Pacific Duets - XII

#445

     Song: phir wohi chaand wohi hum wohi tanhaaii hai
           aaj phir dil ne mohabbat ki qasam khaaii hai

     Film: Baarish (1957)
     Singer: Lata Mangeshkar, Chitalkar
     Music: C Ramchandra
     Lyrics: Rajinder Krishan
     *ing: Nutan, ?

Thought I'd revisit the intermittently ongoing Pacific Duets series
today.

The first thing that struck me when I first heard this song was the
perilous similarity of the first line of the mukhdaa to the Talat song
from Jahaan-Ara:
"phir wohi shaam wohi gham wohi tanhaai hai
 dil ko samjhaane teri yaad chali aai hai" (are those the right lyrics
for the second line?).
In addition to the words, the radeef-qaafiya scheme for both is the
same.

Moving on to matters musical, and more so, matters pacific- CR sounds
wonderfully serene in this soft, effusively romantic duet, singing in
that Talat voice of his (like in "kitna haseen hai mausam"). Their
voices were inherently quite similar, and the illusion was accentuated
with gentle songs like this one..

Nice effect created here; the song starts off in Lata's voice, and at a
point CR joins in, like he just walked into the
room/terrace/beach/piazza/whatever where she was singing. I've probably
mentioned this before, but intermingling of the male and female voices
in romantic duets lends a warm intimacy to the proceedings... this song
is another example of this. All antaraas are in both voices and at
times in chorus, very well-coordinated :

(CR)
door duniya se kahiin bheegi hui raaton mein --> simple but really well
sung
(Lata)
do mohabbat bhare dil gum hain haseen baaton mein
dil mein jo baat hai aankhon mein chal aaii hai
(both)
aaj phir dil ne mohabbat ki qasam khaaii hai

Though not quite adorned with any deep poetry (in fact the lyrics get
quite prosaic at times), the overall effect of the song is quite
wondrously soothing.

Two other songs stand out in this soundtrack- another Lata/CR
duet "kehte hain pyaar kisko panchhi zara bataa de" (very redolent
of "o raat ke musaafir", in terms of both words and music) and a slow,
deeply melodious Lata solo "yeh aarzoo thhi kabhi hum bahaar dekhenge".