AYE MERE
DIL KAHIN AUR
CHAL
,
There are many moments of the past which make me happy. Strangely,
incidents in modest and simple surroundings/circumstances have given me more
happiness than even travelling to
foreign locales. Among many such adolescent/childhood memories are the moments
watching those countless ‘Black and White’ films in Allahabad. ‘Morning shows’,
at various distant cinema halls were meticulously followed through the
information in ‘Northen Indian Patrika’. ‘Palace’ was nearest at civil lines,
others such as ‘Moti Mahal’, ‘Vishambhar’ were far; later ‘Jhankar’ also
screened old cinema.
Those
days the popular culture was not hit by
the Television invasion and the citizens were not caged in their drawing rooms
chained to the ‘Soap Operas’. Many cinema Halls screened old films at ‘reduced
rates’, because the new releases could not keep pace with the number of Cinema
Halls, and therefore the ‘reruns’ of old films were a norm. More so, as the
cost of print at that time was very high ,even new releases were screened in
only one Cinema Hall, and very rare we would witness a release in two Halls-
‘Sholay’ and ‘Bobby’, were exceptions . The reruns gave us a chance to see the
Cinema of the yesteryears and appreciate the Art of Dilip Kumar, Balraj Sahni
etc. They were still in reckoning but the best years were behind them. They
belonged to the generation of my father, but still we liked them as the world was moving slow then and the
gulf between the generations was tolerable. Unlike the young of today who make
faces whenever an old song plays on TV or a yesteryear Actor appears.
However
I am writing to day of the intense
impact the film ‘Daag’ ( 1954, Dilip
Kumar-Nimmi starrer) had on me when I saw it in the late sixties/early
seventies. I may have been 12-13 old then and had by then bitten by the movie
bug. My parents too never restricted my
love for the movies and the entire family on occasions witnessed the new
releases by booking tickets in advance. It was always a big family outing and
often an award at the end of the Annual examination or receipt of results. We three brothers would dress well, make our hair
in style of the Hero we were worshipping at that point in time, make gestures
copying the Hero on the poster, utter some famous dialogues from the film or
recite songs made famous by then; this used to be our ritual prior to
witnessing the film ;after return from the Hall, the story with dialogues was
narrated to our friends and relatives
and for days I was specially affected
by the charm and beauty of the heroine and imagined her to be mine.
However
at the beginning of my cinematic affair
the avenues and opportunities were few owing to my age as I had yet not
embarked on college life and therefore my solitary movements were marked to the
borders of my colony; Ashok Nagar .Therefore we looked for alternate cinematic
experience and my friend’s residence was one such place. His father too was
fond of cinema so much so that he would regularly walk to cinema halls in the
evening after the end of his walk and return home on rickshaw; he was an
eminent professor in the University. He was member of the ‘Chalchitra vibhag’
and could loan films for private screenings. We children therefore saw many
good films at my friend’s place on his 16mm projector- ‘Kanoon’, ‘Bahu-Rani’, ‘Kundan’
are some of the films I still recall. Films were also shown to us at our
school- St Joseph’s Academy; ‘Kohra’ is one suspense film which terrified us to
the extent that we students had made a cluster in the middle of the hall and
our chairs were all hugging each other ;it was a sight at the end of the show1
Returning
to ‘Daag’,
it remains in my memory as the earliest film I saw for free , on the Annual Day
celebrations of the ‘Valmiki School’ which was just opposite the ‘Chakbandi’ office at the beginning of
the Ashok Nagar crossing. ‘Valmiki School’ as my memory goes was a municipal
school with rudimentary structure , classrooms with tin roof in straight lines
on three sides. A big tamarind tree provided shade to a large grassless ground in the center. As it grew
dark we were on the ground swatting on a mat which was partly provided and covered
some portion of the ground. Soon the ground was filled with people , they were standing along the wired boundary
wall, on the roof top, on the adjoining trees.
The film
began and I was transferred to another world. It was a simple story of Dilip Kumar
whose weakness was drinking, despite his girlfriend’ and mother’s ( Nimmi and
Lalita Pawar)advise and remonstrations he is unable to quit this habit , however one
day he is sobered and leaves his village for a job in town, on his return one
day he finds his mother is dead, he takes to drinking again and dies in the
end. However what has remained with me forever ‘etched’ is the song – Aye mere dil kahin aur chal, gham
ki duniyan de dil bhar gaya, mein yahan jite ji mar gaya…. Sung by
Talat Mahmood, composed by Shankar Jaikishan and penned by Shailendra, this
song is soul stirring and appears in the film on many occasions. The long shot
of Dilip returning triumphantly to his village suitcase in hand and the song on
his lips still haunts me. The strong and yet melodious sound of the ‘Piano-accordion’
is the core of that song.
Even now,
whenever I hear the song the sound takes me to those happy moments , moments of freedom,
imagination, creativity. It remains a moment of ‘Catharsis’ for me; always!
