Jo sirf khushee ka mol karey
Posted on: March 12, 2024
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, 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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‘Madhu Maalti’ (1978) was produced by Nirmal Mishra and J S Bansal under the banner of Chitra Kathha and was directed by Basu Bhattacharya. The cast included Sachin and Sarika in the lead roles supported by Nadira, Dinesh Thakur, Manik Dutt, Bharat Bhushan, Abha Dhulia, Sulabha Deshpande, Arvind Deshpande, Parveen Paul, T P Jain, Madhup Sharma, Jaydev Hattangadi, Gopal Dutt, Gulshan Grover etc. Benjamin Gilani and Prema Narayan made guest appearances in the film. This was Gulshan Grover’s debut film.
The theme of the film is the teenage romance in a small town whose parents and their neighbourhood have been brought up in a conservative culture. Parents strongly resent their romance as they see it in the prism of morality. Under such a situation, the boy and girl of two families run away from the town. How they face the situations, first in a big city like Mumbai from where they had to leave in haste for Goa. Finally, a spinster lady, who lives alone in a house in Goa, gives shelter to them. She looks after them like her own grown-up children in a free environment. There is a great emotional upheaval for the spinster lady when the parents, now mellow down from their conservative mindsets, are seeking the return of their son and daughter.
The detailed story of the film is as under:
Madhu (Sachin) and Malti (Sarika) are the college going teenagers from two families residing in a small town with a conservative mindset. Anil Sharma (Dinesh Thakur) joins the college as the professor of English. He organises a college play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in which he selects Madhu and Malti for the title roles. In the rehearsals, both of them fail to enact their performances to the satisfaction of Anil Sharma as both of them brought up in conservative families are shy of enacting love scenes. The pressures from the families of students forces the college authorities to stop the rehearsal of the play.
During the course of rehearsals of the play, Madhu and Malti fall in love. They secretly meet and sometime remain absent from the college. A neighbour reports their secret meeting to the respective families. Both the families oppose their relationship. Prof. Anil Sharma is in sympathy with them but at the same time he advises them that if they are really in love, they should be open about it. But the families have already put a strict vigilance on both of them. As a result, they have not talked to each other for a long time. Forced by the circumstances, Madhu and Malti run away to Mumbai with some money to continue their courtship unhindered.
While in Mumbai, Madhu and Malti lose their belongings and now they are moving in the city like pauper. They meet a couple, Tom (Benjamin Gilani) and Rossie (Prema Narayan) who take them to Goa to get them some job in a beach shack. During a dance programme, Tom misbehaves with Malti which infuriates Madhu to such an extent that he squeezes Tom’s neck making him unconscious. Thinking him to be dead, Madhu and Malti run away from the shack and contemplate suicide. It is at this time, Maria (Nadira) sees Madhu attempting suicide. She brings him to her house. On the other hand, Malti having taken shelter in a cemetery, meets John (Manik Dutt) who brings her to Maria’s house. Both Madhu and Malti are given shelter by Maria.
Maria has been living alone in her spacious house. John has been proposing to her for marriage for the last 20 years, but she has been rejecting his proposal for personal reason. None the less, they remain friends. With Madhu and Malti staying with Maria as her own children, this time when John proposes Maria, she accepts and gets married. He moves to Maria house. Maria is happy that she has got the company of Madhu and Malti as if her own children, John is also happy that finally he got married to his beloved. Madhu and Malti are happy that they are together in a free environment. Periodically, Madhu keeps Professor Anil Sharma informed about their well-being.
One day, Professor Anil Sharma and his wife (Abha Dhulia) visits Goa and meet Madhu and Malti in Maria’s house with a message that they have come here to take them back to their parents who have now mellowed down, and they would accept them. He had also booked their tickets on a passenger ship to Mumbai for onward journey to their town. Maria is upset that she would lose Madhu and Malti. Both of them assure Maria that they are not going to leave her. John tries to convince Maria not to be adamant and allow Professor Anil Sharma to take Madhu and Malti back to their parents. But Maria is firm so also Madhu and Malti not to leave Goa.
A disappointed professor Anil Sharma and his wife decides to leave Goa by Ship. John accompanies them to the boarding point of the ship when he sees Maria with Madhu and Malti also at the boarding point. In the previous night, Maria has retrospection reminding her that she cannot be selfish for her own happiness. She hands over Madhu and Malti to Professor Anil Sharma with moist eyes by saying that if their parents create problem for Madhu and Malti, she would teach them a lesson.
What a lovely film to watch! It is typical Basu Bhattacharya style of story narration in which human relationship plays important theme in his films. In this film, he has brought out the conflict between conservative parents and their teenage children which he compares with their guardian handling of the same children. As happens with his earlier films which were critically acclaimed but commercial failure, ‘Madhu Malti’ (1978) was no exception.
An interesting feature of the film’s background music is the uses of the snippets of a few popular Hindi film songs which are apt for the situations. For example, when Madhu and Malti secretly meet for the first time, both are very shy to talk to each other and the song ‘chup chup kade ho zaroor koi baat hai’ gets played in the background in a low sound. When Madhu and Malti arrive at Mumbai and looking for guest house for the stay, the song ‘do deewaane shahar mein raat mien yaa dopahar mein aab-o-daanaa dhoondhten hain ek aashiyaana dhoondhten hain’ gets played. When their belongings are stolen from the room, both of them argue for negligence during which the song ’babu ji dheere chalana pyaar mein zara sambhalna’ gets played in the background.
The film had 4 songs written and set to music by Ravindra Jain. One song has been covered on the Blog. I am presenting the second song, ‘jo sirf khushi kaa mol karey’, rendered by Mukesh. This song gets played in the background as Professor Anil Sharma (Dinesh Thakur) and his wife (Abha Dhulia) have been unsuccessful in convincing Maria to send back Madhu and Malti to their parents. Maria (Nadira) on the other hand is in emotional turmoil as she is losing them to their real parents at a faraway town. But in retrospection she feels that she cannot be selfish for her own happiness. The song is not only a philosophical one but also a retrospection for Maria. The life is a cycle of happiness and sorrow, and the companionship is not permanent.
The song broadly sums up the theme of the film.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Jo sirf khushee ka mol karey (Madhu Maalti)(1978) Singer-Mukesh, Lyrics-Ravindra Jain, MD-Ravindra Jain
Lyrics (Based in audio clip):
jo sirf khushi kaa mol karey
jo sirf khushi kaa mol karey
wo dost nahin saudaagar hai
jo apne hi jeene pe marey
jo apne hi jeene pe marey
wo dost nahin saudaagar hai
jo sirf khushi kaa mol karey
sukh aataa hai to apne sang
apne saathhi le aataa hai
sukh aataa hai to apne sang
apne saathhi le aataa hai
hai kaun kahaan tak kaa humdum
dukh hi to hamen batlaata hai
ho sukh mein sang aur dukh se darey
ho sukh mein sang aur dukh se darey
wo dost nahin saudaagar hai
jo sirf khushi kaa mol karey
hum aisaa saathhi dhoondhhte hain
jo hamko gham kaa meet kahe
hum aisaa saathhi dhoondhhte hain
jo hamko gham ka meet kahe
gham ho usko aur dard hamein
neer uska in aankhon se bahe
jo haathh faqat kaandhe pe dhare
jo haathh faqat kaandhe pe dhare
wo dost nahin saudaagar hai
jo sirf khushi kaa mol karey
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
March 13, 2024 at 8:05 pm
Kamath Sir,
Background songs/music in films serve as a powerful tool to enhance the storyline, adding depth, emotion, and context to the scenes depicted on screen. It’s like an invisible narrator guiding the audience through the narrative journey.
Many films use songs in Flashback, I will be happy if you give more info on such songs of Golden era (40-80s). These songs helped to convey emotions and connect viewers to important moments in the characters’ lives. These songs often served as a bridge between past and present, evoking nostalgia and enriching the narrative with layers of sentimentality.
Atul Sir,
These topics are discussed in detail only in this group and I enjoy reading such interesting inclusions which are informative.
Gandhi Vadlapatla
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March 14, 2024 at 9:12 am
Gandhi Vadlapatla ji,
Thanks for your appreciative comments.
Songs – whehter lip synced or background – are supposed to be rooted to the story of the film. They are narrative devices to carry forward the film’s story. But background songs give more flexibilty to a film director in linking the past with the present as he has done in the song under discussion. Also, it is a better way of showing the intense emotions attached to the scene.
Recent trends in Hindi films indicate that directors. especially of the ‘middle of the road cinemas’ are preferring background songs over the lip synced songs though the latter, I feel, cannot be eliminated altogether.
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