Muhabbat ho gayee hai mere meharbaan ko
Posted on: January 24, 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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‘Noor Jahaan’ (1967) was produced under the banner of Zenith Productions with Sheikh Mukhtar being the executive producer. The film was directed by M Sadiq. The star cast included Meena Kumari and Pradeep Kumar in lead roles supported by Rehman, Lalita Pawar, Veena, Nigar Sultana, Wasti, Rajan Haksar, Balam, Mukri, with special appearances of Sohrab Modi, Sheikh Mukhtar and Johny Walker.
Most of us must have read in our history text books in high school the reign of Emperor Jahangir and his chief consort, Noor Jahaan. The history textbooks give more emphasis on the wars, governance, trade, commerce, art and cultural activities than the personal relationships. So, the love story of Jahangir and Noor Jahaan in the history textbooks comes as a subsidiary topic. From the cinematic presentation point of view, the film giving more emphasis on their love story becomes interesting to the audience as it has a lot of scope for dramatics. The love story of Jahangir and Noor Jahaan in ‘Noor Jahaan’ (1967) cover the birth of Noor Jahaan (real name: Mehrunissa) near Kandahar, the family’s migration to Agra for better prospects, Mehrunissa’s father getting a high-ranking post in Mughal court, Salim’s first encounter with Noor Jahaan in a garden and thereafter their love blossoming.
For any love story, there are bound to be some obstacles. Akbar and his noblemen do not approve of their relationship because Salim is from the royal family, and Mehrunissa is a commoner. How to separate them? It is done in two ways. First, Salim is sent with the troops to Gujarat to quell a Pathan rebellion. Second, by royal order, Noor Jahaan is married to Sher Afghan and both are sent to Burdwan, far away from Agra by promoting Sher Afghan as the Subedar of Bengal. After a couple of years of the marriage, Sher Afghan gets killed. Mehrunissa thinks that Jahangir, who has become the Emperor after the death of Akbar, had a hand in the killing her husband. She seeks justice from the court. Finally, the court pronounces Jahangir not guilty. That paves the way for Jahangir’s marriage with Mehrunissa after a lot of persuation.
The story in detail is as under:
An old man in the caravan of some noblemen near Kandahar (In Afghanistan) sees a cobra guarding an infant. The old man picks up the infant – a baby girl and scouts for a lactating woman who can feed the baby. He visits his friend, Mirza Ghiyas Beg (Wasti) at a nearby place. His wife (Veena) has recently given birth to a baby girl which they have lost during a sandstorm. Ghiyas Beg is happy that they have found their lost baby girl. The old man gives her name as Mehrunissa and predicts that one day the baby girl would rise to the prominence. Since the caravan is going to Agra, he suggests that they should accompany them to Agra for his prosperity where Akbar rules.
The scene shift to Agra where Akbar (Rehman) is informed that Mirza Ghiyas Beg has arrived whose father had helped Akbar’s father, Humayun when he was in Afghanistan after Sher Shah Suri dethroned him. Now, it is the turn of Akbar to help Mirza Ghiyas Beg. He gives him a high post in his court.
The years pass and Mehrunissa (Meena Kumari) has grown up. So also, Akbar’s son Salim (Pradeep Kumar) who distastes the work which is expected of him as a prince. One day, while Mehrunissa with her friends was strolling in a garden, reciting a poem (actually, singing a song), Salim hears and is impressed with her rednition and poem. He wants to meet her. His orderly (Johny Walker) arranges a meeting with her in a garden with the help of a court dancer, Dilruba (Helen). Salim meets Mehrunissa but the meeting turns out to be brief as a maid comes to inform Salim that the Empress is expecting him.
Salim is looking for opportunities to meet Mehrunissa which should appear like the incidental meeting whenever she goes to meet Salim’s mother, Jodha Bai (Nigar Sultana) or grandmother (Lalita Pawar). Since it is a rare occasion that Salim is meeting his mother and grandmother, they cut short their meeting with Mehrunissa which deprives him of meeting her. Similar situation happens when Mehrunissa and her mother offer their salutations to Akbar and Salim following them. Akbar reprimands him to concentrate on issues concerning their empire like a rebellion of Pathans brewing in Gujarat.
With his failed attempts to meet Mehrunissa, Salim falls back on Dilruba to create an opportunity for him to meet Mehrunissa. She does that in the guise of arranging a girls’ ‘hide and seek’ game with Mehrunissa blind-folded to catch them. In her attempts, she meets Salim where they exchange pleasantries. Salim expresses her love for her. But she brings it to his notice that he being a prince and she being a commoner it is not proper to be seen together. But for Salim this is not an issue.
Salim and Mehrunisa continue to meet secretly. Both of them fail to realise that their secret meetings are actually being monitored by some noblemen who advise Salim to discontinue his relationship with Mehrunissa. But Salim is unperturbed. Soon, the matter reaches to Akbar who orders Mirza Ghiyas Beg to get Mehrunissa married as early as possible.
Mirza Ghiyas Beg finds a suitable bridegroom in Ali Quli Khan (Sheikh Mukhtar), a nobleman who is their guest. When Salim comes to know about this, he decides to get rid of Ali Quli discreetly. He arranges for a tiger hunting expedition in which Ali Quli joins. Salim takes with him a gun to shoot Ali Quli while on tiger hunting. However, during the hunting, a tiger pounces upon a man. Ali Quli jumps out of his elephant when Salim was aiming at him to shoot. Ali Quli saves the man by fighting with the tiger. Salim is so much impressed by Ali Quli’s bravery that he forgets to kill him. Instead, he bestows on him a new title, ‘Sher Afghan’.
Meanwhile Pathans in Gujarat has revolted against the Mughals. Akbar entrusts the work of crushing the rebellion to Salim who goes with his troops to Gujarat. During the absence of Salim, Mehrunissa is married to Sher Afghan. They shift to Burdwan after Akbar appoints Sher Afghan as the Subedar of Bengal.
In Gujarat, Salim and his troops crush Pathan rebellion but in the process, he has lost his beloved Mehrunissa to Sher Afghan. Now, it is turn of Salim to become a rebellion against his own father, Akbar who engineers their separation. This unfortunate news makes Akbar angry. He decides to crush Salim’s rebellion with his mighty troops and proceeds to Gujarat. However, Salim’s grandmother makes a surprise visit to Gujarat and meets Salim. After an emotional outburst, the grandmother convinces Salim to retreat from fighting with his father. Salim returns to Agra after his short-lived rebellion and resigns to his faith that his love for Mehrunissa would now only remain in his heart.
Akbar is taken ill and those treating him have lost hope of his survival. Akbar dies and Salim is proclaimed as the next Mughal emperor adopting his new title, Jahangir. The first thing he comes to know after becoming the emperor is that there is shortfalls in revenue collections from Bengal and Sher Afghan is alleged to have siphoned of a part of the collections. There is also allegation against him that he has been collecting extortion money from traders. Jahangir sends Qutbuddin with some troops to check the veracity of allegations against Sher-Afghan. If proves correct, he should be arrested and brought to Agra. Unfortunately, while arresting Sher Afghan, a fight erupts in which Sher Afghan is killed. Mehrunissa strongly believes that it is the handwork of Jahangir to get rid of Sher-Afghan for his selfish motive. One night, Jahangir and his noblemen find Mehrunissa ringing the bell for justice. She alleges that Jahangir is the mastermind behind her husband’s killing and she wants justice. A court under a Qadi (Sohrab Modi) is set up.
Mehrunissa submits to the court that since Jahangir was very possessive of her and had said that whoever comes between them would be eliminated, it was in his interest that Sher Afghan is eliminated. Jahangir agrees that he had said so but under a different situation. But if Mehrunissa wants him to get the death penalty for what he had said, he is prepared to accept it. In the absence of any further submission from Jahangir, the Qadi (Islamic judge) pronounces the death sentence for Jahangir. However, before the order is issued, the troops which had gone with Qutbuddin enter the court and present a witness who had seen the conversations between Qutbuddin and Sher Afghan. It was a coincidence that a fight erupted when Qutbuddin had ordered the arrest of Sher Afghan in which both got killed. The judge absolves Jahangir from the charge of murder of Sher Afghan. With a decree, Jahangir gives Mehrunissa and her family a place to live in Agra with some annual pension.
After some time, Jahangir sends through Mirza Ghiyas Beg his offer of marrying Mehrunissa which she rejects. Jahangir falls ill and almost becomes bedridden affecting his health. When father and mother fail to convince Mehrunissa for the marriage, finally, Jodha Bai makes a surprise visit to Mehrunissa requesting her to meet Jahangir and then take a conscious decision whether to marry to Jahangir or not. Mehrunissa visits to see a bed-ridden Jahangir who after seeing her gets up and walks towards her. Both in arms of each other, they take a vow that they would not be separated till the death. They get married and bestows her new name, ‘Noor Jahaan’ (The Light of the World) with equal role in running the Mughal empire.
I had watched the film a few years ago when my concentration was mainly on its songs. This time I watched the film in one sitting and found to be quite interesting even though I was aware of the story. The screenplay and dialogues of the film written by Director, M Sadiq are superb. It is an irony that while most of Sheikh Mukhtar’s stunt/action films were box office hit, ‘Noor Jahaan’ (1967) with high budget, extravagance sets and superb performance of Meena Kumari in the title role, failed at the box office. It is technically a better film than most of other films of Shiekh Mukhtar.
The film had eight songs written by Shakeel Badayuni and set to music by Roshan. Five songs have been covered on the Blog. I am presenting the 6th song, ‘mohabbat ho gayee hai mere meharbaan ko’ rendered by Asha Bhosle who sings for Helen in the film. Pradeep Kumar is present in the picturisation.
The context of the song is that after a brief meeting with Mehrunissa (Meena Kumari), Salim (Pradeep Kumar) is mesmerised by her beauty and poem. He is restless. He confides with his orderly that ever since he met Mehrunissa, he is not able to concentrate on anything. He does not know what has happened to him. To which Dilruba (Helen) in hijab enters and tells him that he has fallen in love. Salim gets annoyed but after knowing that she is Dilruba, he lets her go. And she sings with her dance reflecting what is going on in the mind of Salim.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Muhabbat ho gayee hai mere meharbaan ko (Noor Jahaan)(1967) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyrics-Shakeel Badayuni, MD-Roshan
Lyrics:
muhabbat ho gayee hai
muhabbat ho gayee hai
mere meharbaan ko
kisee na-meharbaan se..ae ae
muhabbat ho gayee hai
mere meharbaan ko
kisee na-meharbaan se..ae ae
muhabbat ho gayee hai
aaj aalam hai youn bekhudee kaa
jaise ho jaaye koyee kisee kaa
aaj aalam hai youn bekhudee kaa
jaan-e-wafaa
mol laaye ho
dard-e-dil ye kahaan se..ae ae
muhabbat ho gayee hai
mere meharbaan ko
kisee na-meharbaan se..ae ae
muhabbat ho gayee hai
aaj nazren bhee hain behkee behakee
aaj saansen bhee hain mehkee mehkee
aaj nazren bhee hain behkee behkee
jaan-e-wafaa chun ke laaye ho
phool kis gulsitaan se..ae ae
muhabbat ho gayee hai
mere meharbaan ko
kisee na-meharbaan se..ae ae
muhabbat ho gayee hai
kal to aisee naa thhee beqaraaree
aaj kyun dil pe uljhan hai saaree ee
kal to aisee naa thhee beqaraaree
jaan e-wafaa
kahiye kahiye
haay Allah kuchh to zubaan se..ae ae
muhabbat ho gayee hai
mere meharbaan ko
kisee na-meharbaan se..ae ae
muhabbat ho gayee hai
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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