The young one debuts…

We heard this song on the morning oldies program after many months. The song brought back so many memories, virtually like a floodgate opening.

The singer is a very versatile person, a true polymath. Being the youngest of extremely famous sisters means she doesn’t quite get the share of fame as she deserves. Usha Mangeshkar remains pretty much the least known of the trio of singing sisters. She is a wonderful painter as well and has had many of her works exhibited.

The song is from an early 50s movie, Subah ka Tara, produced and directed by V Shantaram as his home production, (under the Rajkamal Kalamandir banner). It had several pathbreaking concepts. For starters the entire movie is told as a flashback. It dealt with a young man, Pradeep Kumar falling in love with a young widow, Jayashree and wanting to marry her, but being unable to do so, sees her suffer and ultimately kill herself by setting the house her mother has left for her, goes insane, having salvaged a mattress roll from . This is a wonderful and truly joyous song from the movie. https://youtu.be/WlFo9zTVMRg

The child dancing, singing and prancing in the song is the apple of the director’s eye, Rajashree, who made her debut as a child actress in the movie. The movie had music by C Ramachandra who scored for 3 Rajkamal movies: Parchhain, Navrang and Subah ka Tara. Vasant Desai, Shantaram’s colleague from the Prabhat Films days, scored the background music. This is also Usha Mangeshkar‘s debut song. ( And also happens to be her only song in the movie, Lata Mangeshkar sang all the others in the movie). Noor Lakhnavi wrote the lyrics.

A truly effervescent melody that brings forth the excitement of the young child. To their credit both Rajashree and Pradeep Kumar act beautifully and in perfect sync with the emotions. https://youtu.be/CK817IFxr3E

Enjoy the day folks. I am sure lots of you might be hearing this one after a long time (or maybe even for the very first time ). Stay healthy and happy. My best wishes to all my friends on Jamshedi Navroz. It is our new year tomorrow, too…

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