ghar aaja ghir aaye from film chhote nawab: analysis by ankush chinchankar

Film: Chote Nawab (1961)

Producer: Usman Ali

Director: S.A.Akbar

Lyrics : Shailendra

Singer: Lata Mangeshkar

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A song complete in its form... a base that is Indian Classical… sung by an artist who is at the crest of the singing, the melody queen herself… named Lata Mangeshkar… written by the most renowned lyricist of the hindi film industry, Shailendra and composed by Rahul Dev Burman, Son of S. D. Burman.


It was Pancham's first ever film, Chhote Nawab, Produced by Mehmood's home production under the name of Mumtaz Films. In 1961, Mehmood asked Pancham to compose music for his next film. By then Pancham was known as Dada's assistant and a great arranger.

Pancham was happy to to do his first ever independent film, 'Chhote Nawab'. It is the first ever song sung by Lata didi under his direction.

When the song was recorded even Lata didi admired Pancham's talent. The song was based on Raag Malgunji, which is a mixture of Raag Bageshree and Raageshree. Marutirao Keer who assisted Dada Burman in his rhythm patterns, also arranged a perfect Rupak ( a taal which has 7 beats..1-2-3, 1-2-3-4 pattern). If observed minutely, one can see that most of the senior Burman's songs were in the same beat fashion. Pancham had obviously decided to follow his father to be crowned as 'Chhote Nawab'.

The cross line of the song , 'Mora Jiya Dhak Dhak Re', is the typical style of Pancham, which he never left. The song is in standard format as a short intro music and repetition of 1st and 3rd interlude music, a regular style of the 50's and 60's.

One can feel the use of Ghungroo which he has played loud to get the feeling of a dancing female.

All these together created a history and a new music director was born to rule the film industry. Ghar Aaja Ghir Aaye was the stepping-stone for Pancham and his musical carrier.

listen the song here on youtube.
Ankush Chinchankar. Courtesy: punchammagic.org

R D burman : experimnet with sounds and instruments

RD Burman started his career as an assistant to his father, Sachin Dev Burman. The mouth organ played in the song ’Hai apna dil to awara’ sung by Hemant Kumar in the film ’Solva Saal’ is played by RD Burman himself. He assisted his father in Chalti ka Naam Gaadi (1958) and Kaagaz ke Phool(1959). His first film as a music director was Guru Dutt’s Raaz (1959). However, the film was shelved after some shooting and recording of a few songs. He then got his break in Mehmood’sChhote Nawaab in the year 1961. His compositions in the film Teesri Manzil starring Shammi Kapoor made him a celebrated composer. The songs like ’O’ haseena zulfon waali’, ’Aaja aja main hoon pyaar tera’, ’O mere sona re sona ee’, ’Deewaana mujhsa nahin’ were unlike anything audiences had heard of till then and the music of Teesri Manzil was hummed across the nation.

RD Burman was very innovative and experimental. He picked the music for his songs from very indigenous sources. In fact, innovativeness became synonymous with RD. He has been quoted as saying, “I don’t say that I am a knowledgeable man when it comes to raags. I don’t say I tried to do so and so song in Raag Darbari or attempted some difficult raag in another song. Whatever comes to my head I compose.”

In ’Chura liya hai tumne’ he used the sound of a spoon hitting a glass. For the Kitaab song ’Master jee kee aa gayee chitthee’ he brought some desks from a classroom in the studio while recording and used them as percussion.

In Abdullah he used the sound of a bamboo whistle with a balloon tied to it for a song. Once, to get the sound of raindrops, he spent a whole rainy night in his house’s balcony recording the sound he wanted.

In the song ’O manjhi re’ from the movie Khushboo, RD Burman used bottles with water filled at different levels and created a hollow sound by blowing into them and this sound effect was used with the orchestra.

During the recording of ’Hum dono do premee’ (Ajnabee), the musicians were on strike. So he improvised the song with emptied-out musical interludes and just listen to the song!

Many people say that Pancham Da plagiarised, which is not completely wrong. But while plagiarising too, he kept his unique stamp of authority over the number. Today, most of the originals may have been wiped off from memory, but the inspired numbers remain. His inspiration of "copying the tune" extended to incorporation of different forms of tunes and rhythm patterns into his music.

No matter what the people say but I can assert that RD was one of the best composers. A publicity-shy man, RD let his music do the talking for him. The list of the compositions is so huge that you can pick a song for every moment of your life. I met few pretty faces in Delhi very recently and remembered the last composition of Pancham Da from film ’1942-A Love Story’, ’Ek ladki ko dekha to aisa laga’.

RD continues to rule today as well. This is evident from most of the soundtracks today being re-mixed in the Indi-pop scene are RD’s compositions. You might not be aware of this but you must have rocked and danced to his songs.

Excerpts from this link

listen "yaad hai pancham" a nazm by gulzar on radiovani here from the album 'chand parosa hai'