Multiple Version Songs (14) With this post my SD Burman journey is intersecting Ashok Vaishnavji’s mega-project on multiple version songs. My journey has taken many interesting turns.
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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,, 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, 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.
Now comes along Mr Ashok Vaishnav’s post on multiple version songs, in which one of the sub-categories is Hindi film songs and their Bengali versions. I knew of Salil Chaudhary and Hemant Kumar, who did a fairly large number of bilingual songs.
SD Burman is a new discovery, and there are several things special about his bilingual songs. Firstly, most of these were sung by him in Bengali as private songs, whereas in Hindi he adapted these for films in other voices, unlike say Salil Chaudhary, whose most of well known bilingual songs are in the voice of the same singers such as Lata Mangeshkar and Hemant Kumar. SD Burman’s voice is so unique that the two versions impact the listener in completely different ways. SD Burman does not belong to this planet; his songs take you to another plane. For adapting these to films, he brought them down to the earth, yet giving us outstanding songs in other voices as we have known all these years.
Some of these songs are very well known, and have been already mentioned on this blog earlier by the readers, such as Ghum bhulechhi for Hum bekhudi mein tumko pukare chale gaye, or Rongila rongila rongila re for Aan milo aan milo Shyam sanwre. Photoshop 6.0 serial number. Some more may be known to the readers.
But there are a number of songs which would dazzle you, either because of their beauty, or because the adaptation may not be obvious at the first instance. There are about two dozen such songs, which have a Hindi version – mostly film songs in the voice of well known playback singers, some in his own voice, both film and non-film.
Let me present my favourite ten of SD Burman’s Bengali private songs, which have been adapted in Hindi, as my tribute to the great genius. With this I am also covering one of the sub-sub categories of Ashok Vaishnavji’s project and, therefore, treating it as the 14 th article in the. I have tried to give the meanings of some of these songs with the help of my Bengali friends. Ami chhinu eka basaore jagaye, lyrics Ajoy Bhattacharya At the top of my list is this song which has a legend behind it, which Moti Lalwani quoted from SD Burman’s biography by Khagesh Dev Burman: SD Burman mesmerises K. Saigal ‘In a musical performance, Sachin was listed to perform after Saigal. Saigal had to sing a few more songs than scheduled on popular demand.
He had to ignore further requests in order to keep his next appointment for which the organizers had already arrived. Almost at the gate, Saigal came to a sudden halt and stood like a statue. Sachin had started singing ‘Ami chhinu eka’. It had not been recorded as yet. Overwhelmed, Saigal sat down in a chair. Tamil dubbed movies. He was dumbfounded.
Was it not his song! It was he who had rendered the tune in Khambaj for the first time in ‘Kaun bujhave Rama tapat mera man ki’, a thumri. But in Sachin’s voice, the intoxicating tune had been transformed completely. A feeling of solitude and loneliness filled the hearts of the audience. They were swept away on the waves of the anguish-laden melody – surpassing the tune, beyond the dictates of Khambaj – a mix of thumri and folk, which rose, reached a crescendo and then fell only to rise again. Saigal sat mesmerized till the song ended. He came to senses at the cry of joy from the audience.