I always wonder about Ranu Mukherjee. A prolific singer of the sixties and seventies, she sang in Hindi and Bangla but success eluded her.

She is the daughter of Music Director Hemanta Mukherjee and Bela Mukherjee. Bela Mukherjee herself a great singer left her singing career after marrying Hemanta. Hemanta Mukherjee gave music to this little known film of the seventies, ‘Bees Saal Pehley’ where he tried to launch his son Jayanta Mukherjee in an acting career. Jayanta Mukherjee is married to popular film actress Moushmi Chatterjee .

‘Bees Saal Pehley’ is known for its melodious song, ‘Kyu Hain Diwane Tu Akela’ sung by Ranu Mukherjee. The beautiful Padma Khanna does a scintillating dance number with this song. The actor playing the saxophone does a justice to his role.

This song is based on the original song in English, ‘Those were the days my friend’. Sung by Mary Hopkins, it was a regular number played repeatedly by Radio Ceylon during the sixties and seventies. I use to hear it on our GEC valve radio in Gwalior. A Sri Lankan group called ‘The Gypsies’ sang it in their own way.

Meena Chopra a well known artist and poet based in Canada writes about this number on Facebook, ‘Almost an everyday feature on Forces Request on All India Delhi B in seventies. Usha Uthup then Usha Iyer did a very good job with this’

A few years back I was sitting with my Polish colleague at his home, drinking rum when I suddenly broke out into this song. I was amazed and delighted to hear him singing it in Russian. 

This song originally was sung in Russian in the fifties and later sung by Mary Hopkins a Welsh folk singer in 1968, the music was of Paul McCartney. It reached number one hit in the UK singles chart and number 2 in US billboard hot hundred.

Sung in nearly every international language of the world, this song remains immortal, a part of a slice of our life predominantly as exciting as its memory.

‘In our heart, the dreams remain the same’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUs7Y11hCv8