"The Moving Finger Writes..."

Translated from ‘Geet-Yatree’ by the late Shri Madhav Moholkar. The responsibility for any errors in translation is entirely mine.



I saw and heard Geeta for the last time on the night of ‘Yaad-e-Shakeel’.I little imagined then that it was to be her final concert in my life. I’d previously heard her sing in 4-5 programmes. She always sang with great feeling, whether it was a heart-rending song or a flighty, light-hearted one. At Yaad-e-Shakeel, apart from Geeta many others sang - Rafi, Mukesh, Mahendra Kapoor, Ravi, Chandru... But the queen of the night was, undoubtedly, Lata.Everyone’s attention was centred on her. Most of the audience was eager to hear her sing. On the stage, everyone danced attendance on her. When she was to sing the musicians would be alert, the music director would stand and conduct the orchestra. She’d come and sing like an empress. For Geeta there was no orchestra, no one on stage bustling about, no thunderous welcoming applause. She slowly walked onto the stage, pulled up a harmonium and started to sing. Slightly disarranged hair, sad face, eyes filled with pathos - she’d intermittently shut them while singing - and that huge Shanmukhanand Hall filled with her extra-ordinary, sad voice:

'Aankhon mein noor, dil mein ujale nahin rahein
jalwe wohi hain, dekhnewale nahin rahein '

Geeta poured her soul into the song but I wonder how many hearts that non-film ghazal of Shakeel’s touched that night. For there were no cries of ‘Once more’ as there had been for Lata and Rafi.Looking at her, she didn’t seem to be singing for anyone but herself. In the same pathos-laden voice and with eyes shut, she started singing another one of Shakeel’s songs:
'Koi door se awaaz de, chale aao..., chale aao...’


For a second, it didn’t seem to be a human voice at all. It was the cry of a tormented soul roaming the skies. Geeta never could sing with her throat. It was her soul that sang. Those words coming from the depths of the unknown: ‘Chale aao...chale aao...’
Who was calling her from afar?
After that I never saw her again. But one night, having dozed off while lying in the dark listening to the radio, I woke up with a start. The radio was still playing and in the dark I could hear Geeta sing:

'Koi chupke se aake, sapne sulake, mujhko jagake bole
ke main aa raha hoon...’

It’d been ages since I’d heard a new song of Geeta’s.It felt as if my past had returned. Perhaps the hope that Geeta was living on would be fulfilled after all. Who could say? Hadn’t a miracle happened in Kishore Kumar’s case.Geeta had said: Everyone ran after Kishore Kumar once two of his songs from Aradhana became hits, otherwise it was only Burmandada (S.D.) who had any time for him? If two of my songs become hits, it might be the same with me.
It was not to be. Miracles don’t happen in everyone’s life. One day, with great determination, she broke all the bonds, not just to the film world but to the real one as well. Leaving behind for us:
'Ek din hamko yaad karoge...’
The same emotive voice...I was running to school one hot and sunny morning. I’d barely reached McConkey Chowk when, from behind, came the words:
'Tadpoge, fariyaad karoge,
ek din hamko yaad karoge...’
I quietly turned back and went and stood outside Usmania restaurant. The first time I received a caning from the Headmaster for being late to school was for Geeta Roy. Before classes commenced, we’d shut the classroom doors and sing in chorus the songs of those days...'Ek din hamko yaad karoge’.No one who sang in that chorus will have forgotten Geeta in the hurly-burly of dreary, routine existence. To forget her is to forget one’s own past, to forget oneself. Had I known she would depart so suddenly, I’d have reminded her of her song from Savera:

'Aankhon se door jaake bhi dil se na jaane paoge
tum hi kaho karenge kya yaad jo hamko aaoge’

Geeta didn’t have to plead with anyone to get a chance to sing in films. Her magical voice brought the film world to her doorstep. One day as she was singing in her house, a noted music director of that time, Shri Hanuman Prasad was walking down that street. Hearing her voice, he could go no further. He turned back and found the house the song was emanating from. A slim, dark girl was sitting with her back to the door, singing, lost to the world. Impressed, Hanuman Prasad took her father’s permission to use Geeta as a playback singer - and Geeta sang her first song in ‘Bhakt Prahlad’ under his baton.
The (then) young music director S.D.Burman, saw indications of his future success in that voice. His film ‘Shikari’ had had good songs but they hadn’t become as popular as Naushad’s songs from ‘Ratan’.He was convinced that if this 15-16 year old girl was to sing for him, his songs would be hits. So, brushing aside the established singers of the era like Shamshad, Zohra, Rajkumari, & Ameerbai, he insisted on using Geeta’s voice for ‘Do Bhai’, going to the extent of fighting with Filmistan’s Rai Bahadur Chunilal, to do so. His confidence turned out to be fully justified. Geeta brought him unprecedented success. Her songs were on everyone’s lips through the length and breadth of Hindustan:

'Mera sundar sapna beet gaya...
main prem mein sab kuch haar gayee, bedard zamana jeet gaya...
Mera sundar sapna beet gaya...’

A friend who was studying in a college in Lucknow at that time said that in those days even the ‘kothas’ of the ‘tawaifs’ would resonate with ‘Mera sundar sapna beet gaya...’ rather than the usual thumris and ghazals.
I liked a song of Rafi’s from ‘Do Bhai’: ‘Duniya mein meri aaj andhera hi andhera...Bhagwan kahaan hai meri kismatka sitara...’ But Geeta’s were the songs to achieve great popularity - ‘Ek din hamko yaad karoge’, ‘Hamein chhod piya kis des gaye, piya lautke aana bhool gaye’, and ‘Mera sundar sapna beet gya’.Her incorrect short enunciation of the long ‘bhoo’ in ‘piya laut ke aana bhool gaye’ jarred, but, the prolonged ‘bee’ in ‘Mera sundar sapna beet gaya’ conveyed effectively and with great feeling the sadness, the distress at the fact that everything was ended,finished, , that it would never return.”Sapna toot gaya’ was common in film songs, but ‘sapna beet gaya’ had never been heard before or since. I was used to reading ‘din beet gaya’ but, even at that young age, I could appreciate the poetry in ‘sapna beet gaya’.The lyricist was Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, who’d come to Mumbai to become an actor, had even essayed a role in ‘Aath Din’. But from ‘Do Bhai’ onwards he came to the fore as a lyricist. His touching verse must be given its due share of credit for the success of the music of ‘Do Bhai’ along with S.D.Burman’s music and Geeta’s singing.
Ghulam Haider was the music director of the Dilip Kumar-Kamini Kaushal film ‘Shaheed’ in which Lalita Deolkar had sung ‘Bachpan ki yaad dheere dheere pyar ban gayee’, and Surinder Kaur had sung ‘Badnaam na ho jaye mohabbat ka fasana’, Hum tumko na payenge, tum humko na paoge’, and ‘Taqdeer ki aandhi aisi chali, kashti se kinara chhoot gaya’. But it was in Geeta’s voice that Raja Mehdi Ali Khan’s words found true expression:

‘Main do din ki mehmaan piya
mohe chhod chale hain pran piya, pranpiya
aaya gham ka ek toofan piya, pranpiya
hai deepak banker kaanp rahe hain pran hamare
main to bisaroon balma, mera dil na bisare…’

To watch a dying Kamini Kaushal sing ‘hai deepak banker kaanp rahe hain pran hamare…’ in Geeta’s helpless tone was an agonising experience. She looks down from the balcony (or window?) at the funeral procession of her lover, a freedom-fighter who has given his life for the country, and collapses. Chandramohan was last seen in this film. If memory serves me right, Geeta also sang in Ghulam Haider’s ‘Majboor’. That film had one of Lata’s earliest songs ‘Ab darneki koi baat nahin, angrezi chhora chala gaya…’. I vaguely remember some discrete lines of Geeta’s songs – ‘meri bagiya mein phool khile’, ‘jab nain se nain mile’, ‘main to rah gayee aaj akeli re…’
Apart from Ghulam Haider, among the earlier generation of music directors, Geeta also sang in Shyamsundar’s ‘Actress’, which starred Rehana and Shyam.Rehana later went to Pakistan and the handsome Shyam fell from a horse while shooting for ‘Shabistan’ and died. I remember three songs from ‘Actress’ – First Rafi’s ‘Ai dil meri aahon mein itna to asar aaye, jab aankh khule unki tasveer nazar aaye’, second, the Rafi-Shamshad duet ‘Dheere dheere bol, bol mohabbatwale bol’, and third, the Shamshad –Geeta duet

‘Aankhon aankhon mein dil se dil ki baatein keh gaye…’
Hum tadapte hain ke armaan dil ke dil mein rah gaye…’

Shamshad’s, the joyful voice of a woman whose eyes have conveyed her love, while Geeta’s had all the pathos of one whose feelings remained unsaid.
Khemchand Prakash’s ‘Jaanpehchaan’ had songs by Geeta, Talat and Shankar Dasgupta. I saw that film many times.Not just the songs, even the background music of ‘Jaanpehchaan’ was wonderful.The film itself, however, was over-romantic, unrealistic, and filled with inconsistencies.But I was at an age when any reason would suffice to see a film over and over again – a song, a particular scene, dialogues, background music, dances…Talat-Geeta’s sweet duet was on my lips for a long time:

'Armaanbhare dil ki lagan tere liye hain
Nagari mere jeevan ki sajan tere liye hai…
Loota hai mere dil ne mohabbat ka khazana
Jo teri kahani hai wohi mera fasana
Ye phool, ye khushboo, ye chaman tere liye hai…
Ye chand, ye dharti, ye gagan tere liye hai…'

To be continued...