#415

          Song:   mere chhote se man mein chhotisi duniya re
                  chhote chhote gharva chhoti atariya chhotisi bagiya re
                  mere chhote se man mein chhotisi duniya re

          Film:   Basant (1942)
          Singer: Baby Mumtaz (Madhubala)
          Music:  Anil Biswas
          Lyrics: Santoshi (?)
          *ing:   Ulhas, Mumtaz Shanti

  Today, Feb 23, marks the thirtieth death anniversary of Madhubala,
  whose sixty-sixth birth anniversary passed earlier this month, on
  Feb 14. I'll spend the next few posts on some of the lesser-known
  songs picturized on this unforgettable screen legend.

  To start off, here's one of the two songs she ever sang on the screen;
  from her debut, the Bombay Talkies hit "Basant", whose musical score
  has often been mis-attributed to Pannalal Ghosh. Parul Ghosh sang the
  main version of this song in the movie (and indeed most of the other
  female-voice songs in it picturized on Mumtaz Shanti).

  Madhubala was all of 8 years old when she sang this popular song, and
  even through that little-kid voice and pronounciation, her basic grasp
  of the music and tune shows ; as far as I could notice, she didn't miss
  a single note. The song, and the visuals that go with it, are (for want
  of a better adjective) simply and inbelievably cute. Though she never
  again sang on screen, she often used to be quite deeply involved in the
  music-creation process for a lot of her movies... IIRC S.Mohinder did
  mention this at the meet last year (he was the MD for a few of her own
  productions such as Pathan (1962), and a personal friend of hers).

  There is an interesting anecdote associated with this song, as told by
  yesteryears actress Nimmi to Madhubala's biographer Khatija Akbar : at
  the end of this song (which is a stage performance in the movie),
  Madhubala gets an effusive encore from the audience, to which she
  innocently responds "aap log kal aaiye to aur sunaauungi gaana" :-))
  So Nimmi, who was probably around the same age then, was taken by her
  parents to see the movie, and she insisted on being taken back every
  single day after that to see the movie.. "woh boli thhi na kal phir
  aane ko ! " :-))

  "Basant" is an absolute collectible, btw - both the movie and the
  soundtrack - studded with beauties like this one, "kaaTa laage re
  sajanwa..", "tumko mubaarak ho uu.Nche mahal yeh..", etc.
 

  ..Hrishi