Kaun hai jispe zamaane ne sitam dhhaayaa naheen
Posted on: May 22, 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 C grade action/jungle film, labelled as a Costume film – Mala The Mighty-1948. Made by Basant Pictures, Bombay, owned by Homi Wadia, it was directed by John Cavas, who was also the Hero of this film. The others in the cast were Leela, Dalpat, Azeem, Shyamsunder, Saleem, kareem etc. Lyricist Shyam Hindi wrote the songs which were composed by the Melody Master Chitragupta.
1948 was an year when the filmmakers breathed a sigh of relief, because now there was no restriction on making films openly on our Independence efforts or having songs of patriotism and Indian culture.
Film Shaheed made by Filmistan was based on the 1942 Quit India Movement. This was Dilip Kumar’s first Hit film.
Bombay Talkies made Majboor on the exit of the British from India. There was a song also describing it.
Internationally famous dancer Uday Shankarmade ‘Kalpana’ glorifying different dances of india. It ran well in Calcutta, but other places it had a lukewarm reception.
Suhag Raat by Kidar sharma -his best in career- presented Geeta Bali (who resembled his wife Kamla Chaterjee), as a Heroine for the first time. She too did justice to her role.
Raj Kapoor established his RK Studio and made Aag with 3 heroines- Nargis, Kamini Kaushal and Nigar Sultana. He did not match them, but managed well with good songs.
Another Dilip film Mela was full of melodious songs. Suraiya’s Pyar ki jeet too was a musical.
Chandralekha from the South created history with its impressive challenge to Hindi films. Lavishly made and released with over 600 prints all over India at the same time it indicated the future competition from southern films !
Dev Anand’s Vidya and Ziddi made an impression.
Kishore Kumar sang his first song in Ziddi. Asha Bhosle sang her first solo in Chunaria.
Anokhi Ada with veteran Naseem and Surendra was successful.
Grihasthi, Pagdi, Gopinath, Nadiya ke Paar etc were other notable films.
Under these circumstances the action films had slowly gone down. After Fearless Nadia slowed down, her films were fewer. Another actor who made action films, Bhagwan, turned to Social films from 1951.
When God created Man and Woman, he sent them here without names, because there was no one else to call them. When the human population increased, names became necessary to identify the persons. I don’t know how, but there were two types of names. Names for Males and Females were different so that by name alone their sex could be known. This trend has continued from ages. Today when you call “Dara Singh”, others understand that a male will come and when you call ” Madhubala”, a female is expected. This is the system all over the world.
So when I say ” Vaijayantimala or Mala “, what do you imagine ? A girl, of course ! With this born mental set up, I went to see the film “Mala the Mighty-1948” and was about to faint when I found that “Mala” was not the name of the Heroine, but was that of a strong, well built, athletic Hero ! I was very angry about this cheating. I could never imagine that Mala could be a male’s name too. It was only after I grew up and toured Eastern India (read W.B.) for official work, I came across this strange phenomenon – where, what is considered as an exclusive feminine name in the rest of India, could be a male’s name too ! Names like Mrinal, Vimal, Kamal, Jyoti, Mridul, Daya, Champavati, Devki, Dwaraka, Hiran etc. India truely is unique !
After a dispute with his brother, Homi Wadi left Wadia Movietone and started his own Basant pictures. The whole team led by Nadia joined Homi’s production house. Wadia Movietone had the non-human participants for stunt films, like the horse -Punjab Ka Beta, a Dog – Tiger and a Motor car – Rolls Royce Ki Beti. Homi Wadia made a new team with the Horse – Rajpoot, Dog – Moti, Motor Car – Austin Ki Bachhi and in addition they had a motorcycle – Runnio.
Homi Wadia had the winning lead pair of Nadia and John Cawas for stunt films. By 1948, Nadia had reached the midpoint of her career. From 1933, in 15 years’ time she had done 28 action/stunt films. She slowed down and in the next 11 years she did 15 films only. Homi was always on the lookout for an actress who would take over from Nadia. First he got actress Radha Rani who did only 7 films for him and left. Then he found actress Leela- about whom no information is available. There was a time when several Leelas were acting in Hindi films – like Leela Chitnis, Leela Desai, Leela Chandragiri, Leela Gupte, Leela Pawar, Leela Sawant, Singer Leela Mehta and later on Leela Naidu. Out of these Leela Pawar, Leela Sawant and Leela Gupte were acting in stunt films of mainly Master Bhagwan. But Wadia’s Leela was not known. Anyway, she did only a few films, got married and left films.
In my younger days,I was very fond of seeing the Jungle and stunt movies and wherever they were screened I used to go and see them.Thus I had seen many Nadiya,Kamran,and all Darasingh and Azad films..
By 1948, Nadiya had slowed down her stunt films and was seen sporadically.However Basant was floated by Homi Wadiya to continue making stunt and fantasy films.,hence he was always on the lookout for such actors who will take the place of Nadia to continue the legacy of Basant Pictures.
Leela was one such find. However, after few movies,she stopped films, got married and retired from films is what is known about her. The pair of Kamran(father of famous choreographer and director Farah Khan and actor, compere,director Sajid Khan) and Nazi was also his find. Their stunt films were also very good and popular with people like me,in those days.
I had seen this film, MALA THE MIGHTY,in its second or maybe third run in the early 50s.
MALA,THE MIGHTY-1948 was a rehash of the frequently used, but tested formula of Tarzan-slightly modified. Such stories never stopped entertaining people. In any case who wanted the story ? They all wanted the stunts animals, fights and dances.
Mohanlal(Azim) was a rich businessman. Once while on a trip in a ship, on a bad night, the ship is wrecked and his wife dies,but his 2 daughters are missing,though he survives.After 15 years he decides to search for his daughters in the Jungles of Kaliyana,bordering sea,hoping that they might have been washed ashore.
With him is Chimanlal(Shree Bhagwan) who was to marry one of the daughters, and a friend Prof.Tatto(Shyamsunder). On the border of the jungle they employ Ali Bux(Kareem),a guide and his friend Trivedi-who is actually a Gold digger looking for the Golden treasure of tribal queen Sheen.On their way they are attacked by tribals but there comes MALA,THE MIGHTY(John Cavas) who saves them with his army of elephants.Mala is the legendary king of Jungle who fights Lions,Tigers and kills Crocodiles etc.he takes the party to his tree top house and they find Leea(leela) a 17 year old beauty living as his companion.
Trivedi is captured by tribals.He strikes a deal with Sheen,the queen(Leela-in double role),to capture Mala,whom Sheen loves in exchange for the Gold treasury.
Mala gets captured and is brought to tribal chief Rajan (Waman Talpade) who wants to kill him. Meanwhile Leela comes there with the Party to rescue Mala. Mohan lal recognises both girls as his daughters long lost. Rajan tries to kill Mala,but Sheen saves him and gets killed.The animal friends of Mala arrive and the tribals run away.
Leela hugs her father but refuses to go with him, choosing to remain with MALA THE MIGHTY.
The End !
Here is a 77 year old song from this film, sung by an young 18 year old Geeta Roy (Dutt)….
Song-Kaun hai jispe zamaane ne sitam dhhaayaa naheen (Mala The Mighty)(1948) Singer-Geeta Dutt, Lyricist- Shyam Hindi, MD- Chitragupt
Lyrics
Kaun hai jispe zamaane ne sitam dhhaayaa naheen
kaun hai jispe zamaane ne sitam dhhaayaa naheen
aasmaan ne kiskee ummeedon ko thukraayaa naheen
aasmaan ne kiskee ummeedon ko thukraayaa naheen
zindagaanee maut ko
hotee(?) thhee jiske waaste
zindagaane maut ko
hotee (?) thhee jiske waaste
dekh to aayaa tujhe ??
?? aayaa naheen
dekh to aayaa tujhe ??
?? aayaa naheen
aasmaan ne kiskee ummeedon ko thukraayaa naheen
aur to dil mein koi hasrat naheen iske siwaa
aur to dil mein koi hasrat naheen iske siwaa
jisko apnaayaa thha maine
haaye wo aayaa naheen
jisko apnaayaa thha maine
haaye wo aayaa naheen
aasmaan ne kiskee ummeedon ko thukraayaa naheen
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
May 23, 2025 at 7:43 am
Arun Ji
Thanks for an amusing post ( about names & how we come/came to attach /identify genders).
I too have many times wondered how a male can have feminine sounding names.
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May 23, 2025 at 5:08 pm
Satish ji,
Thanks.
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