Zindagi hai pyaar se pyaar mein bitaaye jaa
Posted on: September 13, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
In my school days, I had read about many heroic events of Indian history like Maharana Pratap viz. Emperor Akbar, Shivaji vs Aurangzeb, Rani Laxmibai vs. British East India Company etc. All the opponents were villains to me and I hated them for their wrong doings.
However, there was one more heroic event in the history of India which happened in C.325 BC where I did not hate the opponent. That was King Porus vs. Alexander the Great. While King Porus and his troops fought bravely to stop the advancing troops of Alexander, the sheer numbers of Alexander’s army overwhelmed King Porus’s troops and he was defeated. He was captured and brought before Alexander. Then there was a famous dialogue between them in which Alexander asked King Porus as to how he wished to be treated. “ Treat me as one king treats another king” was the reply from King Porus. Alexander was so much impressed with King Porus’s repartee that he not only released him, he gave him back his kingdom. This dialogue of King Porus impressed me immensely in my school days and I felt that here was a king who held his head high even in adverse circumstances. And Alexander was no longer an unlikeable character for me.
A couple of months back, I watched the full movie ‘Sikander’(1941) produced under the banner of Minerva Movietone. The star cast included Prithviraj Kapoor, Vanmala, Sohrab Modi, Sheela, Meena Shorey, K N Singh, Zahur Raja etc. The film was so absorbing that I watched this film in one sitting which I rarely do. There was not a single moment of boredom. Some melodramatic scenes were kept short to focus on the main theme of the film. The sets were impressive. The shootings of battle scenes were mind blowing. Some of the dialogues between Prithviraj Kapoor (Sikandar) and Soharab Modi (King Porus) were very catchy. I would highly recommend this movie to those who have not yet seen it to watch the re-mastered copy of this film available on YT.
In our history books, I had read that a section of Alexander’s army deserted him before the mutiny of his army took place, fearing that they may have to face still tougher opposition from the kingdoms of Nanda and Magadh in the east. These deserters are supposed to have run away along Hyphasis river (presently called Beas river) and settled in the remotest places in the present Himachal Pradesh to avoid detection by Alexander’s army.
In June 1986, I got an opportunity to join the trek to Chandrakani Pass located in Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh (HP). In our trekking path, we passed through Malana, one of the remotest villages in HP which we reached trekking about 70kms ( even from the last road head, it was still 45 kms of trek) after 5 days from the start ofthe trek. One can imagine how remote this place would be about 2000 years back. We spent two days at the outskirt (one km away) of this village.
Malana is an unique village. The people of Malana claim Greek ancestry who came with the army of Alexender the Great. After deserting the army, they are said to have settled in this remote village of Malana which is situated at an altitude of 3050m (about 10000 feet ) above sea level to avoid detection. For centuries, they lived in isolation. Looking at the features of some of the villagers – such as pinkish fair complexion, high cheek bones, prominent nose, blue/grey eyes etc, I think the story about the Greek ancestry seems to fit well. Our guide from this village was one of them. I had first mistaken him to be a foreigner. The villagers speak a dialect which has no similarity with any of the languages spoken in HP. However, it has some Sanskrit words. They do not encourage learning of their dialect by outsiders.
There were two other so called evidences to strengthen the argument in favour of their Greek ancestry. First, some of the very old wooden houses had carvings depicting the war scenes of Alexander’s army. Second, in India, we have Gram Panchayats(Village Councils) in all villages. But Malana did not have one. Instead it had two institutions set up on the lines of ancient Greek city-state participatory democracy. The village has two councils to take both the executive and judicial decisions – the Kanishtha (Lower House) and Jeyshtha (Upper House). The judicial decisions are taken summarily and Jamlu Devta (short for Jamadagni, the local deity) is the final authority on them. I must add here a caveat that while anthropologists have been conducting studies of the claims of the villagers as descendants of Alexander’s army, they have yet to reach that conclusion.
The Malana villagers believe that outsiders are impure and therefore they are required to walk in the village on a prescribed path without touching walls, temples, houses and the local people. In short, outsiders are untouchable to villagers. Failure to adhere to the rules could result in a fine equivalent of the price of one goat which at that time was around Rs.1000/-. This is the main reason that outside visitors stay on the outskirt of the village. However, villagers are very friendly with visitors. We had no problem during our visit to the village so long as we adhered to their rules.
In the recent period, many foreigners have started visiting Malana village. While a few may be visiting to make anthropological studies, a majority of them visit this village for a different reason. Malana is the producer of world’s highest quality hashish known as ‘Malana Cream’. About four years back a devastating fire destroyed about 90 per cent of the houses including Jamlu Devta temple and with this, one of the so called evidences of villagers’ Greek ancestry has been lost forever.
I thought that I should share with the readers of this blog my interesting experience on the visit to this village 26 years ago.
Coming back to the song, I have chosen for discussion, the most popular song of the film SIKANDAR (1941) of that time which the old timers still remember even today. The song is ‘zindagi hai pyaar se pyaar mein bitaaye jaa’ written by Pandit Sudarshan and set to music by Rafique Ghaznavi/Meer Saheb. There are two versions of the song with different lyrics. The first version is picturised on Sikandar’s army marching towards King Porus kingdom. This version of the song is stated to be sung by Khan Mastana and chorus. But I find that the four stanzas of the song are lip synced on the screen by four different actors and they are sung by different voices. On the basis of the comparison of other songs sung by Khan Mastana, my guess is that the first stanza may have been sung by him and other three by some unknown singers, probably the actors themselves. The other possibility is that Khan Mastana may have modulated his voice to sing for different actors in this song. For the time being I have assumed that the first stanza is sung by Khan Mastana and other three stanzas sung by unknown male singers.
The second version of the song is picturised when Sikandar and his army are retreating towards their homeland and in fact the ending of the song is the end of the film. Here again, the song is stated to be sung by Sheela and chorus. But I find that three stanzas of the song are sung on the screen by three different female actors namely Vanmala, Meena Shorey and Sheela. But I do not find much variation in voices. So I guess that Sheela gave playback for Vanmala, Meena Shorey and for herself.
Both the versions of the songs are inspirational and philosophical. Though the song is 70 years old, it still retains its freshness.
The uploader of the video clip (Tommydan) has given credit to two of our regulars on this blog, namely Raja and Ava Suri for English sub-titles. In fact they have done English subtitles for the full movie. Kudos to them.
Video (Version-1)
Video (Version-2)
song-Zindagi hai pyaar se pyaar mein bitaaye jaa (Sikandar)(1941) Singers-Khan Mastana, Sheela, unknown male singer 1,unknown male singer 2, unknown male singer 3,Lyrics-Pt Sudarshan, MD-Rafiq Ghaznavi
Chorus
Lyrics
——————————————
Version-1 (Sikandar’s army marching song)
——————————————
zindagi hai pyaar se
pyaar mein bitaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
pyaar main bitaaye jaa
husn ke huzoor mein
apnaa dil lutaaye jaa
husn ke huzoor mein
apnaa dil lutaaye jaa
apnaa sar jhukaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
zindagi hai ek raat
pyaar us mein hai chiraag
zindagi hai ek raat
pyaar us mein hai chiraag
ye chiraag jitni der
jal sakey jalaaye jaa
ye chiraag jitni der
jal sakey jalaaye jaa
roshni lutaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
pyaar mein bitaaye jaa
husn ke huzoor mein
apnaa dil lutaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
zindagi hai ek baag
pyaar us mein hai bahaar
zindagi hai ek baag
pyaar us mein hai bahaar
us mein aankh kaa khumaar
daal kar milaaye jaa
us mein aankh kaa khumaar
daal kar milaaye jaa
shauq se pilaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
pyaar mein bitaaye jaa
husn ke huzoor mein
apnaa dil lutaaye jaa
apnaa sar jhukaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
zindagi hai ek juaa
door se dekhtaa hai kyaa
aage badhh kar apni jaan
daanw par lagaaye jaa
aage badhh kar apni jaan
daanw par lagaaye jaa
hanske maat khaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
pyaar mein bitaaye jaa
husn ke huzoor mein
apnaa dil lutaaye jaa
apnaa sar jhukaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
zindagi junoon hai
junoon se nibhaaye jaa
zindagi junoon hai
junoon se nibhaaye jaa
tu apne azm ko
khudaa-e-zindagi banaaye jaa
tu apne azm ko
khudaa-e-zindagi banaaye jaa
aasmaan pe chhaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
pyaar mein bitaaye jaa
husn ke huzoor mein
apnaa dil lutaaye jaa
apnaa sar jhukaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
——————————————
Version-2 (Sikandar’s army retreating song)
——————————————
zindagi hai pyaar se
pyaar mein bitaaye jaa
husn ke huzoor mein
apnaa dil lutaaye jaa
apnaa sar jhukaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
husn hai shabaab hai
waqt laajawaab hai
husn hai shabaab hai
waqt laajawaab hai
main bhi chehchahaa uthoon
tu bhi chehachahaaye jaa
main bhi chehachahaa uthoon
tub hi chehachachaaye jaa
sur mein sur milaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
pyaar mein bitaaye jaa
husn ke huzoor mein
apnaa dil lutaaye jaa
apnaa sar jhukaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
zindagi hai ek raat
raat ka andhera saath
zindagi hai ek raat
raat ka andhera saath
chaand pankhi udte aaj
chaandni khilaaye jaa
chaand pankhi udte aaj
chaandni khilaaye jaa
som ras pilaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
pyaar mein bittaye jaa
husn ke huzoor pe
apnaa dil lutaaye jaa
apnaa sar jhukaaye jaa
zindagi hai pyaar se
bhool ho gayi to kyaa
kal jo huwaa ho chukaa
bhool ho gayi to kyaa
kal jo huwaa ho chukaa
ant bhala so bhalaa
aaj geet gaaye jaa
ant bhala so bhalaa
aaj geet gaaye jaa
bansuri bajaaye jaa
12 Responses to "Zindagi hai pyaar se pyaar mein bitaaye jaa"
September 13, 2012 at 10:49 am
Sadanandji,
Thanks for posting this song. I have not seen this movie, but have heard so many things from my father about this movie, every time, repeating one line, “if you want to know about the body & muscle, just look at PK in Sikandar”. Now, that you have mentioned about this movie on YT, I would definitely inform my father and would watch it myself.
I read your adventurous trekking experience more interestingly than the info about Sikandar. It is a very informative article about Malana people and the Greek ancestry. Hope you will share more about your past trekking experiences with us.
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September 13, 2012 at 2:47 pm
The description of Malana village is quite fascinating. From the details, it is almost certain that the inhabitants of Malana are from Greek ancestry. But I do not think that they may have been totally isolated from the other villages of the region. Did Greek Army bring women too alongwith them when they arrived to India. Unless that was the case and the Greek Army members who deserted Alexander took a few Greek women (if any) with them too, these armymen would have needed women at Malana. For that they would definitely need to have marriage alliances with villages of near vicinity. Are any details available about how these Malana Greeks survived for more than two thousand years ?
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September 13, 2012 at 4:30 pm
In Malana there are more people with brown complexion than the
fair complexion. Apparently, they were not totally isolated and must have married the local women. I had read somewhere that the DNA tests conducted on some of the inhabitants of this village show that they belong to Indo-Aryan race.
The isolation was from the point of view of hiding from Alexander’s army for whom the detection of the deserters would have been very difficult due to remoteness of the place. Even in 1986, it was quite a difficult task to reach the place. So 2000 years ago the place would have been far more difficult to reach. Another thing that points to isolation of Malana village is that the spoken language is quite different than those of the nearby villages. Most of them neither spoke in Hindi not understood Hindi when we spoke to them in 1986. The nearest villages to Malana as of today is Kasol (about 25 kms) and Rashol (about 16 kms) on the south-east and Rumsu ( about 17kms) after crossing Chandrakani Pass (12000ft) which is snowbound from December to June.
As I said, anthropologists have not yet come to the conclusion that the inhabitants of Malana village are of Greek ancestry. There may be some reports of Anthropologists who have done the study of the evolution of the unique culture of Malana villagers which I am not aware of.
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September 14, 2012 at 12:14 am
Your article made very interesting and informative read. In a huge land mass full of forests and mountains ranges, it is possible for such pickets of ancient culture and ancestry to survive.
It is a wonder, none of the local kingdoms ever tried to take over and rule the place, i mean Malana.
I am reminded of the discovery of machu pichchu, the ancient civilization founds in the forests of ‘Peru’ . True i have seen it only in a hindi film song (with Aishwarya).
I have seen ‘Sikandar’ on T. V. during the Bombay Doordarshan days, when they had a festival of Sohrab Modi’s films. I dont remember much except that ‘Prithvi Raj Kapoor looked a lot like Shashi Kapoor.
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September 14, 2012 at 6:08 am
Sadanad Ji,
Your account of visit to malan village made an absorbing reading. We( I ) visit many a place of importance. We capture the details for that moment or for a few days may be. Thereafter we forget the smaller details. That you can narrate with all small details,after 26 years, is something I immensely admire. Thanks for the post
K S Shenoy
Bangalore
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May 7, 2016 at 11:35 am
This song,on record No.N 25806, is listed in HFGK, but the singers’ names are not mentioned. It just says ‘Samooh Geet’ ( chorus song).
The latest book in Hindi, published in January 2016,written by Film Journalist shri Javed Hameed, has given names of singers in this song.
Javed ji has few books in Urdu on his name already, which give lot of information on old films and related matters. This is his First book in Hindi.
I have received a Gift copy of this book.
According to him the details are as follows-
First Antara…” Zindagi hai ek raat, pyar usmein hai chirag” is sung by Paresh Banerjee
Second Antara…”Zindagi hai ek baagh, pyar usmein hai bahaar”is sung by Rafiq Gaznavi
Third Antara… “Zindagi hai ek juaa, ddor se dekhta hai kya”is sung by Khan Mastana
Fourth Antara…”Zindagi hai en junoon, junoon se nibhaya jaa”is sung by Rafiq Gaznavi and the
Fifth Antara… ‘Husn hai shabab hai, waqt lajawaab hai ” is sung by Singer actress Sheela.
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May 13, 2021 at 3:29 pm
Saw this movie for the first time today.
As Nahmji has said in the comments above, I may have also seen it back then when Bombay Doordarshan had telecast it on one of its weekend evening slots, but I don’t remember
Interesting to note that Prithiviraj Kapoor had a good physique and none of his sons actually matched him.
I would like to rewrite this comment of Nahmji:- ‘Prithvi Raj Kapoor looked a lot like Shashi Kapoor.’
It should be ‘Shashi Kapoor looked a lot like his father Prithviraj Kapoor’. As the hindi saying goes:- bilkul baap pe gaya hai. 😉
Thank you Sadanandji for the account about the visit to village Malana
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
September 13, 2012 at 9:54 am
Kamath ji,
You have written a wonderful account of your visit to Malana.It made a very interesting and informative reading.Of course you have a good narration style as well,which binds the reader till the end.Thanks.
In this song,Rafiq Gaznavi has also given his voice.He was a good singer and has sung many melodious songs in several films.
-AD
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September 13, 2012 at 4:52 pm
As per info found in old LB,the 3rd male voice is that of RAMANAND.
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September 13, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Thanks for this information.
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September 13, 2012 at 5:16 pm
You are right.about Rafique Ghaznavi. It should have occurred to me that of the three unknown male singers, one of them could have been Rafique Ghaznavi.
Now that you have also got the name of second male singer, only one male singer needs to be identified.
Thanks very much for your efforts.
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