geetaduttfans

The love story of Heer and Ranjha must have been attracting the film makers over and over again. A quick glance on IMDB shows that it must have been made at least ten times by now. There was a film made in the year 1948 starring Ghulam Mohammed and Mumtaz Shanti. Composer duo Khayyam and Reheman Verma gave the music for this film under the name of Sharmaji-Vermaji. Geeta Roy had made her debut on the playback scene in the year 1946 and had risen to the top spot with the success of her songs in the film Do Bhai (1947). She was the natural choice of the lead singer for this film and sang as many as six songs for this film. One wonders how this 17-18 year old girl from East Bengal was singing Punjabi songs with such a great fluency. (The fact not known to many is that she did not know any language other than her mother tongue Bengali till as late as 1949, when she mastered Hindi and Urdu.)

Here is a song that will bring back the fragrance of the land of Punjab. Here is an interesting and nice appreciative comment from our friend “Vipin ji” about this lovely song sung by Geeta Dutt (nee Roy):

I never thought I would say this,but Geeta Dutt’s Punjabi accent sounds more firmly rooted in Punjabi soil than that of the other non-Punjabi vocalists– as great as the rest are. I love them all, but this Bengali lady’s Punjabi is so native it’s a killer! She could truly give native Punjabi singers a run for their money. What a joy to listen to her!! The rhythm and fast tempo of this song are of course quintessential features of celebratory Punjabi folk songs. Geeta Dutt’s voice was well suited to such songs. To borrow a sports metaphor,she shot this one out of the ball park– a home run in music.