#354

        Song:   Aaj ki raat
                Saaz-e-dil-e-purdard na chhed
                Aaj ki raat

        Film:   Jugnu (1947)
        Singer: Noor Jehan
        Music:  Feroze Nizami
        Lyrics: ?
        *ing:   Dilip Kumar, Noor Jehan


This is a very unique song for me, in  the  sense  that  I  can't
quite  put  my  finger  on what it is in it that makes me want to
keep  listening  to  it  over  and  over  again.   Noor   Jehan's
fascinatingly   sweet  voice  is  no  doubt  the  icing  on  this
intangible cake... but it is something else : I find this  track,
and  the  ambience  it  creates,  quite  wondrous- inspite of the
version I  have  having  been  'reproduced  from  old  recordings
compromising  quality  of  reproduction  for  sake of nostalgia',
HMV's grandiloquent  disclaimer  for  churning  out  sub-standard
grooves (though I really do appreciate their effort).

A slow, emotive melody bolstered with  only  a  few  instruments-
Noor  Jehan carries this on her own into some ethereal realm, and
takes you with it. Some  of  the  lower  notes  she  strikes  are
ineffably  sweet ; is it just me or does anyone feel the same way
about it ??

Another thing - no one seems to know who  this  lovely  piece  of
poetry  originates  from- none of my CD jackets mention anything,
and Raju Bharatan (in his Lata biography) seems equally clueless.
Here're the three lines following the mukhdaa above :

Kaul(?) ulfat kaa jo hanste huen taaron ne sunaa 
Band kaliyon  ne sunaa  mast  bahaaron  ne  sunaa  
Sabse chhup kar jise do prem ke maaron ne sunaa
...etc. (I got lost in the Urdu hereafter)

Vish, would you know who the lyricist is ?



Guest Author: Hrishi Dixit