The discussion was intense and passionate.

The absence of Pavan Jha , the great strength to Suryatra was being felt by every one and a SMS message flashed to him quoting mukhda of Anarkali song “Aaja ab to aaja…” and to the pleasant surprise of all he was there within few minutes.

Pavan quickly joined the discussion. He later shared with Suryatris his experience of the RMIMers’ meeting at Bangalore he had attended recently. The way he narrated the entire proceedings of the Bangalore meet and deliberations held there the Suryatris felt as if they had been in Bangalore personally.

He brought with him the new CD album produced by Yasraj Films ‘Tere Bagair’ containing unreleased and unused song tracks composed by great Madan Mohan. Although all Suryatris already had in their possession the LP and the cassette, issued by HMV long back, containing unreleased song tracks of MM. Pavan informed that the CD album released now had four additional tracks taken from the recordings available with the MM family.

The discussion naturally swerved on film songs remaining unreleased or unused. Soni ji played a song ‘Aayee Mohan Milan Ki Bela’ which was recorded for film ‘Janam Janam Ke Phere (1957) by music director S.N Tripathi on the lyrics of Bharat Vyas. The Shamshad Begum- Rafi chorus song was not picturised and included in the film but was released on 78 rpm record as JJKP song. However, the producer Rattan Kumar used the same song in his film Banjarin (1960). The film had music by Pardesi (who later scored music using name as Chand Pardesi) but no mention was made of the fact that the composer of the said song was S.N. Tripathi.

Similarly, Soni ji informed, it happened again when the song ‘Maana Teri Nazar Men…’ written by Naqsh Layalpuri under the musical score of Khayyam was recorded for film Khandan (1979) and released on disc but not used in the film. The same song was used in film ‘Aahista-Aahista’ (1981). The music director of the film was Khayyam in both the pictures.

The discussion also shifted to inspiration of certain film songs from other songs, both from Hindustani and other languages, and also from music of far off countries including western pieces.

Thrilling all a song ‘Aayee Gori Radhika Brij Men Bal Khaati…’ from 1948 film ‘Gopinath’ with music by Ninu Majumdar was played which was recreated with same tune by Laxmikant Pyarelal in Raj Kapoor’s ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram.’ Pt. Narendra Sharma wrote somewhat similar wordings for the SSS song ‘Yashomati Maiya Se Bole Nandlala…’ tinkering a little with the ‘Gopinath’ song that used traditional bhajan of Surdas.

Big chronicler of HFM Sushil Kumar Jain was of the opinion that the lift must have been the handiwork of Raj Kapoor who played lead role in Gopinath and was producer of SSS.

As the rain poured outside the Suryatris were treated with tasteful snacks and tea. Suryatri Rajesh Agrawal shared the joy of wedding of his daughter by serving sweets at the meet.

The members also discussed and agreed to hold an outing in which family members of Suryatris may have get together.

- Rajendra Bora

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