Kashmir, Bollywood posters & Chal Chal Re Naujawan

By: teawithrev

Kashmir and Bollywood film posters have a unique connection!  Ever since the entry of Cinema into Kashmir, spotting of posters, pasted on walls, Tongas, Lorries, buildings etc.  have been a routine affair for all those film goers born before the  division of the Sub-continent. The trend  continued even up to late eighties, but these posters disappeared and were dwarfed before the so-called poster-boys  of  a section of Kashmir’s `Naujawan’  (youth)  who got misguided so much so that  `Caravan’ of Bollywood pictures in Kashmir came to a grinding halt with the closure of cinema halls  in 1989 !  

 But in 2023 only, Kashmir’s  “Naujawan” has again begun to spot the same posters that used to dot every bazar of the valley and traced in many  leading newspapers published before  and after Independence of India.   Once upon a time, such huge banners and posters were put up on the streets of Kashmir and newspapers were full of advertisements highlighting films.  Kashmir Rechords, from its archives, is reproducing two of such posters of 1944 Hindi film—Chal Chal Re Naujawan! 

Origin of Hindi Film Posters

From July 7, 1896, the first day of screening films in India, film posters were used for the publicity of Lumiere’s films in Bombay. Till date, film posters have been the reflection of changing time, technology, techniques and array of ideas and designs of different decades. Starting from Raja Harishchandra, the first Indian film, to till today, the posters of Bollywood films have come a long way from broad visible brush strokes with a striking array of colours. And Kashmir is witness to all such developments in poster making! Even in the age of digital film promotion, these skilfully designed Bollywood film posters have not lost importance. The vintage film posters themselves reveal the entire story and picture line of the reel and the real life of the people.

Chal Chal Re Naujawan Film posters & storyline

Chal Chal Re Naujawan (1944) is an emotional-Romantic Musical Black and White Hindi Thriller. Written by Saadat Hassan Manto, the drama has been  crafted with excellence by Gyan Mukherjee. The Story revolves around the life of two friends Jaipal (played by Jagdish Sethi) and Prasad (played by Rafiq)- a kind man living with his family and their friendship gets torn of misunderstanding for Jaipal’s wife- Savitri (played by Motibai)- who is  framed in relationship with Prasad and Jaipal disowns her. However, years later, Jaipal’s daughter- Sumitra (played by Naseem Banu) falls in love with Arjun (played by Ashok Kumar),  Prasad’s son. And thus the fate plays its role !

Directed by Gyan Mukherjee and written by Sadat Hasan Manto, with Hardip as a Cinematographer, the shooting of this low-budget film was mainly completed in Filmistan Studio.  Based on 12 songs, the music was composed by Ghulam Haider with Lyrics by Pradeep.

Ashok Kumar, Naseem Banu, Jagdish Sethi, V.H. Desai, Motibai, Rafiq Ghaznavi and Navin Yagnik have played leading roles in this pre-Independence era picture.

This Bombay (Now Mumbai) -based studio was established in 1943-44 leasing the former premises of the Sharda studio. Launched by major breakaway group from Bombay Talkies led by their production controller Rai Bahadur Chunilal and producer Shashadhar Mukherjee, their first film was Gyan Mukherjee’s Chal Chal Re Naujawan. Following the hits Shaheed (1948), Shabnam (1949) and Samadhi (1950), Filmistan’s style arguably had the largest impact of any studio on later independent commercial filmmaking in Hindi. Other notable Filmistan cineastes are P.L. Santoshi, Nandlal Jaswantlal, Kishore Sahu and Ramesh Saigal.

Inclusion of “Chal Chal Re Naujawan” Song in School Books

The title song “Chal Chal Re Naujawan” Song   became very popular for being so inspirational and marching song. So much so that when the film was released in Delhi, the audience wanted the song to be shown again and were adamant on their request. Considering the popularity of the song, it was also included in the Hindi and Urdu schoolbooks of those times. Thus, it became the first ever-Hindi film song included in the schoolbooks.

The child star Suresh who actually sung this song was one rare case when a male child star became a successful hero in his adulthood. In 1950, he reportedly went to Pakistan and did two films there. He returned to India as he felt that he had no future there.