Hindi film music - Old is Gold

Life is all about relationship. Be it between mother, father, son, daughter, grand son, grand daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister, friends, uncle and there is even relationship in nature; cloud and the rain, earth and the smell, sun and the life... Same way there is relationship between human creations; especially music...Songs and inspiration. These need not be intentional, just that it is in their blood and genes that it comes out naturally. Even some music directors do not know how these are all happening to them. We already know a living example.

I was listening to this beauty today. Such a heart-melting melody by Shankar-Jaikishan sung by one and only Mukesh. Majrooh writes beautifully about the relationship and break-up between a brother and sister; chandani aayi ghar jalaanE, soche naa koi manzil. Every word is carved to perfection and rendered beautifully by Mukesh.


Whenever I listen to the above song, it invariably takes me to koi hamdam naa rahaa. Same way if I hum koi hamdam, it takes me to the above song. It is a little slower song compared to Jaun kahan bata aye dil, but you cannot escape identifying how both the songs have similar soul and mood, despite the song is sung on different circumstances.


Later on, I came to know that koi hamdam was already made for a 1936 film, Jeevan Naiya by Saraswati Devi (Khorshed Minocher-Homiji), the first Indian female music director (as per the YT comments). This time it was sung by Kishore's elder brother Ashok Kumar. Listen here.


It is indeed a beauty how the song was made first in 1936 and how it got transformed into Jaun kahan bata aye dil for Chhoti Bahen (1959) and later on again appeared for Jhumroo (1961) in the voice to Kishore. Even though we can clearly say Jhumroo song was intentional as it was already sung by his brother, I was quite surprised how it got transformed to Jaun kahan bata aye dil. If you listen casually, the resemblance is not seen at all, but if you take a phrase of either of the song and continue to hum, you can see how brilliantly it takes to the other song. I really don't know if S-J would have listened to the 1936 version of koi hamdam, but even assuming so, coming with a song like Jaun kahan bata aye dil cannot just be called an inspiration, I can see how our genes work all the way up from our forefathers but also transcends/climbs down to another lineage. It is a beauty of human DNA.