WHEN THE FANS LIFTED THE TAXI IN MOSCOW IN WHICH RAJ KAPOOR WAS SEATED SINGING HUM TUJHSE MOHABBAT KARKE SANAM

Jyothi Venkatesh

Remember the song ‘Hum Tujhse Mohabbat Karke Sanam’ from Raj Kapoor’s film “Awaara” that was released in 1951? Both Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri, RK’s home-grown song writers, wrote the film’s lyrics and Shankar-Jaikishan composed the music.The sad news from the RK citadel about the passing away of Rishi Kapoor, son of Raj Kapoor, that came recently was preceded by one that came last year about the sale of RK Studios. It is quite inconceivable that the various siblings of Raj Kapoor would deem it fit to sell the studios because the family was “finding the cost of maintaining the iconic studio to be too high”. Can you believe this?

Nothing would have devastated Raj Kapoor more. Even the severe financial stress caused after the failure of his most ambitious film “Mera Naam Joker” would not have caused Raj to contemplate about giving up his iconic studios. With its sale, Raj Kapoor’s last surviving memorial has been laid to rest.Indian intellectual thought in the ‘40s was heavily inspired by Soviet socialist ideology and this seeped through into our literature and cinema. The Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) attracted leftists like Balraj Sahni, Kaifi Azmi and Sardar Jafri and of course writers like KA Abbas and these story tellers borrowed themes from classic Soviet literature and ideas.

Naturally such stories centred on class struggles and social disparity, and, hungry producers lacking in originality, lapped these stories up very quickly. For several years after our independence in 1947, an assembly line of films came in quick succession marketing the core idea of a class struggle between the rich and the poor, differentiated only by the weaving of that idea into stories of individual men and women in an appropriate urban or rural setting for the sake of variety.

“Awaara”, a film whose story, screenplay and dialogues were written by KA Abbas, made an early appearance with such a story idea and, like an early bird catching a lot of worms, caught the imagination of the public. Indians love rags to riches tales. And the other way around also works, at times. So long as the riches to rags, stays rich and does not re-metamorphose into rags! That would be such a waste of time and money. So, most film makers were careful not to venture there.

Back in the 60s while Raj Kapoor was in London discussing “Mera Naam Joker” with some people, he realised that he had to go to Russia to meet a circus troupe that was to be a part of the film. Raj landed in Moscow thinking he had a visa. He did not have one. But that did not stop the Soviet Immigration Authority from welcoming him. And since his was a sudden and surprise visit, the usual welcome committee was also absent. So as Raj was waiting for the taxi, people started recognising him and, soon his taxi arrived and Raj got into it. But Raj Kapoor noticed that the taxi, instead of moving forward was going up. The crowd had lifted the taxi on their shoulders! That is stardom for you.

“Awaara” may not have been an epic in the eyes of some critics or even be known as the best film made by Raj Kapoor. But it is his most worldwide popular film and certainly the film that went a long way to establish Raj, aka ‘Raju’ in several of his movies, as the universal tramp, in the eyes of his millions of fans all over the world. In the Soviet Union, “Awaara” was dubbed in Russian and released as ‘Brodiaga’ (The Vagabond), in 1954 and in the first 4 days 4 million people had watched it which, by the end of that year, stood at 64 million. But it was not the former Soviet Union alone that idolised Raj. He became extremely popular in the Arab World. In Turkey, “Awaara” was remade 8 times. The song ‘Awaara Hoon’ is synonymous with Raj Kapoor and, even today, its popularity reverberates across most parts of Asia, Turkey and Russia and other countries that split from the Soviet Union.

In 2003, Time magazine included “Awaara” in a list of "10 Indian Films to Treasure" and also chose Raj Kapoor's performance in the film as one of the top ten greatest performances of all time. And the magazine went on, in 2012, to include “Awaara” in the “All-Time 100 Greatest Films”.“Awaara’ is a milestone film in several ways. Made in 1951, the film’s musical success became a trendsetter and a model to be followed by several other composers. The film’s theme music that wafts through in the film as background music, got reused or converted by SJ themselves into other avatars in their own compositions in movies like “Shree 420” and “Mera Naam Joker”. Raj also got Laxmikant-Pyarelal, the music directors of “Bobby”, to dip into the SJ tunes in quite a few songs in that film.

“Awaara’s soundtrack and songs remain etched in the greatest ever list. “Awaara along with “Barsaat” became the template and yardstick for musical excellence. Other music directors came to be judged and evaluated by whether they could be expected to do a ‘SJ”. For many other film music composers of the Golden Era of the 60s, films like “Awaara” became models in the use of instrumentation and orchestration in film playback.All the ten songs in the film are outstanding. Shailendra wrote six of the songs and Hasrat wrote the rest four. Who can forget Lata’s ‘Ghar Aaya Mera Pardesi, or’ Jab Se Balam Ghar Aaye’ or the classy ‘Ab Raat Guzarnewali Hai’. And the movie had one of the greatest ever duets in “Dum Bhar Jo Udhar Munh Phere’ in the voices of Mukesh and Lata. But our choice today is the melancholic ghazal from Hasrat’s pen, in the resonant voice of Mukesh- ‘Hum Tujhse Mohabbat Karke Sanam’.