#349

        Song:   Jab raat nahin kat ti
                Ik raat nahin kat ti
                Zindagi kaise kategi

        Film:   Chengiz Khan (1957)
        Music:  Hansraj Behl
        Lyrics: Qamar Jalalabadi
        Singer: Lata Mangeshkar
        *ing:   Premnath, Bina Rai

I had spent a goodish bit of time a while ago trying to find  out
the  MD  of  this  precious  Lata piece; and now that I know,  no
tribute to Hansraj Behl could  possibly  be  complete  without  a
mention of this divine melody.

The song is haunting- there's no other word for it  :  ethereally
haunting.  It starts off with a plaintive strain of (the shehnai,
is it ?), and the low notes of the mukhada  float  in  in  Lata's
effusive  voice-  Lata  is  truly  magnificent  in this song: the
inherent grief in the song could not have been vocalized any more
convincingly.  The song travels unfettered between a low mukhadaa
and very high-pitched antaraas (it may be a vocal  illusion,  but
at  some  points  in  the  antaraa,  Lata  _almost_  lapses  into
falsetto),  which  reflects  the  sentiment  of  the  song   very
tangibly.

Beautifully penned too... a sorrowful introspection on  the  woes
of life, culminating in a consolatory rationalization of the same
:

        Ae dard zaraa dum le
        Marne ki dua kar loon
        Gar hum na mitey ae dil
        Maut phir kaise jiyegi


Two things I'm not entirely sure of here- the year of release  (I
vaguely  recollect  reading  1960 somewhere, but I may be wrong),
and the lyricist.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.




Guest Author: Hrishi Dixit