Kitnee hain albelee zulfen teree sahelee
Posted on: January 22, 2025
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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‘Afsaanaa’ (1966) was produced by Dilip Mukherjee under the banner of Devi Movietone and was directed by Brij Sadanah. The cast included Ashok Kumar, Pradeep Kumar, Padmini, Helen, Jagdeep, Anwar Hussain, Jeevankala, Tuntun, Parshram, Ravikant etc. The film’s producer, Dilip Mukherjee was a well-known producer-director-writer-actor of Bengali films. This was the only Hindi film Dilip Mukherjee and his banner, Devi Movietone had produced.
Recently I watched this film for the first time after I heard a couple of songs from the film’s album. In this film, Ashok Kumar has an unusual role of a prisoner who is on the run after a jail break. The heroine (Padmini), the rich heiress, is also on the run as she is not interested in the marriage fixed by her stepmother. Both Ashok Kumar and Padmini accidentally take shelter at different point of time in Pradeep Kumar’s palatial house in his estate in a forest who has developed a hatred against women. All the three characters have nothing in common. But the circumstances have broiught them together, each having their past history which gets unfolded. In the end, the prisoner becomes a saviour at the cost of his life.
The film’s story in detail is as under:
Gopal (Ashok Kumar) a prisoner known for jail breaks, once again escapes from the police when he is being taken to another jail. He moves into a deep forest to avoid police. However, while in the forest, Gopal gets injured from an accidental shot fired by Shekhar (Pradeep Kumar), a landlord while he was hunting in the forest. Shekhar takes the injured Gopal to his palatial house in the forest for recuperation for which he entrusts his servant, Gullu (Jagdeep). Gopal recovers from his gunshot injury and finds himself in a place which is in a deep forest, a perfect hide-out for keeping a low profile. Gopal learns from Gullu that Shekhar hates women for the reason best known to him. Gopal also presents himself as a woman-hater just to be pally with Shekhar and continues to stay with Shekhar.
Renu (Padmini), a rich heiress is on the run as she does not wish to get married to a person arranged by her stepmother (Tuntun). While driving away from her house, Renu’s car breaks down due to waterlogging on the bridge following heavy rains. She leaves her car and walks to find a shelter. Coincidentally, she enters Shekhar’s house and find that no one in the house. She walks towards an empty bedroom. Exhausted and shivering from the cold, Renu soon gets asleep. Shekhar returns and find Renu sleeping in his bedroom. She is shunted out of the house in rains. Gopal takes her out of the house and arranges for her a temporary shelter in an outhouse. During the conversation, Gopal learns that Renu comes from a wealthy family. At first, he sees an opportunity to use her for getting ransom from her family. However, after some time, Gopal tries to facilitate romance between Shekhar and Renu. But Shekhar is a woman-hater.
It was only when Renu saves Shekhar from a herd of elephants, he has a change of heart and reveals to Renu why he has been hating women. The story goes in flashback mode. In his younger days, Shekhar meets Kamini (Helen), falls in love with her gets married. Soon he comes to know that Kamini was in love with his boyfriend (Anwar Hussain) but married Shekhar with the intention of taking a slice from his wealth. Shekhar throws Kamini out of his house with some financial settlement. Since then, he has become a woman-hater. Later, he was informed by Kamini’s father that she had died in a car accident.
Shekhar and Renu get married with the consent of Renu’s parent. On their wedding reception, Kamini makes a surprise appearance. Though she does not create uncomfortable situation for Shekhar in front his guests at the reception, behind the scenes, she is negotiating for some more slice from his wealth as a price to keep quite. However, Kamini’s boyfriend comes to know that Shekhar can not part with any money from his property to anyone until his death. He plans Shekhar’s death with the help of Kamini. With the lure of signing divorce papers, Kamini travels with Shekhar in his Jeep with a view to killing him at a place where her boyfriend is waiting. When his jeep is stalled, Shekhar gets down to check when suddenly a landslide brings a big rock tumbling down toward the jeep and Kamini dies. Shekhar is framed for the murder of Kamini and arrested.
In the court, the circumstantial evidence is against Shekhar. The only way to prove Shekhar innocent is to get hold of Kamini’s boyfriend. After a long car chase, Kamini’s boyfriend is cornered by Gopal. After a long fight, Gopal is shot by Kamini’ boyfriend and tries to run away. However, a seriously injured Gopal throws his knife towards him making him temporary incapacitated. The police arrives and arrests him during which unwittingly, he tells police what he had planned. Gopal dies of injury. Shekhar is absolved of the killing of Kamini by the court and unites with Renu.
The story of the film is good enough for a Masala-type film and its proceeding is interesting to watch. I get an impression that script/screenplay must have undergone constant updating as the shooting progressed. There are some loose-ends in the screenplay. For instance, when Shekhar throws Renu out of her house for trespassing, Gopal gives shelter to Renu in an outhouse and Shekhar does not object. Another instance is when Anwar Hussain and Helen are planning how to kill Shekhar on a plateau, suddenly a deaf and dumb boy turns up to listen to their plan from a distance and passes on the information to Gopal.
The film had six songs written by Majrooh Sultanpuri which were set to music by Chitragupt. Three songs have been covered on the Blog. I am presenting the 4th song, ‘kitnee hai albelee zulfen teree’ rendered by Asha Bhosle who sings for Helen. Pradeep Kumar and Padmini among others are present in the song picturisation.
The context of the song is that Shekhar and Renu are married and during the marriage reception, Kamini (Helen), Shekhar’s first wife makes a surprise appearance which puts Shekhar (Pradeep Kumar) in an uncomfortable situation because her father had written him a letter to Shekhar that Kamini had died in a car accident. Of course, Kamini has come for extracting some money from Shekhar as a price for keeping quite about her marriage with Shekhar. During the reception, she does say indiscreetly about Shekhar with the last stanza of the song giving a hint to Shekhar that if required, she can expose him fully.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Kitnee hain albelee zulfen teree sahelee(Afsaanaa)(1966) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyrics-Majrooh Sultanpuri, MD-Chitragupta
Lyrics:
kitnee hain albelee
zulfen teree sahelee
kitnaa haseen naujawaan hai
wo jo khele hai inse
haay
kitnee hain albelee
haay
zulfen teree sahelee
kitnaa haseen naujawaan hai
wo jo khele hai inse
haay
kitnee hain albelee
rah gayaa hogaa jhoom ke
roop ko tere choom ke
rah gayaa hogaa jhoom ke
roop ko tere choom ke
choom saktee main naheen to
chhoo hee loon tujhe meree jaan
ho..o o ho oo
ho o oo
kitnee hain albelee
haay
zulfen teree sahelee
kitnaa haseen naujawaan hai
wo jo khele hai inse
haay
ye bhee kahaa hogaa sakhee
tum se hai pahlee aashiqee
ye bhee kahaa hogaa sakhee
tum se hai pahlee aashiqee
mat bharosaa uspe karnaa
mar naa jaanaa uspe haay
haa haa o o haay haay haay
kitnee hain albelee
zulfen teree sahelee
kitnaa haseen naujawaan hai
wo jo khele hai inse
haay
kitnee hain albelee
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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