Kahiye janaab kaisa haal hai
Posted by: Atul on: July 16, 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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Decoit films have been an important genre of Hindi films for a long time. Perhaps, the first talkie film in this genre was ‘Daaku Mansoor (1934) which was directed by Nitin Bose with K L Saigal in the title role. But, after going through the synopsis, the film appeared to be more of a costume drama than a decoit film though the story involved a decoit.
The genre of decoit films started attaining prominence during 1950s and 60s, probably in the background of the stories that were circulated in the newspapers about the prominent decoits of Chambal valley and elsewhere. The newspapers sensationalised the dread decoits like Gabbar Singh, Maan Singh, Mohar Singh, Putli Bai etc on their daring dacoity and the fear they instilled in their area of operations. Such news became the inspirations for many Hindi films such as ‘Mother India’ (1957), ‘Ganga Jamuna’ (1961), ‘Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai’ (1962), ‘Mujhe Jeene Do’ (1963) etc. This trend continued in the 1970s with films like ‘Mera Gaon Mera Desh’ (1971), ‘Khotey Sikkey’ (1973), ‘Kachhe Dhaage’ (1973), Sholay’ (1975), ‘Ganga Ki Saugandh’ (1978) etc. In recent years, ‘Paan Singh Tomar’ (2014) and ‘Sonchiraiya’ (2019) were made with decoit stories.
Side by side, some ‘B’ grade films with decoit theme were also made during 1960s and 70s. But these films were leaning more towards the action genre than decoit. In fact, the acts of dacoity in these films looked like heists. The persons who have turned decoit were often shown as good individuals who faced some wrong doings from the society forcing them to turn dacoit to take revenge. The lead actors donning the role of a decoit mostly get reformed at the end and joins the mainstream of the society. Most of this type of films take cinematic liberties, portraying the protagonists in Robinhood type of character but at the same time instilling the fear in their base villages. There are exaggerated fight scenes, cabaret/mujra dances and some crude comedy scenes.
‘Gangu’ (1962) was one of such ‘B’ grade films which was produced by I M Anand and directed by Promod Chakravorty. The cast included Sheikh Mukhtar, Chandrashekhar, Naaz, Madan Puri, Sulochana, Ulhas, Altaf, Naazi, Rajan Kapoor, Bela Bose, Mohan Choti etc. After watching the film, I feel that ‘Gangu’ was a better presented one among the ‘B’ grade films of this genre of that timeframe.
The story of the film in some details is as under:
Gangu (Sheikh Mukhtar) works as a labourer in a timber estate. The estate manager, Sher Singh (Altaf), behaves cruelly to labourers. Gangu always speaks on behalf of the labourers and this is not liked by Sher Singh. Mahinder Singh (Rajan Kapoor), the timber estate owner calls Sher Singh in his office and admonishes him In the heat of the moment, Sher Singh kills the timber estate owner. At very that time, Gangu comes to the timber estate owner’s office for some financial help for treating his wife who is pregnant. Sher Singh sees an opportunity to implicate him in owner’s murder. By that time, the police team reache the office during which Sher Singh points his suspicion toward Gangu who was the last person to visit the owner’s office. The circumstantial evidences are all against Gangu. He is sentenced to life imprisonment.
Eager to meet his sick wife Bindu (Sulochana), Gangu escapes from the jail and catch a train for his native village. In the train, he meets Madan (Madan Puri) who assures him to reach to his wife. They get down at the railway station where Madan comes to know from a villager that Gangu’s house has been burned by the villagers and his wife was seen going in a hand cart pulled by a man for settling at a different place. However, a severe storm hit the village killing the man and whereabout of his wife is unknown, probably presumed dead. He also says that the newspapers have reported that Gangu has escaped from the prison during which he was killed under a running train.
Gangu is devasted by the what has heard from the villager. He decides to go back to the prison. However, Madan tells him that for the public and the police, Gangu is dead. This is an opportunity for him to take revenge against Sher Singh in particular and the society in general. He takes Gangu to his lavish house and assures him that he can stay in his house as long as he wishes. His new life begins with a new name, Rangoonwala, with a new profession, a dacoit. There has been a series of dacoity on the remote forested region. The police has not been able to identify as to which gang of dacoit is responsible for the dacoity.
In the meanwhile, Bindu who has got a shelter in a different village gives birth to baby boy. She works on a construction site taking her child along. One day, when Bindu was busy with her menial work, her son walks towards road when he narrowly escape accident. The owner of the car, Rai Bahadur Pratap Singh (Ulhas), not finding anyone to take the child, decides to report the matter to police station. He takes the child to his house and wait for the police to arrive. However, he develops affinity toward the boy and decide to adopt the boy. Bindu, who was running behind the car to claim her child, reaches his house. After listening to what Rai Bahadur Pratap Singh was telling his maid servant as to how he would bring up this boy, she decides against claiming the boy as her own. Instead, she requests Rai Bahadur to employ her in his house to take care of the boy. Rai Bahadur agrees and Bindu becomes her own son’s caregiver in the house.
During the same timeframe, Gangu, now known as Seth Rangoonwala, along with Madan are leading a gang to rob the passengers in a car on a road in the midst of a forest during which the targeted car is met with an accident. The gang loots their baggage when Rangoonwala finds a baby girl in the wreckage of the car crying. She has lost her parents in the car accident. Rangoonwala brings her in Madan’s house and decides to adopt her as his own daughter despite Madan’s opposition.
After few years, the boy grows as Suraj (Chandrashekhar) who has returned after completion of his higher studies abroad, He gets employed as Police Inspector who is posted in the dacoit infested region specially to tackle the menace of dacoity. By now, Madan and Rangoonwala have become rich and have diverted to the business of getting government contracts for timbers. He is also doing charities by helping the poor as a front. His adopted daughter, Chand (Naaz) has grown up. She has gone for a picnic with her friends in Rangoonwala’s car and Suraj has lost his way to a remote place while on duty. Finding Chand and her girlfriends on his way, he asks Chand for the location of the place he is on a visit which she deliberately misguides him to a dead end of a road. But she follows him in the car to make fun of him, leading to their first funny encounter.
While Madan and Rangoonwala is planning a dacoity in a club where the region’s queen is attending a party wearing some costly jewellery. The heist is successful but the sound of gunfire makes Chand in her house and Suraj in his Dak Bungalow to go on their respective cars to check as to what happened. Both meet at the intersection of the road during which he finds a costly cigarette case in Chand’s car which she throws out of the car telling him that it is not hers. Suraj picks up the cigarette case and goes to investigate the matter. It is Chand and Suraj’s second meeting not in a congenial atmosphere.
Suraj feels that the costly cigarette case may lead him to the man who may be connected with the dacoity. His sidekick (Mohan Choti) also feels that cigarette inside the case is also of a costly brand which suggests that the owner of the cigarette case is a fun-loving person. Suraj decides to visits nearby bars and clubs to check whether he could get some lead to the owner of the cigarette case.
When Rangoonwala comes to know about losing his cigarette case to a person driving a white car, he reports it to Madan as it contains an important piece of paper which can give a clue to his real identity. Madan feels that the white car may belong to a police CID in which case he is exposed to some danger. Madan expects that the man with white car may visit the club for investigation during which he would attempt to retrieve the cigarette case through the dancer (Naazi). But this attempt fails. Rangoonwala cautions Madan that they will have to be extra careful if the person in white car is indeed a police CID. Rangoonwala asks Chand not to wear the necklace which Madan has gifted her as that probably belongs to the queen.
In the cigarette case, Suraj has found a small photograph which DIG identifies as that of Seth Rangoonwala who is a respected person of this locality doing charitable works. Suraj still has a doubt over Seth Rangoonwala’s role in a series of dacoity. But before he proceeds to do further investigation, he gets a telegram that his adopted father is sick in Lucknow. He decides to travel by car. When Madan gets this news, he employs his henchman to make his car’s break fails during his travel. Chand has overheard the conversations without knowing who was speaking in the phone. She decides to caution him by visiting his dak bungalow in her car. But by that time, Suraj has already left in car for Lucknow. She catches up with his car and saves him in the nick of the time when he has realised that his car’s breaks have failed. Anyway, Chanda reaches back home and Suraj reaches Lucknow to see his ailing father.
When Suraj was taking leave of his father, Nanny/Bindu goes back to his room to bring his coat when she finds a cigarette case. She opens it and to her surprise, there is a photograph of Gangu, her husband and a letter she had written to him after her home was torched by the villagers. Suraj tells her that he has to go back as he is looking to meet one Bindu in connection with dacoity case. After sometime, Rai Bahadur along with Bindu visit the same city for the change of climate to recover from his illness. And the place is the same where reports to his D.I.G. about the progress of the dacoity case.
While meeting Chanda, Suraj gets hold of the necklace she was wearing and the Queen has identified the necklace which she has lost during the heist. Now, it becomes clear to Suraj that Seth Rangoonwala has some involvement with the series of dacoity in the region. He goes to meet Seth Rangoonwala to further investigate the matter where he finds Seth Rangoonwala having some heated arguments with an unidentified man who accidentally falls from balcony and gets seriously injured. The person is none other than Sher Singh. Before dying, Sher Singh reveals to Suraj that Seth Rangoonwala is in reality, Gangu to whom he has implicated for killing Mahinder Singh, the timber estate owner and got him life imprisonment. Rai Bahadur Pratap Singh who has adopted Suraj with Bindu as his Nanny is the son of the murdered Mahinder Singh.
With Seth Rangoonwala’s exposure, Madan becomes panicky. He tells Rangoonwala that he would eliminate Suraj by himself leading his gang. Bindu comes to Seth Rangoonwala’s house after she comes to know that he is Gangu, her husband. She tells him that Police Inspector, Suraj is their son. Hearing this, he runs to save Suraj from Madan. In a fight, he kills Madan and saves Suraj. The film ends with Gangu surrendering before his son, the Police Inspector Suraj, who takes him to the police station. But this time Gangu is going to the prison with a happy mind.
The film had six songs written by Prem Dhawan which were set to music by Kalyanji-Anandji. Three songs have been covered on the Blog. I present the 4th song, ‘kahiye janaab kaisaa haal hai’ which is rendered by Kamal Barot who sings for dancer, Naazi. Madan Puri, Chandrashekhar and his sidekick, Mohan Choti among others are present in the night club.
The context of the song is that an expensive cigarette case has come in the hands of Chandrashekhar who feels that the owner of the cigarette case may be a fun-loving rich person and he may give him a lead to the person responsible for a series of dacoity. So, he decides to visit a local night club. Madan Puri on the other hand presumes that the cigarette case picked up by a person driving a white car, could be a CID man. Since the cigarette case contains an important piece of paper which can expose the real identity of Rangoonwala, Madan Puri plans Naazi’s dance in the night club hoping that the unknown person, if he is a CID, would visit the night club as a part of his investigation. Naazi would retrieve the cigarette case while dancing with him. While Naazi is successful in retrieving the cigarette case from Chandrashekhar during the second stanza of the song, Mohan Choti gets it back from her during the third stanza of the song.
The rhythm to the song is provided mainly by the use of Bongos supplemented by the playing of violin and flute, giving a feel of the jazz music. Perhaps, Frank Fernand, the music arranger for Kalyanji-Anandji contributed to the orchestration of the song since he himself was known as one of the pioneers of jazz music in India.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Kahiye janaab kaisa haal hai (Gangu)(1962) singer-Kamal Barot, Lyricist-Prem Dhawan, MD-Kalyanji Anandji
Lyrics:
kahiye janaab kaisaa haal hai
kis haseen kaa khayaal hai
aap kaheen aur dil kaheen
walla kamaal hai kamaal hai
kahiye janaab kaisaa haal hai
kis haseen kaa khayaal hai
aap kaheen aur dil kaheen
walla kamaal hai kamaal hai
kahiye janaab kaisaa haal hai
tum kahaan thhe ham kahaan thhe
phir bhee tumse mil gaye
anjuman mein tum jo aaye
laakhon gunche khil gaye
tum kahaan thhe ham kahaan thhe
phir bhee tumse mil gaye
anjuman mein tum jo aaye
laakhon gunche khil gaye
thhe abhee tak tum kahaan
tumse itnaa sawaal hai
aap kaheen aur dil kaheen
walla kamaal hai kamaal hai
kahiye janaab kaisaa haal hai
jabse dekhaa hai kisee ko
ho gayaa aalam jawaan
tum bahut ho khoobsoorat
kah uthhaa saara jahaan
jabse dekhaa hai kisee ko
ho gayaa aalam jawaan
tum bahut ho khoobsoorat
kah uthhaa saara jahaan
chaand tumko kyun kahe
chaand par to daagh hai
aap kaheen aur dil kaheen
walla kamaal hai kamaal hai
kahiye janaab kaisaa haal hai
kis haseen kaa khayaal hai
aap kaheen aur dil kaheen
walla kamaal hai kamaal hai
kahiye janaab kaisaa haal hai
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
July 16, 2025 at 11:23 pm
Good Evening,
Very beautiful song. Thanks for sharing.
Regards
Uma
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