Uthh jaa bijlee pyaaree
Posted on: March 21, 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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Today, March 21, 2025, is the 111th birth anniversary of Agha who had over 5 decades of Hindi film career, predominantly in comedy genre. He was known for his comedy emerging from his late reactions which was inspired from an American actor, Edward Everette Horton as he had revealed in a TV programme hosted by Tabassum.
Aghajan Baig (21/03/1914 – 30/04/1992) was born in Pune. His family was from Iran who had settled in Pune for business. Later, the family shifted to Mumbai for a greener pasture. In Mumbai, Agha became interested in becoming jockey at racecourse. However, his height and weight prevented that career. He joined amateur drama group in his neighbourhood. But his precarious financial position made him to join Hindi film industry in 1933 as a Production Manager in Kanwal Movietone. Under the same banner, he acted in his first film, ‘Stree Dharm’ (1935) followed by ‘Kaarwan-e-Husn (1935). In 1938, Agha acted as a comedian in Wadia Movietone’s ‘Rangeela Mazdoor’ (1938) and CIRCO’s ‘Anuradha’ (1940). Thereafter he acted in National Studio’s, ‘Kasauti’ (1941), ‘Nai Roshni’ (1941), ‘Apna Paraaya’ (1942) and ‘Jawaani’ (1942).
‘Jwaar Bhaata’ (1944) was Agha’s first film for Bombay Talkies and his first under the direction of Amiya Chakrabarty in which he was one of the two lead actors, other being the debutant Dilip Kumar. He was paired with Shamim while Dilip Kumar was paired with debutant Mridula Rani. The film marked the Agha’s association with Amiya Chakrabarty in ‘Baadal’ (1951), ‘Patita’ (1953), ‘Shehanshah’ (1953), ‘Badshah’ (1954) and ‘Kathputli’ (1957).
One of Agha’s outstanding performances was in Amiya Chakrabarty’s ‘Patita’ (1953) in the role of Mast Ram which was not a comedian’s role but a responsible caretaker for a woman in distress. The director, Amiya Chakrabarty had offered Agha this role despite opposition from some of his team members as well as financier/distributor. But Agha proved his director right in choosing him for the role in which he occasionally created light humour out of sadness. In fact, Agha excelled well in his unusual role in the film with two solo songs picturised on him.
Agha was one of Gemini Pictures favourite actors in their films like, ‘Mangala’ (1950), ‘Sansaar’ (1951), ‘Mr. Sampat’ (1952), ‘Chandirani’ (1953), ‘Bahut Din Huye’ (1954), Insaaniyat’ (1955), ‘Raaj Tilak’ (1958), ‘Ghoonghat’ (1960), ‘Gharaana’ (1961), ‘Teen Bahuraaniyaan’ (1968), ‘Shatranj’ (1969) etc. I had watched Agha in the film for the first time in ‘Insaaniyat’ (1955) in which he had a major role along with Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand. He was paired with Mohana and Zippy, a monkey was his companion. Another film, in which I liked the performance of Agha was in ‘Teen Bahuraaniyaan’ (1968).
During over five decades of his filmy career, Agha acted in over 300 films from 1935 to 1989. ‘Jai Vikrant’ (1995) was Agha’s last film which was released after he passed away in Pune on April 30, 1992. His son, Jalal Agha has acted in many Hindi films. One of his daughters, Shahnaaz is married to director, Tinu Anand.
‘Muqaabla’ (1942) was one of Agha’s early films in which he had a prominent role as a side kick of Yakub. The film which was produced under the banner of J B H Wadia Productions was jointly directed by Batuk Bhatt (Nanabhai Bhatt) and Babubhai Mistry. The star cast included Fearless Nadia, Yaqub, Agha, Srinivas, Rajni, Dalpat, Nazira, Jal Khambata, M K Hasan, Baby Madhuri, Khan Mastana etc. This film seems to have been produced at a time when Wadia Movietone was in the verge of a split between Wadia Brothers – J B H Wadia and Homi Wadia. It was a Homi Wadia presentation.
In this film, Fearless Nadia was in a dual role of twin sisters who gets separated when their mother is murdered and the father with one of the twin sisters is kidnapped by Shivnath (Dalpat). The twin sisters grow up in different families, Madhuri being a good citizen and Rani with a criminal gang led by Shivnath. Later, Madhuri finds the whereabout of her father and her twin sister Rani who was dancing in the night club. After coming to know about their father’s kidnapper, both the sisters join hands to take revenge against Shivnath with the help of Niranjan (Yakub), Ramu (Agha) and Madhuri’s dog, Gunboat to smash the gang. Babubhai Mistry, the Art Director used the split screen technology which made possible for the appearance of Nadia as twin sisters on the same screen. He also created a revolving set which could be transformed from a gambler’s den to the drawing room of a house during the police raid.
On the occasion of 111th birth anniversary of Agha, I am presenting the song, ‘uth jaao bijlee pyaaree uth jaao’, from the film ‘Muqaabla’ (1942). The name of the singer is not known but my guess based on the voice is that it is Agha who is singing for himself. Incidentally, Agha has rendered another song on himself in this film. In the picturisation of the song under discussion, Nazeera, Agha’s love interest, among others is peeping through the window. The film had nine songs written by A Karim which were set to music by Khan Mastana. Four songs have been covered on the Blog.
The context of the song in the film is that Niranjan (Yakub), smitten by Madhuri’s (Nadia) beauty, is visiting her house to meet her. He stops his car outside Madhuri’s palatial house to drop his friend, Ramu (Agha) to meet Bijlee (Nazeera), his heart throb who stays in the servant’s room in the same house. But Ramu cannot go to meet her as her brother (Habib) is with her. He decides to sing a song which is a parody song to wake her up. The song starts with the parody of so jaa rajkumari so jaa followed by another parody song, a popular non-film ghazal of that time, deewaanaa banaanaa hai to deewaanaa banaa de, sung by Begum Akhtar. Bijlee does get the clue from the song but is unable to meet him due to her brother’s presence. But his song also wakes up Bijlee’s brother, two other servants and Madhuri’s Alsatian dog which forces Agha to retreat.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Uthh jaa bijlee pyaaree (Muqabala)(1942) Singer-Agha, Lyrics-A Karim, MD-Khan Mastana
Lyrics:
uthh jaa
uthh jaa…
uthh jaa bijlee pyaaree..ee
uthh jaa
uthh jaa bijlee pyaaree..ee
uthh jaa
[Dialogues]
teraa mukhdaa arre chamkataa
haay aise
jaise chaand chamkataa rehtaa hai
jaise chaand chamkataa rehtaa hai
deewaanaa banaanaa hai to deewaanaa banaa de
deewaanaa banaanaa hai to deewaanaa banaa de
deewaanaa banaanaa hai to deewaanaa banaa de
varnaa mujhe
varnaa mujhe
varnaa mujhe
varnaa mujhe
haan
varnaa mujhe thhaane kaa paagalkhaanaa bataa de
varnaa mujhe thhaane kaa paagalkhaanaa bataa de
varnaa mujhe thhaane kaa paagalkhaanaa bataa de
o dekhne waalon mujhe
arre waah
o dekhne waalon mujhe
mujhe
khidkee se naa dekho
o dekhne waalon mujhe khidakee se naa dekho
haay ye bijalee kaheen
arre bijlee kaheen
ye bijlee kaheen tumko mujh jaisaa na banaa de
ye bijlee kaheen tumko mujh jaisaa na banaa de
meree fariyaad sun
arre baap re
arre meree fariyaad sun lo
arre thhak gayaa chillaate chillaate
arre zaraa iss husn kee daulat se
kuchh mujhko bhee de jaate
haan
haan
haan
haan haan
lag gayee chot kalejwaa mein
haay raam
lag gayee chot
[Dialogues]
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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