Babul Mora Naihar Chhooto Jaye

Babul Mora Naihar Chhooto Jaye is a popular Hindustani classical music song (thumri) in Raag Bhairavi.

History

The song was written by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, the 19th-century Nawab of Awadh as a lament when he was exiled from his beloved Lucknow by the British Raj after the failed Rebellion of 1857, where he uses the metaphor of bidaai (bride's farewell) of a bride from her father's (babul) home to death, and his own banishment from his beloved Lucknow, to far away Calcutta, while he spent the rest of his years.^{[1] [2][3][4]}

It was also popularised by the legendary classical vocalist, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.

Bollywood version

The most remembered version of the song is by actor-singer Kundan Lal Saigal for the Hindi movie Street Singer (1938), live on camera, under the music direction of Rai Chand Boral, just as playback singing was becoming popular. ^[5][6]

Text

Translation: My father! I'm leaving home.
The four bearers lift my doli (palanquin) (here it can also mean the four coffin bearers). I'm leaving those who were my own.
Your courtyard is now like a mountain, and the threshold, a foreign country.
I leave your house, father, I am going to my beloved.

References