Wafaaon kee kismat ne achchee sazaa dee
Posted on: February 14, 2025
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 a Muslim Social film – Ismat aka Asmat-1944.
!939 to Aug 1945 was the II World War period. Almost every country in the world was affected, either directly or indirectly. The year 1944 was a time when the world knew that the end of World War II was near, however, till that time the Raw Film shortage was troubling the film makers in India. Black money generated through Black marketing was disturbing the industry. The cost of the filmmaking, which was about a Lakh or so in 1940, had escalated to 5 to 6 lakhs per film. Studio system was weakened due to individual production practices started by black money investors.
Star salaries had inflated. Many stars worked on FreeLance basis. The law of war promotion movies was now forcefully implemented. Many producers made War propaganda movies to get the Raw Film at controlled rates. The Government had increased the Entertainment Taxes in Bombay, Madras, UP and CP areas, so the cost of Cinema tickets had increased. Prithvi Theatre was launched by Prithviraj Kapoor. Film artistes gathered under the leadership of EVR Naicker in Madras to form DMK party. M. Karunanidhi was a prominent leader.
In Spite of all this, some good Musical films were made in 1944. Saigal, who arrived in Bombay from Calcutta for good, made his second film in Bombay. New composers, New Heros and New heroines brought a variety of Genres of films made in 1944. Some of the major films of 1944 were….
Bhanwara, Bharthari, Chal chal re Naujawan, Chaand, Daasi, Dost, Draupadi, Gaali, Iraada, Ismat, Jwar Bhata, Krishn Bhakt Bodana, Lal haveli, Mann ki Jeet, My sister, Panchhi, O Panchhi,Panna, Parbat pe apna dera and the musical Rattan.
By this time it was also clear that India would be divided and a country, Pakistan, would be created based on religion. Everyone, including the intelligentsia of Islam knew that the poor and common Muslims need to learn the New World ways, get education, improve their ways of social life and overall change themselves to suit the circumstances. The Indian film industry had a sizable number of Muslim artists and technicians. However, comparatively films on Muslim social life were negligible. Making such films was risky. The filmmakers were afraid of the backlash from the Muslim fundamentalists. That is why the pioneers of Muslim Social films in india- Fazli brothers, chose to make such films in Calcutta, rather than in Bombay. Similarly, when Mehbbob Khan made his film ‘Elaan’ in 1947, he had warned his starcast about the expected resistance from the fundamentalists and gave them a choice to opt out of the film. Luckily no one left the film !
Films with the Muslim background of Muslim Culture were quite common in India, but not social films, right from the First ever Hindi Talkie, “Aalam Ara”-31. Not Social but different Genres like Arabian Night stories,Historical Romance, Folk Tales, Adventure Tales, Religious stories, Common King and Queen stories, Costume dramas etc had Muslim backgrounds. Indian public audiences watched these films with interest and without any bias.
If you see the film production patterns, You will realise that the biggest film companies all over India also followed the pattern of making initial films with Muslim background. Take for example the very first year of talkie films. Out of 24 films made, 7 films were on Muslim background. After Aalam Ara, there was Abul Hasan, Shirin Farhad, Laila Majnu, Noorjehan etc in 1931. Prabhat film company made Ayodhya ka Raja in 1932, but the same year, the next film was Jalti Nishani-32, a Pseudo-Historical Muslim background movie.
In Calcutta, New Theatres made their first 3 Talkie films in Hindi on Muslim subjects. Mohabbat ke aansoo-a household story, Subah ka sitara-a Folk Tale and Zinda Laash- an Arabian Night story. In the 30s and 40s, most stunt and costume films were on Muslim cultures.
In the initial era, the Talkie films were dependent on Parsi Urdu and Gujarati theatre stories. Before films appeared in India, the main channel of entertainment was stage dramas. Theatres were active and popular mainly in Maharashtra, Bengal and Andhra. The regional drama companies used to have mostly Mythological topics for their dramas. They also used to tour quite a lot. But their sphere of activities was limited to their language areas. Marathi drama companies toured only in Maharashtra towns or where there was a sizable Marathi population, like Baroda, Gwalior or Indore etc. So, their audiences were limited.
Similarly, Bengal and Andhra drama companies also toured where Bengali or Telugu population was the main audience. It was only the Parsee Theatre companies, Alfred, Elphinston etc etc, which toured all over the country, performing their Urdu dramas. Many times these companies used to take whole special trains to travel with artists and material. This earned them All India acceptance of Muslim themes, which translated into the films that were made initially. In this endeavour, major contribution was from drama writers like Agha Hashar kashmiri, Syed Yavar Ali, Munshi Nazir, Betab, kathawachak, Bekal, Ehsaan etc etc.Some early Talkie films on Muslim subjects were, Naksh e Sulemani-33, Bahar e Sulemani-35, Naadira-34, Farz e ada-35, Mumtaz Begum-34, Rashida-35 (First Muslim Social film), Noor e yaman-35, Qismat ka shikar-34, Adil e Jahangir-34, Anarkali-35, Jahan Ara-35, Shamsheer e Arab-35 and many more.
Fazli Brothers were the pioneers in making Muslim Social films from 1940 onwards. They felt that due to certain shortcomings in Muslim community, their development was suppressed. Their attempt was to highlight these points like Lack of education, for example, in their films in the garb of entertainment. Filmmakers like the great Mehboob Khan too were keen on such films, because he earnestly wanted to help his community to improve their status in Indian society.
That is why he opted for a Muslim Social theme as his First movie under his own banner,” Mehboob productions”. The film was ‘ Najma-43″. Mehboob featured A grade actors like Veena, Sitara, Ashok kumar, Kumar, Yaqub, Majid and others for his first film. Later on he made yet another Muslim social film,” Elaan”-47 which was much bolder and he expected some opposition from the Muslim Fundamentalists.
Film Ismat-44 ( the Google meaning of this word is Chastity or Modesty) was made by the Fazli brothers with all this background. By now, with the experience of 4 such films behind them, they had captured the technique of making films with subtle messages to their community. In this film, the darker side of the Western Culture, particularly Divorce and Separation, was highlighted.
Film Ismat-1944 was directed by Sibtain Fazli of the Fazli brothers. It was his first film as a director. The 7 songs of this film were written by Shams Lucknowi. Music was provided for 5 songs by Pt. Goverdhan Pershad (father of khemchand Prakash). It was his first and the only film as a M.D. He was a Dhrupad singer and a Kathak Dancer in the Royal Darbar of Jaipur. He had trained Khemchand on Music and dance, along with Gopal Chand and Ustad maula Baksh Dhavsi. 2 songs were composed by H.P.Sharma. The cast included Mehtab, Nargis, Nandrekar, Bhudo Advani, Ghori and others. The story of the film Ismat-1944 was….
Aslam (Nandrekar) and Ismat (Nargis) get married. They both are from good traditional Muslim families. Same day Shafi Anwar (Ghori) and Ishrat (Mehtab) too get married Both had tasted western culture and follow it merrily. in due course of time, the Eastern culture (Aslam/Ismat) couple is happy, but Western Culture couple (Anwar/Ishrat) can’t adjust or compromise and are divorced. Ishrat joins a Theatre company as a Dancer at a very good salary. Soon she becomes rich and famous.
Aslam goes to Bombay to look for a job and meets with an accident with Ishrat’s car. She takes him to her home and looks after him. In this accident, Aslam loses his memory and forgets about Ismat. One day Ismat and her brother see his photo with Ishrat in a newspaper. They learn everything about his accident and loss of memory etc.
Ismat goes to Bombay and works as a maid in Ishrat’s house. She tries to remind Aslam about his past, step by step. One day Ishrat discovers this and removes Ismat from the job. Dejected, Ismat sits down for nonstop prayer. After some time, due to its power, there is a storm, lightning and thunder. In this period, Aslam is affected and suddenly his memory comes back. He escapes from Ishrat’s home and returns to Ismat. Both get happily united again and Eastern Culture wins over Western Culture.
The hero of the film was a typical Marathi Muslim from Kolhapur- B.Nandrekar aka Babulal Nandrekar. He was very good looking. B.Nandrekar or Babalal Nandrekar was one of the very few really handsome actors Hindi films ever had. He was born in 1910, in Sangli district of Maharashtra, near Kolhapur. Being a Muslim, he could speak Urdu/Hindi fluently. He completed his schooling from Kolhapur and joined films. Vishnupant Damle (one of the founder partners of Prabhat Films) was making the silent film ‘Maharathi Karna’ (1928) for Maharashtra Film Co. He offered Nandrekar a role. Then he worked in other films like ‘Baji Prabhu Deshpande’ (1929), ‘Lanka’ (1930), ‘Kismet’ (1931) and ‘Dushman Ki Raat’ (1931).
His first talkie film was ‘Kurukshetra’ (1933). Prabhat gave him a role in ‘Sant Tukaram’ (1936) (its Hindi version came in 1948). He worked in ‘Amar Jyoti’ (1936) and became quite popular as a hero, opposite Shanta Apte. He was the hero in ‘Baghbaan’ (1938) opposite Sitara Devi.
In 1939, he became the first actor to go abroad to shoot scenes in the film ‘Africa In Hind’ – ‘हिन्द में अफ्रीका’ (1939). The shooting was done in Africa. Thus this became the first ever Hindi film to shoot in foreign country, and NOT film ‘Naaz’ (1954), as is popularly believed and also as mentioned in HFGK. Nandrekar had become very popular. The chappals he used in the film ‘Baghbaan’ became fashionable by the name ‘Nandrekar Chappals‘. This alone is enough to prove his popularity.
His lawsuit against Prabhat Film Company was a topic of discussion in the industry. There were differences between him and Prabhat over his contract with them. His lawyers were Mr. Jinnah and Mr. Setalwad, who won the case for him. He was also the first actor to work as a freelancer.
Nandrekar appeared in 23 Hindi films. His films were ‘Kurukshetra’ (1933), ‘Amar Jyoti’ (1936), ‘Jaadugarin’ (1937) (UR), ‘Baghbaan’ (1938), ‘Africa In Hind’ (1939), ‘Qaidi’ (1940), ‘Hindustan Hamara’ (1940), ‘Alakh Niranjan’ (1940), ‘Chitralekha’ (1941), ‘Mamaji’ (1942), ‘Duniya Tumhari Hai’ (1942), ‘Nai Kahaani’ (1943), ‘Andhi Duniya’ (1943), ‘Swarn Bhoomi’ (1944), ‘Lady Doctor’ (1944), ‘Ismat’ (1944), ‘Bachpan’ (1945), ‘Kamla’ (1946), ‘Jeevan Sikho’ (1946), ‘Parshuram’ (1947), ‘Meri Amaanat’ (1947), ‘Khandani’ (1947), ‘Sant Tukaram’ (1948) and last film ‘Bihari’ (1948).
He passed away in 1949. No definite information is available about his demise.
There is an interesting story about Nandrekar, narrated by the eminent film historian- Isaq Mujawar. In the last phase of his career, Nandrekar was in search of film roles. In this connection, he went to see A.R. Kardar in his studio. Kardar had never met him, though he knew about him. Looking at his typical Marathi dress of Dhoti, shirt and a black coat, he was asked to wait. After a few hours of waiting, it was Nandrekar’s time for Namaz. He sat in a corner and started doing his Namaz. After some time Kardar came out and enquired who this Muslim person was. A visitor who knew Nandrekar told him that he was Nandrekar, the actor. Kardar felt ashamed. After the Namaz, Nandrekar was immediately called by Kardar and he was offered a role in his film, with honour !
Now let us enjoy this 81 year old song by Rajkumari from this film….
Song- Wafaaon kee kismat ne achhee sazaa dee (Ismat)(1944) Singer- Rajkumari, Lyricist-Shams Lucknowi, MD- Pt. Govardhan Prasad
Lyrics
Wafaaon kee kismat ne achhee sazaa dee
haaye haaye haaye
ae ae ae
Wafaon kee kismat ne achhee sazaa dee
haaye haaye haaye
ae ae ae
wafaa karne ?? dil kee bastee lutaa dee
haaye haaye haaye
ae ae ae
usee din se ?? nikal aaye aansoo
oo oo oo oo oo
usee din se?? nikal aaye aansoo
oo oo oo
zara ?? aansoo bahaa doon
haaye haaye haaye
ae ae ae
zara ?? aansoo bahaa doon
haaye haaye haaye
ae ae ae
na shiqwa kisi ka
na unka gilaa hai
ae ae ae
na shiqwa kisi ka
na unka gilaa hai
ae ae ae
muqaddar ne meree ye haalat bana dee
haaye haaye haaye
ae ae ae
muqaddar ne meree ye haalat bana dee
haaye haaye haaye
ae ae ae
meree hasraton ke jo do chaar din thhe
ae ae ae
meree hasraton ke jo do chaar din thhe
ae ae ae ae ae
teree yaad aane se
?? mera dil
ae ae ae
teree yaad aane se
?? mera dil il il il
ae ae ae
?? mera dil
haaye haaye haaye
?? mera dil
Wafaaon kee kismat ne achhee sazaa dee
haaye haaye haaye
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
February 20, 2025 at 3:56 pm
Nice post Sir jee. Thanks for the detailed information about films in the year ‘1944’ and the various artistes. The title of the post ‘Wafaaon kee kismat ne achchee sazaa dee’ triggered my interest 🙂 , however could not enjoy the song as much. Its audio quality seems to be poor. Thanks for the informative post though.
Regards,
Avinash
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