राज लक्ष्मी

Raj Laxmi is a Hindi feature produced in Calcutta by M.P. Productions and written and directed by Premendra Mitra — the Bengali poet, short-story writer and film-maker, who appears on several song listings under the abbreviated credit 'P. Mitra'. What the record preserves of this film is its personnel and its song catalogue rather than its story. No plot summary appears in any of the reference listings traced for this entry: HindiGeetMala, MySwar and Indiancine.ma each carry the credits and the song list but none carries a synopsis. Rather than reconstruct a story from the title, this entry sets down only what is actually documented.

Kanan Devi heads the cast. By 1945 she was the most established singing star of the Calcutta studios — she had left her New Theatres contract in 1941 to freelance — and M.P. Productions was a banner she returned to repeatedly. Songs of Yore names Jahar and Kanan Devi as the film's principal actors; Chhabi Biswas, Iftekhar, Poornima, Natwar, Tandon and Rai Mohan complete the credited cast.

The film's durable claim on Hindi film history belongs to a young ghazal singer from Lucknow. Talat Mahmood appears in Raj Laxmi both on screen and on the soundtrack; MySwar records it as his first film as actor as well as singer, and Songs of Yore calls it 'probably the first Hindi film in which Talat Mahmood acted as a singing star'.

The score is by the pair Dhiren Mitra and Robin Chatterjee, with all lyrics by Suresh Chaudhari. Eight songs are documented: four sung by Kanan Devi, two by Talat Mahmood, one by Poornima, and one for which no source names a singer.

Eight songs are documented, all written by Suresh Chaudhari and composed by the pair Dhiren Mitra and Robin Chatterjee. HFGK (Hamraaz, record 1344) is the one source that splits the two composers track by track: Robin Chatterjee takes 'Jaago Musafir Jaago', 'Aaj Kehna Ek Kahani' and 'Panghat Pe Aile Sanwariya', and Dhiren Mitra takes 'Ab Chand Na Sharmaye', 'Main Sharmayi Kyun Sharmayi', 'Kab Aiho Re Sajan Videsiya' and 'O Kali Matwali'. That split is followed here. HindiGeetMala and MySwar print the pair against every side, and HFGK's list runs to seven songs where this catalogue holds eight, so 'Tu Sun Le Matwale' keeps both names. Note that Talat Mahmood's debut side is therefore Robin Chatterjee's, not Dhiren Mitra's. The album divides along its two voices: Kanan Devi takes four sides, Talat Mahmood two, Poornima one, and one side ('Panghat Pe Aile Sanwariya') is listed by both sources with no singer at all. Five of the eight were found circulating as 78-rpm transfers when this entry was compiled; the other three were not traced beyond the catalogue listings.

Raj Laxmi is the film in which Talat Mahmood makes his entry into Hindi cinema — appearing on screen as well as on the soundtrack, five years before the playback career that would make him one of the defining male voices of the 1950s. It is also a document of the Calcutta Hindi-film industry at its mid-1940s height, with Kanan Devi at the centre of it.

The film itself is not known to circulate, and its story has left no trace in the reference literature. What survives is the music, and within the music one song: 'Jaago Musafir Jaago', Talat Mahmood's first Hindi film recording, which HMV included in a cassette collection in the 1980s and which remains the reason the title Raj Laxmi is looked up at all.