Songs of 1930s and 40s

New Theatres’ romance with Prem

Best love songs of Vintage Era

New Theatres I have been in the New Theatres mood since I wrote my last post on Pankaj Mullick. BN Sircar established New Theatres in Calcutta in 1931, i.e. the same year the first talkie Alam Ara was released in Bombay. Music has been an integral part and a defining feature of our films ever since. And so it has been with the New Theatres as well. It is also not surprising that love has been the dominant theme of our songs. But the New Theatres took love to entirely unexpected heights. It was not merely a matter of semantics that pyar, mohabbat, ishq for them was Prem or Preet. It also denoted for them something deeply spiritual, other-worldly and supremely blissful.

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My favourite Pankaj Mullick songs

A tribute on his birthday May 10

Pankaj Mullick I became seriously acquainted with Pankaj Mullick several years after I had thoroughly absorbed KL Saigal. This would probably be the normal sequence for any non-Bengalee what with Saigal having acquired an iconic status, and generations of listeners having grown on a Saigal song every morning at 7.57 AM which would be the last song on Radio Ceylon’s programme Bhoole Bisre Geet.

The trigger point was an evening dinner gathering of friends when Chakko (short for Chakravarty, that was his name) sang Ye raatein ye mausam ye hansnaa hansaanaa. The impact on me was mesmerizing. Chakko was by no means a professional singer, it was one of those gatherings where everyone sings, some being a little better than others. Soon after I came across an LP of his songs, which not surprisingly had this song at the top. Coming to the internet age I heard many more of his songs, both films and non-films, in Hindi and Bengalee, and became more aware of the vast world of beautiful gems of Pankaj Mullick beyond Piya milan ko jana (which seemed to be the only song played in the radio days).

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