A few interesting facts behind Geeta Dutt’s swan song – ‘Meri Jaan Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho’ of ‘Anubhav’

With rain in the backdrop, when Gulzar’s words rained heavily into the minds of music lovers in Geeta Dutt’s silky and romantic voice, ‘Meri Jaan Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho’ what else do we need? This evergreen song featuring Sanjeev Kumar and Tanuja was not composed by Bollywood great composers, but by one less-known composer Kanu Roy, who has played a few character roles on screen since 1943. Read more about Kanu Roy.

A screenshot from the classic ‘Meri Jaan Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho’ starring Sanjeev Kumar and Tanuja

This evergreen song is also remembered as one of the last recordings of singer Geeta Dutt, who was going through a rough phase in her personal life following the death of her husband Guru Dutt. Kanu Roy recorded two more songs in Geeta Dutt’s voice for Anubhav – Koi Chupke Se Aake and Mera Dil Jo Mera Hota, both songs filmed on Tanuja are just amazing. Ironically she passed away six months later. Interestingly she had took a hiatus in the late 1960s and Anubhav marked her comeback, but for once and last time.

Geeta Dutt’s swan song was recorded using one musical instrument

Meri Jaan Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho – the final song was recorded by Kanu Roy using a single musical instrument, Vibrophone with the backdrop of rain. Basu Bhattacharya is known for directing films with tight budget. He gave only rupees 1000 for the recording of all songs of Anubhav. So Kanu Roy used only 4 instruments for the whole recordings of 5 songs – Vibrophone, Tabla, Flute and Taar Shehnai. Though Kanu Roy wanted to add more musical instruments for its recording, financial constraints never allowed him to do so. He was not in a status to add money from his pocket too!

To record the soft romantic track, Meri Jaan Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho he felt that vibrophone could be the best choice and it proved right too. Vibrophone for the recordings was played by Jazz drummer legend Kavus Lord’s son and musician Kersi Lord’s brother Burjer ‘Baji’ Lord. When many called his recording of Meri Jaan Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho as a successful and wonderful experiment, Kanu Roy recalls it as ‘the only option available then’. He really wanted to use santoor and a few more instruments. Same thing happened with Kanu Roy’s recordings for other Basu films, and he used to quarrel with the director to add more artists for orchestra. Gulzar who penned its lyrics too was a newcomer to the industry. Basu included Gulzar and Kanu in this project because he couldn’t afford big names, and it proved worth!  

Kanu Roy

Though the songs of Anubhav are known to be timeless, this extremely talented composer never got opportunities from other directors except Basu Bhattacharya. He composed songs for Basu Battacharya’s introspective trilogy on marital discord in an urban setting, ‘Anubhav’, ‘Avishkar’ and ‘Griha Pravesh’ in the 1970s. He was introvert, unmarried, lived a lonely life and died of poverty in a flat at Mumbai.

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