प्रेसिडेंट (1937): सैगल और एक बँगले का सपना

New Theatres' President (1937) — a mill drama directed by Nitin Bose and led by K.L. Saigal, whose song 'Ek Bangla Bane Nyara' became an enduring anthem of the dream of one's own home.

By 1937 Kundan Lal Saigal had become the first superstar of the Indian screen. The 1935 Devdas had made him a household name, and the New Theatres studio of Calcutta was shaping an era around his voice. President, directed by Nitin Bose, belonged to that run — a story set among a cotton mill, its owner and its workers, with Saigal in the lead. New Theatres also made a Bengali version, titled Didi.

Of all the film's tunes, one outran its own time — 'Ek Bangla Bane Nyara'. Sung by Saigal to R.C. Boral's music and Kidar Sharma's words, it gave voice to the dream of one's own house. The lyrics gathered up the longing of the ordinary man — a home of his own, and like no other. That longing would mark every generation from the 1930s onward.

The song was an instant hit, but its true power lay in its reach. The word 'bangla', a Bengal-style house from which English drew 'bungalow', became through this song a shared dream. Decades later directors such as Raj Khosla wove it into their films as a metaphor for family and home. A song from a mill drama thus turned into India's enduring refrain of the dream of a house.