For centuries, Mankind had been baffled by the natural phenomena of lightning & thunder, occurring at the same time and lightning particularly proving destructive to objects and fatal to all living beings, if struck directly. Even the great poet Ghalib wrote :
“ Ujala toh hua kuchh der ko sehn-e-gulistan mein
Balaa se bijliyon ne phoonk dala aashiyan mera ….”
However it was Benjamin Franklin , who by a kite flying experiment proved that the lightning was nothing but electricity produced by coming close of two clouds carrying opposite charge, viz. negative and positive. Even today, lightning kills thousands of persons world wide every year , as there is no escape from it outdoors.
The other day while watching a video clip of a Lata-Rafi duet - Ku hu ku hu boley koyaliya - from the Bollywood movie Suvarna Sundari , it amused me no end to see that the lyricist has made a beautiful use of this phenomenon in this song. :
“ Kahe Ghata mein bijuri chamkey
Kahe Ghata mein bijuri chamkey”
And the probable answer ;
Ho sakta hai , meghraj ne baadriya ka shyam shyam mukh choom liya ho …..
-so near to the scientific explanation and yet so romantic !
Also there is great thing about this song - all four stanzas have different raga... so one song has four ragas. Sohni (Hamsanandi), Bahar (Kanada), Juanpuri (Juanpuri) and Yaman (Yamuna Kalyani).
ReplyDeleteThanks , Bharti ji , for enlightening me on this very aspect. In fact , apart from the beautiful lyrics , it is the semi-classic tenor of the song that first enamoured me.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteI do not have much sense of music but I definitely feel romantic when I hear the soft lyrics of old Hindi classics and Ghazals. It caresses my soul .
The use of 'bijuria' is indeed very apt with ghata.
.
You found it again from nowhere.
ReplyDeleteVERY NICE POST.
ReplyDeleteGOOD MIXTURE OF INFORMATION AND MUSIC.