‘Apani been maine aap kabhi nahin bajaayi.......’ Rajinder Krishan

Rajinder Krishan, a well-known lyricist and dialogue writer of the Hindi film industry, born on 6 June 1919 in Jalalpur Jattan village of Pakistan, has earned fame and prestige by writing songs and dialogues in more than 250 films so far. It has an interesting history. It is often seen that there is an unbreakable relationship between a writer and struggle, but circumstances were favorable for Rajinder Krishan from the very beginning and he never fell prey to the series of 'pushing' to establish himself in the film industry. It seems as if the word failure was not meant for him - whether it was a horse-racing ground or the most complex situations of the film industry, his fame spread equally everywhere, as if there were never any obstacles in his path.

Rajinder Krishan's Literary Roots and Journey to Bollywood

There was an atmosphere of reading and writing in the house from the very beginning. His grandfather, father, and elder brother were all literature lovers and everyone was interested in Urdu-Persian literature. The elder brother used to write stories and one of his novels was also published. Due to this family background, he developed the habit of writing poems from the seventh-eighth class itself. Though he was a student of Hindi-Sanskrit, he had a good grasp of Urdu. After matriculation in 1935, he became a clerk in Shimla. His writings were always published in newspapers like 'Tej', 'Milap' and 'Pratap'. Apart from this, he always got the company of famous poets like Asar Multani, Hairat Shivanvi, and Firaq Gorakhpuri. In Lahore, he was also in close contact with Ehsaan Danish. That is, he was acquainted with more than 90% of the top literary writers of that time. So many things are too much for anyone to become a litterateur or writer. During this time, an English newspaper named 'Liddle Weekly' was published from Shimla and Rajinder Krishan used to write reviews of English films in it. This newspaper was the newspaper of high-ranking British officers and it was a matter of pride to write in this newspaper. While his job of Rs. 55 per month was going on, Rajinder Krishan got married in 1941 and signs of a new turn in his life appeared. He thought that this job would not last long, why should I not try to write for films? This thought forced him to come to Bombay in January 1943.

To enter any field of film, almost everyone has to go through a long period of relentless hard work and struggle, but Rajinder Krishan can be considered an exception. When he came to Bombay, he had only Rs. 10 in his pocket. Those were the days of cheap money, so it lasted for two to three days. The money was spent and now the question was that something should be done, but while he was thinking about what to do and how, he met a very familiar person from Shimla, R. Rai Charni, on Station Road. He had come to Bombay to make a film with a lot of money. Both of them got acquainted with each other's ideas. Rajinder Krishan said- 'I have come to write in films.'

Rai had found a suitable man and he had a story too. Rajinder Krishan saw the story and it was so bad that it knew no bounds. He refused to work on this story but his film career started as a publicist in Ray Pictures. At that time, one had to use a lot of tricks to get inside the studio. This job as a publicist gave him a chance to reach out to the film people and that is why he got acquainted with top stars like Sehgal, J.K. Nanda, and Leela Chitnis. This job continued for two years and during this period people got to know his talent well. Now he gets an opportunity to write two to three songs in a year. Meanwhile, he got the job of writing half the songs and half the dialogues for two incomplete films of Janak Pictures- 'Janta' and 'Santan'. His work was praised a lot and people came to know that a new writer named Rajinder Krishan has also been born in the film industry. Babu Rai Pai of Prabhat Company established Famous Pictures in Bombay and he got an offer to write dialogues and songs for this company independently. Rajinder Krishan was asked 'What do you take? What are your needs?'

He replied- 'I am a royal person and my expenses are also big. I smoke cigarettes and I am also fond of racing.'

Babu Rao was very happy with this answer and he fixed a salary of one thousand rupees per month. The first film made by Famous Pictures was 'Aaj Ki Raat' and released. This film ran for 15 weeks in Minerva. The music of the film was by Husn Lal-Bhagat Ram and Moti Lal, Suraiya Yakub, and Shahnawaz were its main actors. While signing the contract for this film in January 47, Rajinder Krishan got information about his bright future. After the release of this film, the dialogues and songs of the film were praised in 'Film India' and many newspapers. This was the first phase of success. His dialogues and songs were also praised in Famous Pictures' next films 'Pyar Ki Jeet' and 'Badi Bahan'. A song from 'Pyar Ki Jeet' 'Chup Chup Khade Ho Jarur Koi Baat Hai' is as popular today as it was then.

This way the wheel of time started moving in his favour. One day Babu Rao Pai said that if he gets foreign films then he would have no objection to writing in them. In this way, he was contracted as a lyricist for Jaimini Dewan's 'Lahore' and Verma Films' 'Pantaga'. A song from 'Lohar' 'Bahare Phir Bhi Aayengi'-'Magar Hum Tum Juda Honge' became very popular. And even today its freshness remains the same. After this, a call came from Filmistan's Rai Bahadur Chunni Lal and Subodh Mukherjee and the songs that Rajinder Krishan wrote for 'Samadhi', 'Nagin', and 'Anarkali' in this film company will probably never lose their freshness.

Everyone knows that Rajinder Krishna's name is a weakness for Madras producers. The story of Rajinder Krishna's presence in Madras films is no less interesting. 'Pantaga' was released in Madras in '50 and ran continuously for sixteen weeks. This was the first incident with any Hindi film. The reaction to this incident was that A.B.M. came to Bombay and found Rajinder Krishan and contracted him for his films. A.B.M.'s film 'Bahaar' was Vaijayanti Mala's first Hindi film and Rajinder Krishna's first Madrasi Hindi film as well. This film became a silver jubilee and Rajinder Krishna's name became famous. In this way, from 'Bahaar' to 'Larki', 'Bhai Bhai', 'Barkha', 'Bhabhi', 'Meherbaan', and 'Gopi', he wrote songs and dialogues in hundreds of films. Many of these films were Silver Jubilee films. But this does not mean that he did not contribute to Bombay films. Films like 'Kahani Kismat Ki', 'Jwar Bhata', 'Blackmail', 'Loafer' and 'Do Thugs' are proof of the fact that just like Madras, his popularity remained the same in the Bombay film industry as well.

The story behind Rajinder Krishna's success in the film industry is that he had acquired a good acquaintance with the works of Hindi-Urdu writers. He got the credit for bringing sophistication to the language of films by studying the literary works of Premchand, Pant, Nirala, Firaq, Kishan Chandra, Ali Sardar Jafri, and Pandit Sudarshan. Regarding the language of his films, he is very conscious about the fact that they should not deviate from the commonly spoken language, hence he says- 'If I had not come into films, I would have been a great literary poet. Anyway, I have only written for films. But wherever there is mention of high things in film writing, my name is taken.'

Today, when film writers are taking an interest in self-promotion, Rajinder Krishan is away from it. Commenting on self-promotion, he says- 'I have never blown my own trumpet and this is not right. Whatever we write, if there is something in it, it will speak for itself. The sun or the moon do not have to inform the world about their light and people breathe in their light. Kaur can deny this. Today James Hadley Chase writes the story of a Hindi film, and the film writers give their names and promote themselves.

In the days when Rajinder Krishan entered films, a film writer was nothing more than a clerk and he did not sit on a chair in front of the producer. Rajinder Krishan dared to break this tradition and he would sit with the producers and smoke cigarettes. He told them that - 'If they have money, we also have pens.' In the beginning, he started the tradition of storywriters sitting in hotels and writing stories. Ongoing to Madras, Rajinder Krishan would also stay in the hotel and suite in which the producer would arrange for the hero or heroine of the film to stay. This was a matter of prestige and this was regularly maintained.

There is a fundamental difference in the state of songs today as compared to the previous years. Rajinder Krishanji says about this, 'Today there is more noise in songs, there is more western influence and this noise does not give the words and emotions a chance to emerge. Today, after watching the film, one does not even remember the lyrics of the song. This has not happened with my films. Mostly a song from 'Block Master' 'Govinda aala re aala re' is sung by lakhs of people in Bombay every year on Janmashtami or the bhajan 'Badi der bhai Nandlala' from 'Khandaan' also became very popular. I believe that to write a film, it is more important to understand the rituals of folk life and the film-viewers only accept those who understand this.'

Apart from films, Rajinder Krishan prefers to be with good friends and in a family environment because he does not like factionalism in films. He is in favor of the steps taken by the government for reforms in films and says, 'If this is followed strictly, it will pave the way for the production of good social films.'

Playing races was Rajinder Krishna's passion and this passion coincidentally earned him 48 lakh rupees through a jackpot in '71 Rajinder Krishan suddenly became very popular in the whole country due to this sudden wealth. Thus, the three partners of this amount were his wife, his son, and Rajinder Krishan himself. Out of this amount, one lakh rupees was given to Mrs. Gandhi in the Prime Minister's Fund in the name of needy children and women. He also donated one lakh rupees to Baba Lal ji's throne of Dhyanpur and many small institutions were assisted ten thousand to five thousand rupees each. Taking advantage of this news, many people started sending personal letters asking for help. But he did not like to corrupt human nature by giving money to unknown hands. He says, 'More than half the amount has been spent. The government gets 'wealth tax' on the remaining amount and the government has to pay income tax on the interest received on this amount too.

Even then despite all these things, I do not consider it right to play race because maybe only when a person is lucky, he gets such things. Rajinder Krishan narrates a story about playing race... 'Racing was a thing for kings and emperors but a lot of people have come under the influence of this disease. When someone tells me about this, I tell him not to even go towards that ground. I had started it only for hobby and entertainment but now even this hobby of mine is coming to an end. Now I go to the race course only rarely. There is a very instructive story about how bad racing is - in Calcutta, a man worth one crore collided with a beggar. Threatening the beggar, the man said, 'Don't you see?' The beggar said, 'If I had seen, why would you have collided with me?' The millionaire started walking. The beggar blessed him that he should get into the habit of racing. The man got into the habit of racing and lost everything. A lesson can be learned from this.

Rajinder Krishan pays special attention to the spread of national and cultural sentiments in his songs. After Gandhi Ji died in 1948, he wrote a song like 'Suno-Suno Ae Duniya Walo Bapu Ki Ye Amar Kahani' which is sung and recited by millions of people every year on 30 January to pay tribute to Gandhiji.

The prestige and fame that Rajinder Krishan ji has earned in his long film career and the invaluable services he has given to the film industry will always be remembered.

 

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