Ae meri topi palat ke aa
Posted on: May 29, 2013
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
This is one of my favourite songs from a film I like very much-Funtoosh-1956.
When this film was being advertised, there was quite a curiosity about the meaning of the word FANTOOSH. We had never heard this word- especially in the Non-Hindi belt- and no one knew what it meant. In those days, there was no Internet to find out. I was in college and we used to discuss about this word, advocating our guesses.
There was one Mr. Mahesh Raj, one of our lecturers, who had come from Lucknow. Some of us went to him and asked him the meaning of Fantoosh. He was also perplexed and said,’ sorry, I too don’t know, but I will find out and tell you.’ We waited and waited, but there was no word from him. Finally,one day he called us and told us FUNTOOSH means- A person who is carefree, fun loving and an optimist about the world. we did not ask him from where he got this meaning, but we were satisfied. After seeing the film, the meaning was confirmed.
Those days Dev Anand and his films were our weaknesses. Anything and everything that he did in the films was immediately copied in our colleges. you could see boys with a colourful jacket, a cap or a felt hat or Dev style of talking. Luckily his boneless walking was not imitated, for it was too obvious and girls would laugh loudly at that boy. However on the stage shows everything was done ditto !
About an year back or so, I was invited to a old film song programme in Mumbai. it was organised by the local cultural society of Borivali. One of my FACEBOOK friends, Ms. Yamini Prakash Kunder invited me as she was also one of the enthusiastic organisers. Now, Borivali is about 15 Kms away and the programme was in the evening, but still I went there and met Ms. Yamini ji personally for the first time.
It is such a pleasure to meet your Cyberworld/virtual world friends in person for the first time. You are full of suspense and surprise elements before meeting actually. But I was not disappointed and Yamini ji welcomed me, introduced to some people and ensured that I was seated comfortably.
So far I have met 3 people from Cyberworld and spoken to 5 people on phone.
Coming back to the song programme, it was organised in an amphitheatre of a big Garden. The seating arrangement was on semicircular chairs-on open grounds- slanting lawns, steps and wherever people found it convenient. About 400 people had come there. Contrary to my guess, lot many youngsters had also come. The programme was very good. Local singers were too good.
After a few songs, it was announced that a song from film PAYING GUEST- “Maana janaab ne pukara nahin” was the next song and the whole garden crowd responded with happy clapping, whistles and shouts of cheers. As the pre-song music started, an old man- may be around 75 years, white haired but very healthy, climbed on the stage, opened his shirt collar like Dev Anand and started dancing as the song proceeded. There was a loud response from the crowd, claps and whistles of encouragement. The scene can only be imagined. For the next 4-5 minutes the song and dance was being performed and , believe me,the audience was just swinging along with the song and the old man ! When the song finished, the entire garden audience gave a standing ovation to the old dancing man. Such is the magic of Dev Anand, even today !!!
FUNTOOSH was an early films of Navketan, when Dev Anand + Kishore Kumar was proving to be a killing combination. For the audience in Dev films, what mattered was not the story, cast or the acting part, rather they were concerned with the film’s songs and its Heroine. The Heroine of Funtoosh was SHEILA RAMANI.
Normally ,information about Hindi Heroines is available easily at many places, but some artistes are difficult to know about. Sheila Ramani was also one of those. Sheila was born in Hyderabad(Sind) on 2-3-1932 ,to very rich parents. Soon this Sindhi muslim family shifted to Shimla. In 1952, Sheila Ramani was chosen as Miss Shimla. Chetan Anand spotted her and brought her to Bombay. Her earliest films were Anandmath, Badnam, V.Shantaram’s Surang, Teen batti chaar raasta, Naukari, Meenar, Mangoo, Taxi Driver etc. She acted in 42 films, some C grade films at the fag end too. Her last film was Maa beta -1962.
Her maternal uncle, Shaikh Lateef was a producer in Pakistan. He called her and Sheila went to Pakistan to do a film Anokhee-1956.
She was the Heroine of the First Sindhi film-ABANA, in which the rising star Sadhana Shivdasani was her younger sister. At that time itself Sheila had predicted a bright future for Sadhana in films.
After 1960 it was rumoured that she went to Pakistan to get married, but the fact was that she had married Jall Cowsajee, a Parsee and stayed in Bombay, new York, Colombo and Australia for some time.
Today she stays in her ancestral home in MHOW-MP, has a son and she has kept her family away from filmdom.
Funtoosh was Directed by Chetan Anand. During the shooting, Chetan fell ill on and off, and this particular song ( Aye meri Topee) was directed by Vijay Anand. Amar jeet and Vijay Anand were anyway assistant Directors. Both became big directors in later years.
The screenplay was done by Chetan’s wife Uma Anand, and the story and dialogues were by Amar jeet.
Film Fantoosh was ‘inspired’ by the hollywood film ‘ Meet john doe’-1941. The scene of Dev Anand’s suicide attempt atop a tall building is a ditto copy from ‘ Meet John Doe”-41. The role of john Doe was done by Gary Cooper, who became famous as a Cowboy in later years.
This song, ‘Ae meri topee’ was composed by the young R D Burman, who was being groomed by his father S D Burman in those days.
The credis of this film were shown as Cartoons and this popular theme became quite common for comedy films. The credits of ‘ Chalti ka naam Gaadi’ was also like cartoons.
In the film Shikari-2000, Asrani plays a role who talks only in Film names. His own name in the film was Funtoosh.
The story of FUNTOOSH was-
Ramlal is an honest, jolly young journalist in a town. One day ,while he is on duty, Ramlal’s house gets burnt and his widowed mother and unwed sister are burnt alive. This shock makes Ramlal( Dev Anand) a mad man and he is kept in an asylum. After he is released from the asylum, Ramlal does not remember anything. Fed up with this unsafe world outside the asylum, he decides to commit suicide and climbs a tall building.
Seth Karodimal (K N Singh) saves him, promisses to give all pleasures of life to him in 10 days and then he will be allowed to die. Ramlal is brought to his house. Karodimal takes a life insurance policy of Rs One lakh on Ramlal’s name. In the next few days, while enjoying life, Ramlal, calling himself Funtoosh, falls in love with Nilu (Sheila Ramani), Karodimal’s daughter and now he does not want to die, where as Karodimal warns him that if he does not die himself, he will be killed( for his Life Insurance policy of one lakh.)
Next day, a newspaper vendor Raghu (Jagdish Raj-in his debut role), recognises Ramlal and slowly Ramlal remembers everything with Nilu’s help. He also realises the croockedness of Karodimal.
In the last attempt to kill Ramlal, Karodimal realises that Ramlal is alive and in grief and shock Karodimal becomes mad.
Ramlal and Nilu unite.
Song-Ae meri topi palat ke aa (Funtoosh)(1956) Singer-Kishore Kumar, Lyrics-Sahir Ludhianvi, MD-S D Burman
Lyrics
Ae meri topi palat ke aa
na apne funtoosh ko sata
ae meri dilbar idhar najar kar
na ja bichhad kar
na ja na ja
ae meri topi palat ke aa
na apne funtoosh ko sata
ae meri dilbar idhar najar kar
na ja bichhad kar
na ja na ja
ae meri topi palat ke aa
ae meri humjoli
tu bhi gair ki ho li
tu bhi de gayi dhakka
haha
auron ke sang ghoome
Ithalaye aur jhoome
dekhoon main bhaunchakka,
meri topi
meri topi,
meri topi
meri topi
ae mere dilbar idhar najar kar
na ja bichhad kar
na ja na ja
ae meri topi palat ke aa
na apne funtoosh ko sata
ae meri dilbar idhar najar kar
na ja bichhad kar
na ja na ja,
ae meri topi palat ke aa
dekhe jise akeli us’se kare athkheli
raah mein raas rachaaye
mota pet bajaaye
ganje sar ko chupaaye
chhede aur chhup jaaye,
meri topi
meri topi,
meri topi
meri topi
ae meri dilbar idhar najar kar
na ja bichhad kar
na ja na ja
ae meri topi palat ke aa
aa
na apne funtoosh ko sata
ae mere dilbar idhar najar kar
na ja bichhad kar
na ja na ja,
ae meri topi palat ke
6 Responses to "Ae meri topi palat ke aa"
May 29, 2013 at 9:57 pm
Ms.Yamini ji,who had invited me for that programme has written to me-
Yamini Kunder
A lovely article. Bhoole Bisre Geet or BBG as we fondly call it is not a local cultural society of Borivali. In fact it was started by Bal Krishn Birla an adrent Music lover from Bangalore. It is a page on FB. We are all part of that and we try to organise musical events under BBG to entertain people. What you witnessed that day was one such meet held for Senior Citizens. BBG has held programmes in various cities in India and abroad also. We have 1 lakh people following the page.
This is the link to the page
https://www.facebook.com/BhooleBisreGeet?fref=ts
Bhoole Bisre Geet
Mukesh, Rafi, Hemanth, Talat, Lata, Asha, Kishor and many more.
Page: 104,802 like this
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June 5, 2013 at 6:16 am
Love this song! I love the early songs and movies of Dev Anand and Funtoosh is one movie that I am yet to watch, but plan to do so one of these days. Watching Dev chase his hat reminds me of the day I had to chase the shopping cart in the parking lot of our grocery store, but I had no cute song to sing, nor did I look half as cute as Dev! Thanks, Atul and Arunkumarji for all the info!
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September 1, 2014 at 8:41 pm
When I was young, I remember borrowing a cassette from a friend of mine, and one one side it had the songs of Funtoosh, that was the first time I heard the songs and 2 songs I vividly remember from it, One is this song “Ae Meri Topi Palat Ke Aa” and the other.. “Dukhi Man Mere”. Amazing combination of Kishore da and Dev Anand (Gregory Peck of India). Now off to listen to the other songs of Funtoosh (1956).
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
May 29, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Arun ji
Thank you very much regarding the information about Sheila Ramani and If you are having information about the relationship between Bina Ramani(Delhi famous Socialite, who got involved in some court case)and Sheila Ramani, please give us that information too.
Thanks again
Prakash
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May 29, 2013 at 2:06 pm
Prakash ji,
Bina Ramani and Sheila Ramani were no way related. While Sheila was a Muslim,Bina was a Hindu.
Bina Ramani was Bina lalwani,before marriage.her family started BINATONE TV company on her name. She got married to Andy
(Anand) Ramani,an employee of Air India at New York. After she divorced him,she became quite active in the social circles of Delhi. She mixed with people like Chandra Swami,Adnan Khashoggi and Sultan of brunei. She started her many businesses,like garment ,Precious stones etc.
She then got married to a Canadian georges Mailhot
(or Hot Male ?) . She has access to his huge property.She runs several bars and nightspots. She was friendly with Romesh Sharma,a Dawood ibrahim associate,till he got arrested.
jessica lall was murdered in TAMRIND BAR,owned by Bina Ramani and her daughter malini Ramani.
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May 29, 2013 at 2:43 pm
Arun ji
Thank you very very much for so much of information and thank you for updating me.
Regards
Prakash
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