Paise ke kya kehne paisa peer hai
Posted by: Atul on: April 9, 2024
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 a forgotten good song from the film Ghulam Begum Badshah-1956.
Those who were young in the decade of the 50’s and 60’s, had grown up reading stories which started with “Once upon a time….”. These imaginary stories told the adventures, wars, fights, Love stories etc. of kings and rebels. Filmmakers were intelligent enough to make up and use such stories to entertain their audience. These stories had ample scope for big, impressive sets, colourful and royal costumes, fights, beautiful dancers, magicians, plotting evil prime ministers (vaziers) and the rebels, who finally won the kingdom and the love of the beautiful princess !
Though India got Independence in 1947 and had become a Democratic Sovereign Republic in 1950, the kings and Nawabs were bestowed the status of “Raj Pramukhs” of their merged states and still had hefty pensions from the Indian Government and respect from their people. Indira Gandhi played the villain and demolished their ‘kingdoms’ finally by abolishing the post of ‘Raj Pramukh’ and their Privy Purses, downsizing the Royals to the status of common citizen in 1969.
The disappearance of feudal kings, princes and Nawabs hit the filmmakers hard and they lost a handy stock of stories for their films. Even otherwise the tastes of the Indian audience were changing fast and films with other items than the king and queen stories, in the form of comedy, romance, music, mystery,crime and love stories were now more in demand. Thus, these ” Once upon a time” stories quickly took an exit and films on such stories almost vanished by the end of the 60’s decade.
1956 was a year which celebrated the Silver Jubilee of Talkie films.In this year many noteworthy and milestone films were made. The kind of films that were made and became hits established a total turnaround in the content and music of Hindi films.Gone were the type of films where the Hero died in the end for his love. These were replaced with romance , music and happy ending films. Films which upheld the ‘Nehruvian Socialism and anti-Capitalism’ were made by Nehru’s disciples like Bimal Roy, Raj kapoor, Shantaram, Hemen Gupta etc. Let us take a look at some films of 1956. In this year Music Director Sanmukh babu upadhyaya and Lyricist Akhtar Romani made their Debuts.
26th JANUARY….Actress Nishi debuted.
AALAM AARA….Nanubhai Vakil tried to recreate the film in its Silver Jubilee year. W.M.Khan featured again and sang his original first film song ” de de khuda ke naam par” again.
BHAGAM BHAG…. Hilarious comedy film with Kishore and Bhagwan.
BHAI BHAI…. AVM’s superhit film with memorable songs. It tried to reestablish family values.
C.I.D…..A loveable crime story with romance and good songs.
CHHOO MANTAR….Johnny Walker had a free hand in films made in the 50’s He was No. 1 Comedian.
CHORI CHORI…. Another great film from AVM.
HUM SAB CHOR HAI…. Asha Bhosle gave her best songs till then. Comedy, romance and good songs.
JAGTE RAHO…. The Bangla Version won the “Grand Prix” award at Karlovy Vary film festival. Initially the Hindi version failed but after the award, it became a Hit film.
NAI DELHI…. Promoted interlanguage marriage. Good songs.
TOOFAN AUR DIYA….Dignity of labour stressed.
FUNTOOSH…. The system of Cartoon-Credits started with this film. Good songs.
India’s first Cartoon film “BANYAN DEAR” made.
Other notable films were Taksaal,Hateemtai, Children’s film “Jaldeep”, Basant Bahar, Rajhath, Inspector, Halaku,Naya Admi, Chandrakanta etc.
Today’s film Ghulam Begum Badshah, a costume film, was directed by Jugal Kishore, screenplay was by Shyam Hindi and music was by Sudipt. The cast included Sheila Ramani, Daljit, W.M.Khan, Nishi, R.Nath (comedian Rajendranath made his debut) and many others. Johnny Walker was the Guest Artiste. The story of the film was….
Salim (Daljit) is a slave who is bought by the Shah of Ishra and set free as a kind gesture. Tarak is the wily Vazir of the Shah. Tarak finds the daughter of the trader of slaves very beautiful and he orders the Trader to send Najma (Nishi),his daughter, to him within 4 days,or else….
The trader is terrified. He seeks protection from the Shah. However after 4 days, the soldiers of the Vazir came to take away Najma. Suddenly the Shah himself appears there in disguise and starts fighting with the soldiers. Incidentally, Salim also comes there and the two together drive away the soldiers, but the Trader dies in the fight. The Shah (W.M.Khan) falls in love with Najma and takes her in his safe custody.
Impressed with his bravery, the Shah appoints Salim as the chief of his Army,which is not liked by the vazir. He is waiting to usurp the throne. Salim falls in love with Begum (Sheila Ramani), a dancer in the court of the Shah. One day the Vazir rebels and captures the Shah and Najma and keeps them in jail. Salim gathers his army, which is divided now and with the help of trusted friends, rescues Shah and Najma. There is a fierce battle in which Salim kills the Vazir.
Najma becomes the queen and Salim marries begum. Thus the Ghulam,begum and Badshah are all happy, in the end.
The heroine of this film Sheila Ramani, a forgotten name today, but many of us still remember her in Navketan’s Taxi Driver (1954) ( I remember her in Funtoosh-56) where she was cast as an Anglo-Indian club Dancer – Sylvie. Sheila was born on 2-4-1931, in Karachi. She was selected as “Miss Mussoorie – 1948” and judged “Miss Simla – 1950”. Made her debut as Champa, the femme fatale of “Badnam”-52, and revealed herself as a danseuse of charm in “Anand Math”-52. She was one of the few Sindhi actresses besides Sadhana, who made it big in Bollywood. She was mostly seen as an upper class mod girl in the 50s, a role she enacted to perfection all through that swinging era in films like V. Shantaram’s Teen Batti Char Raaste (1953), Sheikh Mukhtar’s Mangu (1954), Meenar (1954), Railway Platform(1955), and Funtoosh (1956).
Her Uncle Sheikh Latif alias Lachchu was a famous Pakistani producer who produced films like Pathan (1955), Khizan Kai Baad (1955), Darbar-e-Habib (1956) etc. Sheila visited Karachi – Pakistan on the request of her Uncle, to play the lead in Pakistani film Anokhi (1956). The film was based on Hollywood’s “Fabulous Senorita”. “Gari ko chalana babu, zara halkey halkey halkey, zara dil ka jaam na chalkey” sung by Zubeda Khanum was the popular song from the film which did modestly good business in Pakistan. The movie’s great music was composed jointly by Timir Baran.
She was reduced to obscure films with titles that sounded like Jungle King (1959), and The Return of Superman (1960 – one of the last films composed by Anil Biswas). Sheila went back to India and remained as a middle-of-the-range performer in Bombay films. In the later part of h all, she acted in 24 films. Her last film was Awara Ladki-67.
Sheila was very fond of sports, especially football and swimming. Ballroom dancing was a virtual addiction for her and she used to go out dancing as often as she could. Sheila was 5 feet four inches tall, and was so fastidious that any dress she would wear won’t be repeated for six months to come at least.
According to her son Rahul Cowasji, she married Jall Edi Cowasji on 31st March 1963 and had retired from acting in 1962. Part of her family that remained in Pakistan converted to Islam. She was a Hindu. She used to live in Mumbai with her husband Jall Cowasji (President of Bombay Dyeing) till 1981. They moved to Khartoum for 3 years and then to Sri Lanka for 3 years. After her husband’s death in 1984 she migrated to Australia on her own in the late 80’s and lived in Sydney and Surfers Paradise until health problems required her to return to India in the new millennium. She used to live in her husband’s ancestral home in Mhow, near Indore (M.P.). She was frail and bedridden for a few years before her death on 15-7- 2015.
Her favorite Hindi film of her career was Taxi Driver (1954). Sheila was also the leading lady of India’s first Sindhi film after partition – Abana (1958), in which young Baby Sadhna played her younger sister’s role. By the way, the First Sindhi film of India before Partition was ” Ekta”-1940, made by Wadia Movietone and directed by Homi Wadia. ( Thanks to Cineplot for some of the information in this Bio and my notes. )
Today’s song is sung by Hemant Kumar. It is the last and final song of this film, making it a YIPPEED film. Enjoy….
Audio
Video
Song- Paise ke kya kahne paisa peer hai (Ghulam Begam Baadshah)(1956) Singer- Hemant Kumar, Lyricist – Shyam Hindi, MD- Sudipt
Lyrics
paise ke kya kehne
ho paisa peer hai
ye jiska ban jaaye wo taqdeer hai
paise ke kya kehne
ho paisa peer hai
ye jiska ban jaaye wo taqdeer hai
jisko chaahe izzat de kar
duniya ka sartaaj kare
jisko chaahe zillat de kar
roti se mohtaaj kare
ho roti se mohtaaj kare
haath mein iske do-dhaari shamshir hai
ye jiska ban jaaye wo taqdeer hai
paise ke kya kehne
ho paisa peer hai
ye jiska ban jaaye wo taqdeer hai
aaj aaye kal jaaye phir bhi
log isi ko pyaar karen
iski khaatir jaan ladaayen
ek dooje pe waar karen
ho ek dooje pe waar karen
ye ek chalti phirti si tasweer hai
ye jiska ban jaaye wo taqdeer hai
paise ke kya kehne
ho paisa peer hai
ye jiska ban jaaye wo taqdeer hai
har mushqil hai aasaan uski
jiske palle paisa hai
anhoni ko honi kar de
zor ismein aisa hai
oh zor ismein aisa hai
iske chhan chhan chhan mein wo taaseer(?) hai
ye jiska ban jaaye wo taqdeer hai
paise ke kya kehne
ho paisa peer hai
ye jiska ban jaaye
wo taqdeer hai
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
April 9, 2024 at 10:45 am
Arun Ji,
Thanks for the post. Noted with interest, good amount of details about Sheila Ramani.
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April 9, 2024 at 11:39 am
Thank you, Satish ji.
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