#405

          Song:   kahiin se shaam hotey hi sitaare aa hi jaate hain
                  sahaara dhuundhne yeh besahaarey aa hi jaate hain

          Film:   Shatranj (1956)
          Singer: Asha Bhosle
          Music:  C Ramchandra
          Lyrics: Rajendra Krishan
          *ing:   Ashok Kumar, Meena Kumari

  This is a rather under-represented CR score, I think. I have only seen
  "badli mein chhupe chaand" ever figure on any compilation. Which is
  sad because it is a lovely soundtrack. This soft, almost transparent
  Asha tune is one of her three songs in the movie (the other ones are two
  dainty chorus numbers "baaje kahiin shehnaai aiyyo ji aiyyo", and "jawaani
  ki soyii, sapno.n mei.n khoyii"), with those long-drawn, deliberate strains
  that characterized many of CR's slow melodies. Like notes gliding on smooth
  continuous surfaces, one merging into the other so inevitably, it almost
  seems there could not be any other place they could have gone. This could
  be interpreted as predictable, but that, somehow, is the beauty of it. The
  gorgeous Lata solo in the movie, "havaa hai sard sard, aur dil mei.n
  bhi hai dard" is pretty much in the same vein.

  There is one more Lata solo in this movie which was so badly cut up in the
  video, there was no point in trying to record it. (Has anyone noticed that
  90% of the time, the part of an old video that's cut out belongs to a song ?)
  Don't remember the words off hand, but I remember liking whatever could be
  heard.