Multiple version songs

Songs of Atariya

With a tribute to Begum Akhtar in her Centenary Year

Romeo and Juliet on AtariyaI had thought songs of atariya are one of the things – like lori, bidaai songs, bhajan, piano songs etc. – that have been irredeemably lost from our films. Loosely translated as ‘balcony’, atariya was the place where the heroine would go stealthily from the prying eyes of her parents, to wait for her lover, who would come on tip-toe to serenade from below, or if he was more daring, climb up through the drain pipe or a rope or bed sheet, helpfully slung down by the lady. Modesty was a virtue for women not only in India, but also in the West – Romeo too met Juliet on her atariya.

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SD Burman’s Bengali songs and their Hindi versions

Multiple Version Songs (14)

SD BurmanWith this post my SD Burman journey is intersecting Ashok Vaishnavji’s mega-project on multiple version songs. My journey has taken many interesting turns. I started with the idea of doing a post on my top ten favourite songs of SD Burman, which would have included his film as well non-film Hindi and Bengali songs. Then I came across Harvey’s post, Sun mere bandhu re, on his film songs. I then decided to cover only his non-film songs, which would have included both Hindi and Bengali songs. In course of searching his songs, I found there were so many of them in each category, and many of them absolutely outstanding, that I decided to cover his non-film Hindi and Bengalis songs in separate posts. I have already done his non-film Hindi songs, which was very well received. The readers also mentioned many of his Bengali songs, which were adapted by SD Burman as Hindi film songs in the voices of Mohammad Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar and Geeta Dutt. These songs are among all time great compositions of SD Burman, without most of us being aware that these are adapted from original Bengali songs sung by SD Burman.

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Multiple Version songs (4): Hindi and Marathi

Guest article by Arunkumar Deshmukh

(On the blogosphere dealing with old films and music, Mr Arunkumar Deshmukh is known as a  living encyclopaedia. SoY regulars are aware of the mega series on multiple version songs, started by another stalwart, Mr Ashok Vaishnav, spanning across singers, films, genres and languages, some parts of which may require treatment by super specialists. Here comes the living encyclopaedia, writing a guest article on Hindi films and songs which have their Marathi versions. While doing this, he takes us on a fascinating journey to the earliest days of our films when Marathi theatre and films were a major influence on Hindi films. – AK)

Ayodhya Ka RajaBombay was the first major centre of film making in India. The industry thrived, prospered and grew here. Bombay being the biggest city in Marathi speaking area, no wonder, initially, the industry was dominated by Marathi speaking artists. As the industry grew, more and more Marathi people joined it in all the branches of film making, whether it was production, editing, choreography, script writing, acting, composing or singing. The period of 1920s to 1960s was a time when Hindi film industry was crowded with Marathi artists.

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