This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
Blog Day :
5143
Post No. :
17105
Today’s song is from a ‘C’ grade stunt film Al Hilal aka The judgement of Allah- 1958.
Those readers who keep a track of old films may remember that way back in 1935, Sagar Movietone had produced a film of the same name Al Hilal. It was the first film of Mehboob Khan as a Director and the film had Kumar and Sitara Devi as the lead pair. That film was quite successful and even Baburao Patel of Film India magazine had praised not only the film but also hailed Mehboob Khan as a Diamond for Future.
Compared to the banner, the director or even the lead pair of the Sagar film, this Al Hilal of 1958 was absolutely nowhere. In the 40’s and the 50’s C grade action/stunt films were not even seen by educated audiences. The film magazines and newspapers never took notice of such ” Maar dhad ” films. These films were always shown in the dilapidated old theatres situated in labour class bastis. The audience of such stunt films used to be from lower strata of society, the daily bread earners and the low level workers. But then, this film Al Hilal-1958 produced something that amazed the whole film world !
Before I tell you more about this film, I will tell you one small story.When I was studying in school in Hyderabad, I had a classmate by the name Ramanlal Jain. he was very poor in studies and always used to be the centre of criticism of our teachers of all subjects. In every annual examination his rank used to be usually in the last 3 students. But he passed every year. When we were in the 11th standard, we all studied hard for the 12th class Board examination. Our school had a very good record in the ‘Pass’ percentage of students. Based on the history of Ramanlal Jain’s scores and studies, the school denied him entry into the 12 th class and he had to change his school. He coolly left.
In those days, very few students used to get the First Class and their names would be published in local newspapers in Hyderabad. Among the total of about 10000 students of 12th class Board Examination, hardly 20 to 30 students used to pass in First division. That year, when the results were announced, I was one of the First division students and my name was published in the newspapers. I, my family and my school were very happy.
Our school teachers and we all students were shocked to find Ramanlal Jain’s name also in the Rank holders’ list of that year, from another school. We were all astonished as to how this dull student with a poor history of success appeared in the Rank Holders’ list ! But it was true !! He had done it !!!
Same case was with the film Al Hilal-1958. It was just another C grade stunt film, about which not many people even knew, which was being shown in the old city cinema hall in a poor Basti. But it gave an unprecedented and unexpected shock when one of its songs – ‘ Hamen to loot liya milke husnwalon ne’ became an All India craze and very popular in no time. This qawwali became so popular that in almost every Irani hotel the record was played repeatedly, on public demand. Hundreds of the records were sold daily and the film’s name also became famous forever.
The first famous qawwali was from the film Zeenat-” Aahen na bhari…..” in 1945. The second was from the film Khidki-1948, ” Kismat hamare saath hai’. These two popular qawwalis were not sung by any Qawwal, whereas Al Hilal qawwali was sung by a professional qawwal- Ismail Azad. He had earlier sung a qawwali in the film Taj aur Talwar-56 and Jahaji Lootera-57. The fallout of the popularity of this qawwali was the rise of the other qawwals like Yusuf Azad qawwal and Jani babu qawwal as well as Shakila Bano Bhopali.
The qawwali of the film Jahaji Lootera-57 was filmed on actor Shaikh and the Al Hilal qawwali also was filmed on him. One interesting point was that this qawwali was in two parts and the second part was shown after the words THE END appeared on the screen and the audience got up to leave. Shaikh came on the screen and asked them to sit to listen to the second part of the song !.
Sheikh was a Comedy actor in the 40s,50s and the 60s. He has acted in 170 films,as per Muvyz stats. He sang 10 songs in 8 films as per HFGK (Daulat ki duniya-47, Fifty Fifty-UR, Nakli Baap-49, Jiya Raja-49, Dushman-50, Simba-51, Hatimtai-56 and Naagmani-57).
He was essentially a B and C grade film comedian, so his name is not known to most people. Sanjeev Narvekar’s book, “Eena meena deeka” gives very little information about him. In his hey-days, he was popular in a class of people who were regulars of stunt,fantasy and action films. He was a fixture in almost all Wadia films. He was the main on screen singer in the iconic qawali, “Humen to loot liya milke husn walon ne ‘ from the film Al Hilal-58.
He directed 2 films, Shahnaaz-48 and Mr.Toofan-63. He started his career in Hindi films with Pakke badmash-39. Before that he had acted in a Marathi film “Netaji Palkar-39″by Bhalji Pendharkar (info from CITWF). His last film was Aadamkhor-85. No information is available on his life anywhere.
The cast of the film was Shakila, Mahipal,Hiralal, Shaikh, Nasreen, Sulochana, Indira, Maqbool, Gulab and many others. The story of the film was-
This was a story in an Arab country. King Kehran (Heeralal) wants his subjects to worship only him and not Allah. Those who believed in Allah were tortured and killed too. mahipal is one of his slaves and a believer in allah. Shakila is a poor knife seller. In the first of the film shakila moves about as a boy. She stays in the jungle and is a believer too.
The king gets a son, but the astrologer tells him that the son will become a believer. As the son grows he is also tortured. Finally the son is left in the jungle to die. Shakila finds him and brings him up. Mahipal is exposed as a believer and escapes from the palace along with his friend Fazlu (Shaikh) to the jungle. here he meets Shakila, both fall in love and sings some songs. Fazlu also loves Nasreen, another girl in the village.
Finally there is a fierce attack on the king, wherein Shakila kills the king. The prince is crowned as the new king. Shakila and mahipal unite. Shaikh and Nasreen also unite and all ends well.
Nasreen who acted in this film was the youngest sister of Shakeela. The younger sister was Noor-who married Johnny Walker and retired from films. Nasreen also worked in this film and after leaving films, got married and settled down. Only Shakila continued in films. There was another actress Nasreen who had acted in the film Shahjahan-46 and Eik Roz-47. She was the daughter of actress Anwari and Music Director Rafiq Ghaznavi. Her real name was Zarine. She too left films, married Agha Liyaqat and settled in London and Dubai. Her daughter was Salma Agha.
The qawwali “Hamen to Loot liya” became the 5000th song on this Blog, jointly written by three posters and posted on 13-11-2011. Today’s song is a duet sung by Suman Kalyanpur and Manna Dey. It is filmed on Shakila and Mahipal on the screen. This is the 4thsong rom the movie here. It was composed by Bulo C Rani and the lyrics were by Shevan Rizvi.
Song-Bigdi hai baat bana de (al Hilaal)(1958) Singers- Suman Kalyanpur, Manna Dey, Lyricist- Shewan Rizvi, MD- Bulo C Rani
Both
Chorus
Lyrics
dil se jo baat nikalti hai
asar rakhti hai
par nahin taakte parvaaj mager rakhti hai
madad kar
madad kar
madad ki ghadi hai
tere naam par
aaj baat aa padi hai
tere naam par
aaj baat aa padi hai
tere naam par
aaj baat aa padi hai
bigdi hai baat banaa de
bigad ke banaane waale
aankhon ke ashq le le
nazron ka noor de de
bigdi hai baat banaa de
bigad ke banaane waale
aankhon ke ashq le le
nazron ka noor de de
toone agar na meri suni
kya kahenge log
toone agar na meri suni
kya kahenge log
tujhko bhi aur humko bhi
jhoothha kahenge log
tujhko bhi aur humko bhi
jhoothha kahenge log
o o o o
o o o
o o o
bandon ki laaj rakh le
izzat tu aaj rakh le
aankhon ke ashq le le
nazron ka noor de de
bigdi hai baat banaa de
bigad ke banaane waale
aankhon ke ashq le le
nazron ka noor de de
apna to gham nahin
humen is baat ka hai dar
apna to gham nahin
humen is baat ka hai dar
ilzaam aa na jaaye kahin
tere naam par
ilzaam aa na jaaye kahin
tere naam par
o o o o
o o o
o o o
dil ki pukar sun le
parvardigaar sun le
aankhon ke ashq le le
nazron ka noor de de
bigdi hai baat banaa de
bigad ke banaane waale
aankhon ke ashq le le
nazron ka noor de de
aankhon ke ashq le le
aa aa aa aa aa
nazron ka noor de de
aa aa aa aa aa
nazron ka noor de de
aa aa aa aa aa
nazron ka noor de de
aa aa aa aa aa
nazron ka noor de de
You will hate me for making corrections, but then you are doing such a great Service in reviving Memories from the distant past that there will be times when you would be inadvertently relying on doubtful sources.
First about Noor being the youngest. Actually, it is Nasreen, who bears a striking resemblance to Shakila, who is the youngest.
The following is an extract from a Post by Noor’s daughter on Madhulika’s Post “Dustedoff”
“I would like to start by saying that I am very excited and extremely happy to write a post on Mummy as it is the first post/article ever written only for her. I would like to give you a glimpse of her short film career. I say short, because she quit the film industry once she married my dad, Johnny Walker. My mummy’s name is Noor, though people know her as Mrs. Johnny Walker or actress Shakila’s sister.
She is 2nd amongst three extremely beautiful sisters, Shakila, Noor & Nasreen, all of whom have had their fair share of acting exposure in Indian cinema. They were born & brought up in Mumbai by their Aunt (Bua), after losing their parents when they were very young ………..”
The second one is about Nasreen not acting after AL-HILAL. Apart from any other Films, she has acted in Chetan Anand’s HAQEEQAT (1964) where she plays the love interest of Major Pratap Singh (Vijay Anand) and she is mentioned in the cast. She is also seen briefly in this Song
(first appearance @ 02:27 and later at 03:16)
But I must emphasise that these omissions do not any way detract from the details brought out in your Post, so full of information about a distant past.
Partha ji,
First of all, I am sorry for missing your comment yesterday night.
Secondly, let me once again stress that I do not hate people for pointing out errors in my writings. ‘Hate’ is a rather strong word to be used, I feel ! I would always avoid such words myself. Why should I ? A mistake is a mistake-done by anyone.
Thirdly, Yes Noor was the second. I jumbled up obviously.
Fourthly, I did not know that Nasreen worked in any other film. So, thanks for adding this information.
I will make suitable amendments.
Thanks.
-AD
I loved the anecdote about your batchmate and how he cleared his board exams.
If it were modern times, a whole lot of coaching classes would have staked claim for his success.
Also a rather (belated) congratulations on your name appearing in the newspapers as a rank holder. I recall my dad telling how it was a practice in those times to scour the papers at result time.
In the 80s, I recall, students used to secretly send their roll numbers to newspaper offices through their friends’ father’s uncle’s acquaintance etc. to know their result before the board sent the official list to schools and made it public. Those were different times.
Those days there were not so many students also. In the late 50’s, when I passed my Board exam, there were hardly 10000 students. So it was possible to publish entire results in newspapers. Nowadays the number is somewhere around 10 to 12 Lakh students.
Just for your information, Ramanlal Jain met me again when he too took admission in the First year MBBS class in Guntur Medical College, and again became my classmate !
-AD
This blog discusses Bollywood songs of yesteryears. Every song has a brief description, followed by a video link, and complete lyrics of the song.
This is a labour of love, where “new” songs are added every day, and that has been the case for over FOURTEEN years. This blog has over 17800 song posts by now.
This blog is active and online for over 5000 days since its beginning on 19 july 2008.
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
August 17, 2022 at 7:26 pm
Dear Guru ji,
You will hate me for making corrections, but then you are doing such a great Service in reviving Memories from the distant past that there will be times when you would be inadvertently relying on doubtful sources.
First about Noor being the youngest. Actually, it is Nasreen, who bears a striking resemblance to Shakila, who is the youngest.
The following is an extract from a Post by Noor’s daughter on Madhulika’s Post “Dustedoff”
“I would like to start by saying that I am very excited and extremely happy to write a post on Mummy as it is the first post/article ever written only for her. I would like to give you a glimpse of her short film career. I say short, because she quit the film industry once she married my dad, Johnny Walker. My mummy’s name is Noor, though people know her as Mrs. Johnny Walker or actress Shakila’s sister.
She is 2nd amongst three extremely beautiful sisters, Shakila, Noor & Nasreen, all of whom have had their fair share of acting exposure in Indian cinema. They were born & brought up in Mumbai by their Aunt (Bua), after losing their parents when they were very young ………..”
The second one is about Nasreen not acting after AL-HILAL. Apart from any other Films, she has acted in Chetan Anand’s HAQEEQAT (1964) where she plays the love interest of Major Pratap Singh (Vijay Anand) and she is mentioned in the cast. She is also seen briefly in this Song
(first appearance @ 02:27 and later at 03:16)
But I must emphasise that these omissions do not any way detract from the details brought out in your Post, so full of information about a distant past.
With warm regards
PARTHA CHANDA
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 18, 2022 at 11:37 am
Partha ji,
First of all, I am sorry for missing your comment yesterday night.
Secondly, let me once again stress that I do not hate people for pointing out errors in my writings. ‘Hate’ is a rather strong word to be used, I feel ! I would always avoid such words myself. Why should I ? A mistake is a mistake-done by anyone.
Thirdly, Yes Noor was the second. I jumbled up obviously.
Fourthly, I did not know that Nasreen worked in any other film. So, thanks for adding this information.
I will make suitable amendments.
Thanks.
-AD
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 18, 2022 at 9:57 pm
All corrections done.
-AD
LikeLike