Meree kutiya ke deep tere hee dam se ujaalaa hai
Posted on: April 1, 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 Daana Paani-1953.
The film was made by Sunrise Pictures, Bombay. It was directed by V.M.Vyas, a different kind of person.
Vishnukumar Maganlal Vyas was born on 4-11-1905 in Ahmedabad. He started his career in 1927 as a Cinematographer. His company, Sunrise films, was started in 1941. He produced and directed 30 Hindi ( 3 Silent and 27 Talkie films) and many Gujarati films . He died on 24-1-1962 at Bombay. Vyas was a very hardworking person and a man of ‘ never say die ‘ spirit. He was disciplined and did not tolerate any nonsense. He was also known as a very miser. Being a Vaishnav, his stars would get only vegetarian food during shootings. If they wanted Non Veg food, they had to pay for it. His first Talkie film was Saubhagya Lakshmi-34 and the last was Naag Devta-81.
Famous writer Manto has described in his book an incident about Noorjehan and V.M.Vyas.
At the time of film Naukar-43, the pair of Shaukat Hussain and Nur jehan troubled Vyas to no end. Not attending the shoots on time, asking for extra money on some pretext or the other and in general giving trouble and mental torture to Vyas were common. Not only this, additionally Nur jehan and Shaukat used to take interesting property materials from the sets to their house-like furniture, decorative vase, cupboards etc. Vyas kept quiet till the film was complete.
Once the film was completed and released, he registered an F.I.R against both of them for stealing studio equipment. To utter dishonour of Noor jehan, a police raid was made on her residence and all the furniture, tables, decorative pieces etc., which she had taken from the sets were confiscated and the court fined her also.
Thus Vyas did not keep quiet when it was his turn and taught a lesson to Noor jehan and Shaukat Hussain, for troubling him.
The Music Director of this film was Mohan Junior. When the first song of this film was posted on this Blog in 2012, this name had created a lot of discussion by many readers about the name of this M.D. It was because of a remark by the famous Gazal singer Begum Akhtar. Her one gazal was used in this film. She had said that this gazal was composed by Madan Mohan, M.D. Based on this remark, HFGK concluded that Mohan Junior was actually Madan Mohan. A footnote to this effect was also put under this film.
In the history of Hindi Cinema, besides the biggest problem of Same name artists causing confusion, there were many other smaller, but irritating unsolved mysteries like…
1. Who sang the song ” Dilli se aaya bhai Tingu” in the film Ek thi ladki-49 ?
2. Who was the artist who sang on screen,” Hawa mein udta jaaye” from the film Barsat-49 ?
3. Who were the composers ” Vasant Ramchandra” ?
4. Are they one person or two – Shyam ji Ghanashyam ji and Hemant Kedar ?
5. Who said ” Yahoo” in the film Junglee-64 song ?
6. Who sang ” Leke pehla pehla pyar’ on screen ?
7. Why did composers Jaidev and C Ramchandra give music in different names ?
8. Whose voice is in the ” Mehboob production” ‘s logo ?
9. Who was the artist in Prabhat’s logo ?
10. Who were the singers of ” Bharat ki ek sannari..” from the film Ramrajya-1943 ?
11. What happened to actresses Latika and Mrudula ? etc.etc.
I have listed only a few here, but there are many other such riddles, puzzles and unsolved (as yet) mysteries in the Hindi cinema world.
Since the time I started writing on old films, I have tried relentlessly to get the right answers, with proof, for some of these riddles. I was successful in solving some mysteries too. As far as the Same name artist’s confusions are concerned, I had dug out information on more than 100 such artists and published this in my books. From time to time even my articles here also contained them. Presently, I have information on another few more such same name artists with me, which will be published in my next book,after adding a few more pairs.
One mystery connected with today’s film is about its Music Director – Master Mohan Junior. As per a note in HFGK,under the film “Daana paani”-53, it was composer Madan Mohan, who gave music in this name. There was no reason to doubt this claim as it came from HFGK, but one day…..
One day in 2012, I received a query from Shri Girdharilal Vishwakarma ji, asking about Mohan Junior, who, according to him, was a different person. He wanted to know if I had some information.
I had no such information. I was actually floored with this query. After receiving this query, I immediately got in touch with Madan Mohan’s son Sanjeev Kohli ji and daughter Sangeeta Gupta ji and asked them this question. Sanjeev ji promptly responded saying that in all probabilities, Mohan Junior was a different person and that is why they have not included the film Dana Pani-53 in Madan ji’s filmography.
Then I contacted Harish Raghuwanshi ji of Surat. We did hard work and then found out that Mohan Junior indeed was different. He was a Gujarati Music Director. Further Harish ji found that one Dr. Vipin Kikani had done his Ph.D. on ” Gujarati stage and its artistes” and that he had written about Mohan Junior in his book. Harish ji got the book, translated the relevant portion in Hindi, made its PDF and sent it to me with his Gujarati Filmography.
By now, the mystery was almost solved, but still, to get a first person confirmation, I requested Girdharilal ji to talk to Madhubala Jhaveri, because she had sung some songs for Mohan Junior. He did it immediately and Madhubala ji confirmed that Mohan Junior was a Gujarati person and he was NOT Madan Mohan.
At last, it was conclusively proved that Master Mohan Junior was not a pseudo name for Madan Mohan but he was a different person. Here is his full information…….
Master Mohan Junior was born in 1908 in a Bhurji Rajpoot family at Masuda, near Ajmer. When he was 5 year old, the great Plague epidemic killed all members of his family and he became an orphan. His cousin took him to Idar and he grew up there. He had inherited the singing ability of his father.When he was 13 year old, Raghunath-his brother in law- sent him to ” Morvi Subodh Arya Natak Mandali “, in 1921. Later he also worked with Imperial,Laxmikant Natak Mandali and Arya Naitik drama company from 1926 to 1930. His brother in law was quite attached to him.
He started with Gujarat Kala Mandir as a Music Composer from 1930 onwards. His attempts to become an actor failed in 1932. He was now owner of the company Arya Natak Mandali, in which Ramlal was a Music composer. His music became famous with many famous dramas.Raskavi Raghunath Brahmabhat has praised his music capabilities.
He gave music to 6 Gujarati films, namely- Ajamil-48, Vadilon na vaanke-48, Bhakta Pooran-49, Vevishat-49, Choodi Chaandlo-50 and Bhakta Narsaiyo-52. He also gave music to 2 Hindi films- Ajamil-48 and Daana Paani-53.
Even after all clarification about Mohan Junior, still 2 questions remained –
1.Why did Begum Akhtar say that Madan Mohan gave music. The answer to that is-she was right, that Gazal (in the film Dana Pani-53) was composed by Madan Mohan and it was used in the film. It was concluded therefore that the entire film music was given by Madan Mohan. I think HFGK went overboard in this.
2.Why that composer called himself Junior, because in 48, and 49 Madan Mohan was not a composer as yet. He debuted with Aankhe-50. I found out that during that period there was yet another Mohan-a Mohan Sharma, a Music director for Jai Hind-1949(unreleased) and Chocolate-1950.
Maybe to distinguish himself, he called himself Mohan Junior.
Sanjeev Kohli ji has also now agreed that he must be a different person. However Sanjeev ji has requested me NOT to quote his name elsewhere in this connection,as he does not want any controversy now. so let us keep him out of this.
Although all this search for truth took place back in 2012, 13 years ago, I recounted all this, only to stress the difficulties one faces in breaking an old myth or decoding a mystery.
The cast of the film was Meena Kumari, Bharat Bhushan, Veera, Wasti, Chitra, Shashi Kapoor, Mirza Musharraf, Mumtaz, Shivraj, H.Prakash etc.
How many readers know about the actress Veera ?
Veera was from a Parsi family.Her full name was Veera Ankaleshwaria. Obviously, her family came from Ankaleshwar,a small industrial town(now), in Gujarat. She started her career in films as a Heroine opposite Nasir khan in the film Mazdoor-1945. Then came Shikari-46 and later Eight days-46, both had Ashok Kumar as the Hero. Both the films were from Filmistan. Her last film as Heroine was Tohfa, opposite Rehman and Leela opposite Agha , both films from 1947. Then she stopped getting Heroine roles and shifted to side roles. In all she did 22 films.
Her other films were, Veena, Ziddi, Chanda ki Chandani- all 48, Sanwaria-49, Hamara Ghar and hamari beti- 1950, Hamari shaan, Ramjanma and Sagar-1951, Aasmaan, izzat, Moti mahal, Sanskar and Shin shinaki boobla boo-all1952, Dana Pani-53, Boot polish and Sheeshe ki deewar both 1954.
She married Mohsin Abdulla, who had worked in Bombay Talkies as a writer. He was the younger brother of actress Renuka Devi ( Begum Mirza). After the marriage, both migrated to Pakistan in 1955. No news after that.
The story of the film Daana Paani-1953 was…..
It was based on a tear jerker story by the famous and popular Marathi Dramatist Vasant Kanetkar.He also wrote the s/play.Actually Vasant Kanetkar’s farcical and humorous dramas were very popular and he was not known for such tearful plots.
Anyway,the story is about the limitations,miseries and sufferings of the lower middle class of india.
Shanker(Bh.Bhushan),his wife Uma(M.Kumari),their small son Deepak(shashi kapoor sr. as a child artist),step brother Kishen(M.Musharraf),step sister Shashi(Chitra) and step mother Badi maa(Gauhar) are the central characters.An ill paid teacher-Shankar spends all the money(Rs.2000) kept by his father for Shashi’s marriage on his family needs.He can not provide a Tricycle to his son,can not marry his step sister,who causes further complications by loving and getting pregnant from a greedy lawyer’s son,refusing to compromise on honesty, Shankar invites further trouble etc etc.
After about the interval the viewer gets so much frustrated with so many disasters and the never ending difficulties,one shuts his mind to the ongoings on the screen,till almost the last reel,by which time the high ideals and good principals of life have a forced but weak victory and a good end is somehow managed.It is all so ,unconvincing that one starts wondering whether,in one’s life it is wise to have high principles if you have to wait till the end to uphold them at all !
Let us now enjoy the 72 year old song by Madhubala Jhaveri….
Song- Meree kutiya ke deep tere hee dam se ujaalaa hai (Daana Paani)(1953) Singer- Madhubala Jhaveri, Lyricist- Indeevar, MD- Mohan Junior
Lyrics
Meree kutiya ke deep
tere hee dam se ujaalaa hai
sapnon kee tarah maine tujhko
aankhon mein paalaa hai
tere hee dam se ujaalaa hai
meree kutiya ke deep
tere hee dam se ujaalaa hai
jis din baalak ne vipda(?) mein
door kee khaatir maate
maa kee aankh mein aansoo na thhe
phir ghar mein doodhh kahaan se
ghol ke aataa doodhh banaayaa
pee ke baalak bahlaa
mamtaa ke haathhon paanee bhee
amrit pyaalaa hai
tere hee dam se ujaalaa hai
meree kutiya ke deep
tere hee dam se ujaalaa hai
maa teree majboor hai munne
ise maaf kar denaa
maa teree majboor hai munne
ise maaf kar denaa
aage kisee ghareeb ke ghar mein
jaa ke janam na lenaa
aage kisee ghareeb ke ghar mein
jaa ke janam na lenaa
mere bas kee baat ho
main taare bhee tod ke laa doon
par mera ye jeewan to
aansoo(?) hee maalaa hai
tere hee dam se ujaalaa hai
meree kutiya ke deep
tere hee dam se ujaalaa hai
4 Responses to "Meree kutiya ke deep tere hee dam se ujaalaa hai"
April 1, 2025 at 3:13 pm
Noor Jehan and Shaukat Hussain took “method acting” to new heights—by turning the film set into their personal furniture store! V. M. Vyas, however, had the last laugh, ending their shopping spree with a police raid. Stardom can get you many things, but not free home décor!
Thanks, Arun Sir, for uncovering this intriguing piece of trivia!
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
April 1, 2025 at 3:02 pm
Mohan [Junior]: Lost in Name, Found in History
Who knew a casual remark by Begum Akhtar would spark a full-blown musical whodunit?
A simple credit in HFGK turned into a detective mission, unravelling twists, turns, and a long-lost composer!
From Gujarat’s Natak Mandalis to Madan Mohan’s mistaken identity, the truth finally emerged.
Legends remain, but myths? They eventually meet their match!
Kudos to Arun Sir and the dedicated researchers—myth-busting at its best!
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April 1, 2025 at 5:47 pm
Thank you for your appreciation.
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