Meree sejon ka mehmaan naadaan
Posted on: February 27, 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 the film Ladies Only-1939.
The year was 1939 and the British Government had declared war against Germany and Japan, as soon as the WW II began. All countries ruled by Britain were – willingly or unwillingly, drawn into the war efforts and its effects. The war began in the month of September and soon various restrictions came into operation – like rationing, blackouts, shortages etc. The film industry which was still under its development stage suffered. It also realised the importance of remaining united as one industry. However, all that came after 1 or 2 years. In 1939 there was not much effect seen on the film industry.
The industry had its own problems. In spite of the playback system in operation, their problem was that because there was no technique of recording from the film negative yet, the singers had to sing twice. Once for the actual film shooting of the song, and later, with the same set of orchestra, for commercial records. Sometimes, the original singer was not available due to any reason, some other singer had to sing for commercial records. Thus we have many such examples, where the singer in the film song and the record is different. However, this problem continued only till the mid 50’s when the Tape and the required technique became available. With just one time recording, the film and commercial recording were taken care of.
In 1939, Khemchand Prakash, K.Datta (Datta Koregaonkar), Rafiq Ghaznavi and Anupam Ghatak made their Debut as Music Directors. Kavi Pradeep wrote his first film song for film Kangan. In 1939, 2 most Unusual songs were presented, for the first time . One was a Multilingual song from the film Aadmi-39, a film by Prabhat….Kis liye kal ki baat. This song was in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bangla, Tamil and Telugu. ( In its Marathi film version-” माणूस “, this song was only in one language-Marathi.) Different Lyricists and MDs were used for each language. The song became very popular. In fact, most people in Prabhat had not liked this idea. The song proved all of them wrong and became popular.
Second unusual song was from the film ‘ Ghareeb ka Laal’-1939. The song lyrics had the names of 32 artistes, operating in Hindi films that time. Top Heroes and Heroines were mentioned in this song. The beginning of the song was ” Tuze Bibbo kahoon ya Sulochana, Uma shashi kahoon ki Jamuna “. This song was sung by the comedian Mirza Musharraf. In later years many songs with film artistes’ names came but none had so many names. Thus this record is still unbroken, in case of this song.
Besides these songs, let us quickly take a look at some films of 1939….
Aadmi – Prabhat’s hit film, a remake of the Marathi film ” माणूस “. It had some good songs by Shanta Hublikar, Sundarabai Jadhav and Ram Marathe.
Adhuri Kahani – a trend of Tragedy films set by the film ‘Devdas’. All the 3 main characters of this film commit suicide in the end.
Badi Didi – A New Theatres film.
Brandy ki Botal – Master Vinayak’s comedy remake of Marathi film ‘ ब्रॅंडीची बाटली ‘.
Dil hi to hai – Debut of Kidar Sharma as a Director and Ramola as a Heroine in a Hindi film.
Dushman – New Theatres’ film of Saigal, with only his 4 songs.
Ek hi Raasta – Sagar presents first film with 3 Heroes in one film.
Ghazi Salauddin – Debut of Khemchand Prakash as M.D.
Hukum ka Ikka – First film with a Triple role by Umakant Desai ( who later specialised as Lakshman in 7 films, including Ramrajya-43).
Imaandaar – Debut of actress Shamim Akhtar.
India in Africa – This was the First Hindi film to be shot abroad (in Africa). The Hero B. Nandrekar had also gone to Africa for its shooting. Naaz-54 was not the first such film, though HFGK mentions it so.( Ref – pp 69, Maharashtra-The Birthplace of Indian cinema by Historian Isak Mujawar)
Kangan – First of the 4 Hit films of Ashok kumar and Leela Chitnis, made by Bombay Talkies. Kavi Pradeep’s Debut as a Lyricist in this film.
Kapal kundala – New Theatres. Pankaj Mullick’s hit song ‘ Piya milan ko jaana ‘.
Leather Face – Debut of Meena kumari as a child artiste.
Navjeevan – Debut of Hansa Wadkar as a Heroine- Bombay Talkies film.
Pukar – Hit film from Minerva Movietone. Naseem Bano sings ” Zindagi ka saaz bhi kya saaz hai….” which became quite popular. For a Non-Singer it was an achievement.
The film Ladies Only– 1939 was made by Sagar Movietone. Sagar came up very fast in the film industry and then it got eclipsed also very fast within about 10 years. Starting with Sagar Film Company, it made 12 silent films. Its first Talkie film was Veer Abhimanyu in 1931. By 1940 , Sagar had made 52 Hindi films, 5 Tamil films, 4 Gujarati films, 3 Telugu films and 1 each in Punjabi and Bengali languages. Then it merged with National Studios and made 16 films under this banner.
There is a wonderful book “Sagar Movietone ” written by the eminent author Biren Kothari ji. The book gives a comprehensive information about the formation of the company and how it went down. it is best to read it from the original book. I was invited to the publication ceremony of this book in Mumbai. Famous actor Amir khan released the book. It happened in 2014. Many old and new personalities of the film world were present there. On this occasion I had an opportunity to meet the son and other family members of actor singer Surendra Nath Sharma. I also had a talk with Baburao Patel’s wife, actress, singer and famous dancer, Sushila Rani. Such opportunities are rare.
The year 1939 was the best year for Sagar Movietone, as they made 7 films and 4 films were in the final stages for next year. In the early era of Indian film making, producers freely used the themes and stories from the Hollywood movies, as if they were made for their inspiration only ! Today’s film Ladies Only-1939 was a comedy driven film using the central theme of a Hollywood film ” How to marry a Millionaire”-1937. By the way , there was another movie in Hindi with the same title ” Ladies Only aka Titalee’ in 1951.
For Sagar Movietone, ‘Ladies Only’ (1939) gave them a good start for the year 1939 with a box office hit. This was followed by another box office success viz ‘Ek Hi Raasta’ (1939). The banner had also planned for their ambitious films like ‘Alibaba’ (1940) in Hindi and Punjabi and ‘Kumkum the Dancer’ (1940) in Hindi and Bengali. But before these films could be released, Sagar Movietone found themselves in a dire financial crunch. By the end of 1939, the banner was amalgamated with General Films to form National Studios.
Sagar was the first to use 3 Heroines in this film. It was released on 16-2-1939. The film was successful and they used 3 Heroes and 3 Heroines in their next film- Ek Hi Raasta-1939. Today’s film had the cast of Sabita devi, Surendra, Bibbo, Prabha, Harish, kaushalya, Bhudo Advani, Sunalini Devi and many others. The Music was provided by Anupam Ghatak ably assisted by Ashok Ghosh. Sagar used to make repeat films with successful pairs, for example Sabita Devi and Motilal made 9 films and Bibbo and Surendra made 6 films here. In the film Ladies Only-1939, Surendra, Bibbo and Sabita Devi came together.
The April 1939 issue of ‘Filmindia’ wrote a review for this film thus….
Three girls from three different states, Bengal, Gujarat and Punjab viz. Chhaaya (Prabha, Bengali), Sarojini (Sabita Devi, Gujarati) and Asha (Bibbo, Punjabi), meet at a railway station in Bombay (Mumbai). They decide to stay together for their boarding and lodging for which they rent a flat. Satish (Surendra) also meets these girls who come to know that he is passionate about music and stays opposite their rented flat.
The girls staying together for sometime now know each other’s nature. Asha, the Punjabi girl is crude, greedy, music lover, lazy, comfort seeker etc. Chhaaya, the Bengali girl is miser, coy, primitive, and childish. Sarojini, the Gujarati girl, is educated, resourceful and has a great organisational capacity but these are all at the expense of the other two girls. They also display one-upmanship about their respective states.
All the three girls not only live together, they also aim at the same man, Satish who spends much of his time with these girls either on outings or in their rented flat. One day, girls decide to visit his house across the street without notice and find a stout woman welcoming the girls. The stout woman turns out to be Satish’s wife. It is shocking for the girls. The girls walk out of the house muttering something derogatory about the men folk in general.
One of the 3 heroines in this film was Bibbo, whose name may not be familiar with new readers. MISS BIBBO OR ISHARAT SULTANA was born in Delhi in 1906. Her mother Hafeezan Bai was a famous singer. She was extremely beautiful. Being from a singer’s family,she was trained in music at home . She landed in Bombay in 1933. She started her acting career with Ajanta Cinetone Ltd. in 1933, working with directors like M. D. Bhavnani and A. P. Kapoor. She was one of the top leading ladies of the 1930s along with actresses like Devika Rani, Durga Khote, Sulochana, Mehtab, Shanta Apte, Sabita Devi, Leela Desai and Naseem Banu. She was referred to as “one of the most important female stars of the 1930s and 1940s”.
Her fame had her featured in the lyrics of a popular song from the film Gharib Ke Lal (1939) sung by Mirza Musharraf and Kamla Karnataki, with music by Sagheer Asif and lyrics by Rafi Kashmiri. “Tujhe Bibbo Kahoon Ke Sulochana” (Should I call you Bibbo or Sulochana), where Sulochana referred to another popular actress of the time. This was the first time a song featuring famous actors was used in the lyrics of a film song.
She acted in Maya Jaal and Rangeela Rajput. Then came Dukhtar e Hind,Sair e Paristan and Vasavdatta. She sang duets with Master Nissar which became very popular. She was so stylish and attractive that many Nawabs,kings and State heads invited her.In her hey-days,she was very rich and lived a very luxurious life.She was a Fashion icon in those days for ladies in India,Burma and Ceylon.Her dresses used to be copied. She worked for Sagar movietone after Ajanta and Manmohan-1935 became a hit. Her duets with Surendra became a rage all over India.
BIBBO aka Ishrat Sultana has the distinction of being India’s(or rather the world’s) FIRST Woman Music Director, when she gave music to the film “ADAL E JAHANGIR”-1934(it was also titled as NYAYEE ( न्यायी ) , means one who does justice).There were 14 songs in the film .Later in 1937,she gave Music to yet another film, this time along with Dr.Samad, “QAZZAQ KI BETI”. There were 9 songs in this film. She, however, did not become a professional or a prolific Composer-like Jaddanbai or Saraswati Devi.
She worked in nearly thirty films as a lead actress in India from 1933 to 1947, shifting to character roles in later years, following her move to Pakistan. She won the Nigar Award for the best character actress for her role in the Pakistani film Zehr-e-Ishq (1958).
Bibbo shifted to Pakistan following the partition of India in 1947. She started working in films there as a character artist doing about twelve films from 1950 to 1966.
Her first film in Pakistan was Shammi (1950), a Punjabi picture directed by Munshi Dil. She co-starred with Shammi, Santosh and Ajmal. It had music composed by Master Inayat Hussain.
Dupatta (1952), was an Urdu film directed by Sibtain Fazli and produced by Aslam Lodhi. It starred Noor Jehan, Sudhir, Ajay Kumar and Yasmin along with Bibbo. The film was acclaimed as a big hit commercially and had music composed by Firoz Nizami, with songs sung by Noor Jehan.
Zahr-e-Ishq was released in April 1958. Produced by Khurshid Anwar and Sultan Jilani under the banner of Select Pictures, it starred Musarrat Nazir, Habib, Yasmin, Neelo and Bibbo. The music was by Khurshid Anwar, with lyrics by Qateel Shifai. Hailed as an “excellent film” by the reviewer, it won Bibbo the Nigar Award for best character actress.
Jhoomar is a 1959 film directed by Masud Pervez, with music composed by Khurshid Anwar. Produced by Anwar for the Noor Minar Pictures banner, it starred Musarrat Nazir, Sudhir and Laila.
Ghunghat (1962), a suspense-thriller drama, was directed by Khurshid Anwar, who also wrote the story and composed the music. The cast included Nayyar Sultana, Santosh, Neelo, Laila and Bibbo.
Bibbo acted in a few more films, with Fanoos (1963) and Ghalib being commendable from her acting point of view, though the films did not do well commercially. Her last cited film is Armaan (1966), directed by Parvez Malik, with music by Sohail Rana.
Bibbo was married by the end of the 1930s to Khalil Sardar, who directed her in Adal-e-Jahangir, for which she gave music. Following the marriage, they left Bombay and moved to Lahore, where they produced a film under the banner of Rainbow films, Qazzak Ki Ladki (1937), where she was also the music director. The film was a commercial failure and Bibbo finally returned to Bombay. Following Partition in 1947, Bibbo moved to Pakistan, where she worked as a character artiste. She had married the eldest brother of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto-Imdad Ali Bhutto. She lived in Karachi and was frequently seen in the Central Hotel, Karachi.
Her end in Pakistan was very pathetic and in very poor condition. She died on 25-5-1972.
Some of her films are-
300 days and after, Akela, Bhole bhala, Capt. Kirti Kumar, Dukhtar e Hind, Gramophone singer, Garib Pariwar, Jagirdar, Ladies only, Maya jaal, Manmohan, Laxmi, The mill, Postman, Pyar ki Maar, Qazzak ki ladki, sagar ka sher, Sadhana, Sair e Paristan, Service limited, Sneh bandhan, Vasavdatta, Watan, Mere Raja, Pehli nazar, Zeenat, Sassi punnu. and Pehla Pyar-1947, her last film in India.
Another heroine of this film Sabita devi and the Director of this film left Sagar Movietone after this film. Sabita devi became a freelancer and Sarvottam Badami, the director joined Sudama Pictures, started by Dr. Ambalal Patel, one of the original partners of Sagar.
Here is the 86 year old song by Bibbo for you to enjoy….
Song- Meri sejon ka mehmaan naadaan (Ladies Only)(1939) Singer- Bibbo, Lyricist- Not Known, MD- Anupam Ghatak
Lyrics
Meri sejon ka mehmaan naadaan
meri sejon ka mehmaan naadaan
meri sejon ka mehmaan nadaan
main bhi udaas bhaye saare
main bhi udaas bhaye saare
meri sejon ka mehmaan nadaan
mere baanke chhail ??
mere baanke chhail ??
main ho gayee roop deewaanee
main ho gayee roop deewaanee
praanon pe praan milaaye
o ho
praanon pe praan milaaye
main bhi udaas bhaye saare
main bhi udaas bhaye saare
meri sejon ka mehmaan nadaan
meri sejon ka mehmaan nadaan
nainon se nain milaaye milaaye
nainon se nain milaaye milaaye
hans hans apne paas bulaaye
hans hans apne paas bulaaye
jaan gayee main tere ishaare
jaan gayee main tere ishaare
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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