Bollywood music was alien to rural India until Lata Mangeshkar sang ‘Man dole’ in 1954
Bollywood owes the playback ‘nightingale’ Lata Mangeshkar the credit for bringing acceptability to Hindi film music across huge swaths of the rural population in India with her song, ‘Man Dole’, that she sang for the 1954 film, Nagin. This song brought Hindi film music an unprecedented popularity in the Indian hinterland, rivalled only by folk-music, winning over vast rural viewer-ship from the northern Indian planes, helping Bollywood to rake in huge earnings from their films, ever since.
The most versatile playback singer known to South Asia for nearly seven decades, Lata Mangeshkar, died at age 92, in a Mumbai hospital on February 6, 2022, due to COVID-19 related health complications. Successive generations of Hindi film actresses have lip-synced to playback songs sung by Lata in her great voice and perfect diction. Lata not only modulated her singing to suit the individual style of on-screen presentation by an actress, but also to the emotion required from the latter, depending on whether the song was a romantic one, or patriotic, or it dealt with a breaking relationship, etc. Writers felt proud when their lyrics were sung by the inimitable Lata, and top Bollywood music directors vied with each other to compose tunes based largely on Hindustani classical ragas for Lata to sing. No wonder, she recorded thousands of very popular songs and most Indians grew up listening to her songs. Numerous awards were presented to her over the years, including Bharat Ratna, India’s top civilian award, and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India’s highest award in the field of cinema.
Hindi movies, however, had little impact on the rural population in British-ruled India, because movie theatres existed then only in big cities. Therefore, film songs sung by even very accomplished singers of that era like K.L. Saigal, Noor Jahan and Suraiya were familiar to people in urban regions only. Even after India gained Independence in 1947, the apathy of its rural population, which was then about 80% of the total, towards Hindi film music continued for a few more years. It is not that the rural masses were not fond of music and dance, but it always had to be folk for two reasons: first, they were traditionally averse to any other form of music; and second, they had had no exposure whatsoever to film music which could appeal to them. Embroiled in poverty, with per capita income below Rs. 400 per year in 1951 (about 100 USD, if converted then) the village-folk in India didn’t afford paid entertainment, like movies. Even if one could spare about half a rupee, the price of a cinema ticket then, one had to travel to a large town to see the film. Radio had not yet arrived, and there was no electricity then, in villages.
Living in isolation due to lack of communication or travel facilities, the rural Indian population didn’t identify with the urban themes of even hit films released in Independent India before 1954, such as Mahal, Barsaat, Awara, Albela, Deedar, Aan, Baiju Bawra, Anarkali, popularity of which remained only among city-bred Indians, with hardly any impact in the countryside. Lata’s own first hit song ‘Ayega Aane wala’ from the film Mahal was popular only among urban audiences who could afford to watch movies or had access to radio-sets.
How did a single song ‘Man Dole’ by Lata conquer the hinterland? The song was from the film ‘Nagin’ released in March 1954, which became a huge hit, even though it had a very ordinary plot — an ongoing conflict between two tribes of snake-charmers. The main contributing factor to this film’s huge popularity was the catchy tunes of its thirteen songs, music for which was composed by Hemant Kumar. Top favourite among these songs was ‘Man Dole Mera Tan Dole’, sung by Lata, for which the snake charmer’s flute (Indian ‘been’) music was created by Kalyanji on the clavioline (forerunner of an analog synthesizer) and by Ravi on the harmonium, both of whom became very successful music directors in Bollywood, subsequently.
Popularity of the film ‘Nagin’ brought Hemant Kumar his only Filmfare Best Music Director Award. But a big measure of its success was that a large part of rural North India was converted from folk, the only music which they were exposed to till then, to Hindi film music by listening to the song ‘Man Dole Mera Tan Dole’. This song had a natural connect with villagers because for several generations, they had been used to the visits of snake-charmers to their villages, who would entertain them by inducing a cobra they carried to dance to the tunes of the ‘been’, played by the snake-charmers.
If one views the video of ‘Man Dole’ on YouTube, very captivating ‘been’ music plays first, as a prelude for about 80 seconds with the heroine swaying to its tune, before Lata’s golden voice takes over, and the video ends with the melodious ‘been’ playing again exclusively for its last 65 seconds, all of which is mesmerizing, even today.
Immense popularity of ‘Man Dole’ made it the perennial signature-tune of ‘been’-playing snake-charmers who continue to visit the countryside for their livelihood. The sight of a cobra standing alert to the Man Dole ‘been’ music played by snake-charmers lures crowds. On festivals like Dussehra, single-screen theatres in small towns still have re-runs of Nagin to cater to droves of farm-hands in festive mood, who descend on the town nearby to see the film, and its dance numbers by its heroine, Vyjayanthimala, and re-live the magic of Man Dole Mera Tan Dole, keeping the recall value of this song alive, in turn.
India is home to 50 species of venomous snakes. The Haffkine Institute in Mumbai, named after a Ukrainian bacteriologist, Dr. Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine, who developed vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague while working in India, houses India’s premier serpentarium where cobras, kraits, and Russell’s vipers are kept to extract venom and create anti-venins.
A co-operative of licenced snake catchers exists in Kancheepuram in South India, who catch snakes to extract their venom and sell it for a living. They belong to Irula tribe, and two of them, Masi Sadaiyan and Vadivel Gopal caught 12 Burmese pythons in Florida in 2017 when they were hired for two months by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the University of Florida for this job.
‘Man Dole’, the ‘Been’ song by Lata Mangeshkar, continues to provide an enduring source of livelihood to India’s thousands of snake charmers, who also catch snakes across its countryside.
