Raj Kapoor’s Incredible friendship with Majrooh Sultanpuri gave us precious Treasures in Indian Cinema

Raj Kapoor’s Incredible friendship with Majrooh Sultanpuri gave us precious Treasures in Indian Cinema , says short filmmaker Priyanka Raina

Jyothi Venkatesh

“The cinema that was made by “Raj Kapoor” will always be special in History of Indian Cinema , and I wish we will see could those cinematic days in todays cinema “, sighs Priyanka Raina .And adds, “Being a Raj Kapoor fan , sharing a trivia about how it all started . As we all know that Raj Kapoor movies had incredible music, songs which melted our heart. And it all started whe a struggling lyrics writer Majrooh Sultanpuri came into the eye as he was trusted friend of JaddanbaiJaddanbai was Nargis Dutt “s Mom who use to accompany her to sets as Raj Kapoor and Nargis Dutt were shooting two movies at that time. One day when Jaddanbai could not go to sets , so she requested her assistant writer Majrooh Sultanpuri to go to shoot. The film then being made was Aag, which was produced and directed by Raj Kapoor.

Starting with poetic conversation on sets, soon Raj Kapoor asked him to pen a song on situation and Majrooh Sultanpuri wrote song “Raat ko ji chamke taare”. This song was recorded by composer Ram Ganguly in the voices of Mukesh and Shamshad Begum.Now Raj Kapoor loved the way Majrooh used to pen songs and soon he became the solo lyricist of Andaz which was produced and directed by Mehboob Khan, which was released in same year of Raj Kapoor’s Barsaat where he introduced another fresh pair of lyricist Hasrat Jaipuri and Shailendra.However Raj Kapoor was observing Majrooh Sultanpuri ‘s rapid progress as when he wrote poem against Jawaharlal Nehru at meeting orgaised for mill workers in Bombay where he clearly mentioned him as “Hitler”.

Majrooh was asked to apologize , and he refused to do so saying “Writer has no limitations” and he was jailed. In jail, when Raj Kapoor went to visit him and he asked, “So Mr. Writer , what is the song that you have been thinking about current situation?  Majrooh retaliated by writing “DUNIYA BANANEWALE KYA TERE MANN MEIN SAMAYI , KAAHE KO DUNIYA BANAAYI” which was then penned for Teeseri Kasam movie. The song meant “O creator of this world, what came into your mind? Why did you create this world.” . Raj Kapoor imediately paid him 1000 rupees for that song which was quite high that time as lyrics were generally paid only 150 Rupees.This song was sung by Mukesh and composed by Shankar Jaikishen.

In 1973, Raj Kapoor signed Majrooh Sultanpuri for his own production banner RK BANNER for his movie Dharam Karam which was directed by his son Randhir Kapoor, who made his debut with the film as a diretcor-actor. Majrooh then wrote the iconic legendary song Ek Din Ban Jaayega which became a huge classical song for years.This was how Raj Kapoor’s immense love for Music and Indian cinema , and we got some incredible songs to be loved forever. Majrooh Sultanpuri hence wrote almost all the songs for the RK Banner . Isnt that an Incredible love for cinema which would be remembered for years? Guess when we will get those days back where Love had no boundaries.?

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