चौरंगी

A Calcutta Muslim social drama set against the tawaif (courtesan) quarter of the historic Chauranghee district — the storm that breaks over a courtesan family and its aftermath. The film is remembered far less for its melodrama than for being the sole Hindi-cinema venture of Bengal's great rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, who served here as both composer and lyricist.

The score was shared between Kazi Nazrul Islam and Hanuman Prasad Sharma, with lyrics drawn from a remarkable five-poet roster — Mirza Ghalib, Jigar Moradabadi, Arzoo Lakhnavi, Partau Lakhnavi and Nazrul himself. The most celebrated number is the Ghalib ghazal 'Koi Ummeed Bar Nahin Aati', set to music by Nazrul. The standard reference HFGK does not record individual singer credits for the film's thirteen songs.

Made in Calcutta during the war years, Chauranghee brought the world of Bengali letters into a Hindi/Urdu film: Nazrul, already a towering figure in Bengali song (Nazrul Geeti), composed in an idiom that fused his Bengali musical sensibility with the Urdu ghazal tradition supplied by Ghalib, Jigar and the Lakhnavi poets.

Chauranghee is historically notable as the only Hindi film associated with Kazi Nazrul Islam — the Rebel Poet and later National Poet of Bangladesh — who made his debut here simultaneously as music director and lyricist. It also marked the Hindi-film debut of composer Hanuman Prasad (Sharma), who would go on to discover the playback singer Geeta Roy (Dutt).

Though the film itself is largely lost to general memory, it survives in music history as a singular curiosity — the moment the Rebel Poet of Bengal stepped, just once, into Bombay-Calcutta film music, and the launchpad of Hanuman Prasad's composing career.