Kaun hai wo wo kaun hai
Posted on: September 3, 2022
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.
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Today’s song is from an obscure film of 1942 – ‘Nari’. It was made by Venus Pictures, Bombay and was directed by Raja Yadnik. I have no information about this director, except that he had directed 13 films – from ‘Magic Horse’ (1935) to ‘Anarbala’ (1961), averaging 1 film every 2 years ! From his list I find that none of his films were popular or a hit film. The music for the film ‘Nari’ was given by H.C. aka Harishchandra Bali.
Harishchandra Bali aka HC Bali was born on 10-3-1906 at Jalandhar, Punjab. He received early training in music from Pt Tola Ram and Ustad Maula Baksh of Talwandi Gharana. He was also a disciple of Bhaskarbuwa Bakhale and Pt Dilip Chandra Vedi. He adopted their styles. Bali came to Bombay. He entered film by acting as a Hero in the film ‘Naqsh-e-Sulemani'(1933). In later life also he acted in a few more films. As an MD, his first film was ‘Aurat Ka Dil’ (1933) and last film was ‘Janta’ (1947).
He gave music to 26 films. Among these were first films of Prof Pt Ramanand Sharma, ‘Watan Parast’ (1934), first film of actress Pramila, ‘Bhikarin’ (1935), first film of Debaki Bose in Bombay, ‘Jeewan Natak’ (1935). In the film ‘Pati Patni'(1939), Naushad was his assistant and composed a few songs also. In 1942, Bali gave music to ‘Aple Ghar’ the Marathi version of ‘Apna Ghar’ (1941). He was the MD for the last film of Vishnupant Pagnis, ‘Mahatma Vidur’ (1943) and in film ‘Janta’ (1947), he gave the opportunity to lyricist Rajendra Krishna for the first time.
Bali also gets the credit for bringing KL Saigal to limelight. Both he and Saigal were from Jalandhar. When Saigal was in Calcutta for his job as a typewriter salesman, Bali was living with RC Boral. Bali told Boral about Saigal’s singing and the rest is history. Bali came into news in the late 50s, when he said that Lata had sung 4 songs for his film ‘Seedha Rasta’ (1941) and thus claimed to introduce her to the film singing. However, Lata clarified that till her father Dinanath’s death in 1942, she was in Kolhapur and there was no question of her singing in films in 1941. Thus Bali’s claim got scuttled.
After 1947, Bali retired from films and returned to Jalandhar. He started his own Music School, ‘Sangeet Vihar’. He became famous as a Music Guru to many singers in later years. Bali also sang on Radio and was an A grade artiste of All India Radio. He also wrote a few books on Music. ‘Sangeet Vigyan’ in 4 volumes and ‘Sangeet Prakash’ in Punjabi language. These books were published by Punjab State University Text Book Board in Chandigarh. Harishchandra Bali died on 24-6-1976 at Jalandhar.
The cast of the film was Trilok Kapoor, Urmila, Kamla Warerkar, Lalita Pawar, Jilloo Bai, Majid, Anant Marathe and others. The lyricists were Pt Phani and Bashir Jamali. I always had a curiosity about Pt Phani. I tried all books, net sites, blogs and other documents like newspaper and magazine articles, but nowhere I could find his real and full name. Anyway, this is the case with many lyricists. Barring a few ones who remained in limelight due to their non-poetic activities – like Sahir, Majrooh, Shakeel and the likes of them, lyricists have always been in the last part of priorities of authors and blogs. Even in books on lyricists, not much information can be found except their filmography, thanks to HFGK. Blogs which writers on singers and MDs rarely write on lyricists.
Pt Phani started with the film ‘Yangrila’ (1938) and ended his career with the film ‘Bansari Bala’ (1957). He wrote for 32 films and his songs numbered 219. He was also a dialogue writer for a few films. His films were divided between social and B/C grade films – like mythologicals, almost equally. This is all I know about Pt Phani.
The story of film ‘Nari’ was written by MG Dave and dialogues were by Pt Phani. The story of the film was,
Saroj Mehta lived with her mother Harganga in the chawl of Seth Hiralal. She earned by singing on radio and studied for a Montessori course. Mahesh – son of Seth Shivlal came to her school one day to meet his cousin whose name was also Saroj. Due to the same name confusion, he met Saroj Mehta. They liked each other, love bloomed and they decided to get married. His father also agreed.
But the chawl owner Hiralal wanted Mahesh to marry his daughter Manjula, who was uneducated and a vagabond. To break the proposed marriage many untrue stories were spread around about Saroj’s mother. Due to this Shivlal breaks the marriage and Mahesh gets married to Manjula.
Saroj shifts to another city. She loses her mother. She starts a school for children. Mahesh begets a son. After 4-5 years Mahesh gets transferred to the same city and his son starts going to the school of Saroj. She trains all children nicely and Shivlal and Mahesh are very happy with their son’s behavior and progress. One day Mahesh meets Saroj and the old love blooms again.
Knowing this development, Hiralal and Manjula plan to kill Saroj and finish the problem. However, in the commotion created at time of murder, Hiralal by mistake kills Manjula. He is arrested and jailed. Mahesh and Saroj get married at last.
The heroine of the film was Urmila. She is one of the Same Name Confusion pairs, as there was another Urmila (Bhatt) in Hindi films. However, more about Urmila Bhatt some other time. Now we will know about this Urmila first. You will find the name Urmila – in some films she is named as Urmila Devi, and Urmila Gupta also. She was not a very good looking actress, but she compensated for it with her good acting. Urmila Gupta was born on 31-3- 1921 at Panja Sahib, Rawalpindi district of United Punjab. Her father, who was a Civil Contractor, died when she was only 5 year old. She did not get much education but could read and write as well as talk fluently in Urdu, Hindi and English.
She started her career with a small un-credited role in the film ‘Mirza Sahiban’ (1933). She was the younger sister of Mirza in this film. After some more small roles, she got her major role in the film ‘Aansuon Ki Duniya’ (1936). After this, she did not look back and did ‘Punjab Lancers’ (1937), ‘Talwar Ka Dhani’ (1938), ‘Kahan Hai Manzil Teri’ (1939), ‘Hurricane Special’ (1939), ‘Flying Ranee’ (1939), ‘Desh Bhakt’ (1940), ‘Sasural’ (1941), ‘Sajjan’ (1941), ‘Mere Sajan’ (1941), ‘Naari’ (1942), ‘Das Baje’ (1942), ‘Call Of Youth’ (1942), ‘Badal’ (1942), ‘Apna Paraya’ (1942), ‘Tamasha’ (1942), ‘Kirti’ (1942), ‘Salma’ (1943), ‘Bansari’ (1943), ‘Refugee’ (1948) etc. Urmila got married to Vinod Talwar, a businessman and stopped working in films, for some time, maybe for raising a family. She resumed working in films and acted in another 20 odd films till 1952. She had sung 12 songs. In all, she worked in about 55 films.
There is another actor Majid in this film. Majid’s name was Abdul Majid Syed. He was born at Farrukhabad in UP in 1915. His father was an overseer. After completing his matric in 1929, he started his business of leather in Akola, Maharashtra. In 1935, actor, director and producer Nazeer of Hind Pictures, introduced him to SK Daryani and he got a small role in ‘Sher Ka Panja’ (1936) and ‘Sangdil Samaj’ (1936). However, from film ‘Bulldog’ (1937), he got side roles and lead roles in films like ‘Gentleman Daku’ (1937), ‘Insaaf’ (1937), ‘Rajkumari’ (1938), ‘Masterman’ (1938), ‘Zamana’ (1938), ‘Apni Nagariya’ aka ‘Mud’ (1940), ‘Saubhagya’ (1940), ‘Swami’ (1941), ‘Swaminath’ (1942). He also acted in more films like ‘Najma’ (1943), ‘Babar’ (1944) and ‘Zeenat’ (1945).
In all he did over 100 films till 1947. After partition, he migrated to Pakistan with Nazeer and Swarnalata. In Pakistan he did just 7 films. He died on 24-9-1959.
Today’s song is sung by Lalita Parulkar. There was Lalita Pawar also. Luckily Lalita Pawar had stopped singing long back, otherwise there would have been another pair of Same Name Confusion. By the way Lalita Pawar had sung 10 songs in 3 films in her early career. Lalita Parulkar was actually a Marathi singer. She sang 19 songs in 6 films. ‘Nari’ was her debut film as a singer in Hindi films. She last sang in the film Kul Kalank-1945.
With this song, film ‘Nari’ (1942) makes its debut on this blog.
Song- Kaun hai wo wo kaun hai (Naari)(1942) Singer- Lalita Parulkar, Lyrics-Pt Phani, MD-Harishchandra Bali
Lyrics
kaun hai wo
wo kaun hai
koi bataaye
kaun hai
aankhon se jo dil mein aaye
aankhon se jo dil mein aaye
dil mein aa kar jo bas jaaye
dil mein aa kar jo bas jaaye
bas ke dil mein jo muskaaye
bas ke dil mein jo muskaaye
jo muskaa ke baanchhe(?) laaye(?)
jo muskaa ke baanchhe(?) laaye(?)
kaun hai
jiske aate aayi jawaani
jiske rahte rahe rawaani
kaliyon par hai jiske saaye
phoolon par jo par phailaaye
kaun hai
preet kahen ise preet ke maare
preet kahen ise preet ke maare
prem kahen ise premi pyaare
prem kahen ise premi pyaare
sneh kahen ise saajan saare
kaun hai
kaun hai wo
wo kaun hai
koi bataaye
kaun hai
————————————————
Hindi script lyrics (Provided by Sudhir Kapur)
————————————————
कौन है वो
वो कौन है
कोई बताए
कौन है
आँखों से जो दिल में आए
आँखों से जो दिल में आए
दिल में आ कर जो बस जाये
दिल में आ कर जो बस जाये
बस के दिल में जो मुस्काए
बस के दिल में जो मुस्काए
जो मुस्का कर बाँछें(?) लाये(?)
जो मुस्का कर बाँछें(?) लाये(?)
कौन है
जिसके आते आए जवानी
जिसके रहते रहे रवानी
कलियों पर हैं जिसके साये
फूलों पर जो पर फैलाये
कौन है
प्रीत कहें इसे प्रीत के मारे
प्रीत कहें इसे प्रीत के मारे
प्रेम कहें इसे प्रेमी प्यारे
प्रेम कहें इसे प्रेमी प्यारे
स्नेह कहें इसे साजन सारे
कौन है
कौन है वो
वो कौन है
कोई बताए
कौन है
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
September 6, 2022 at 4:47 pm
Arunji, As usual I find your writeup with lot of interesting information. Got to know about Lalita Parulkar and Urmila Gupta. Lalita Pawar also sang?
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September 6, 2022 at 9:22 pm
gandhivp ji,
Thanks for appreciation.
‘Yes. In her early career when Playback was not yet fully established, Lalita Pawar also sang in films. She sang 10 songs in 3 films – Grihlakshmi-1934, Dard E Dil-1934 and Duniya kya hai-1938. I have written on one of her songs in film Duniya kya hai-1938, on this Blog. You can visit that post.
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September 6, 2022 at 9:28 pm
gandhivp ji,
This is the link for Lalita Pawar’s song here….
https://atulsongaday.me/2012/11/06/sakhi-prem-sudha-bhar-ke-aayi
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