Kaanton sa chubhtaa jaata hai
Posted on: July 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 a duet from the film Aage Kadam-1943.
The greatest problem with the old films is that many times information on some films is not available at all. Even the film booklet is not available. All that is known about them is what is given in the HFGK. Some of the actors and actresses are not familiar and to get their information is almost impossible. While writing about their songs, this becomes a challenge. We have to then discuss whatever is available at hand.
Today’s film is also one such obscure film with well known cast members, the director and the MDs. Yes, there were two MDs – Madholal Master and Ramchandra Pal. Thank God, at least some songs are available on Youtube !
In such cases, HFGK comes handy. Sometimes I wonder that if HFGK was not available, what would have happened? What did people do before it was published by Hamraz ji ? This makes the HFGK a monumental work. Thank you Hamraz ji.
When I started writing posts on old films in 2012, the first thing I did was to buy all the available volumes of HFGK, from 1930 to 1970, in 5 volumes. Later on more volumes were made available for the years later than 1980. However, I have not bought them, since generally I do not use that information regularly.
Recently, a small Get- Together of some ATULITES was arranged at my place. During the proceedings, I noticed that the members were glancing at the pile of HFGK volumes kept on my work table, next to my Laptop. I knew the reason. The HFGK volumes for 1930 to 1960 which I have, are in complete tattered condition. This is due to its constant-almost daily- use for the last so many years. The cardboard covers have separated from the rest of the papers and the pages are in “divorced” condition with other pages ! Even then I use the same volumes in ” as is where is ” condition (they are beyond ‘gumming’), because of the hundreds of the small notes I have made on each page and each name, song and each detail. Buying new volumes means losing all this information being used as a reference or maintaining all 10 volumes, at a time, which will be cumbersome !
HFGK has been one of the tools I have used in writing my more than 1600 articles. I can not imagine how I would have done it without them. HFGK provides names of major and minor actors, the director, the MD and the song details which makes it very easy for finding the songs on social media like YouTube etc. Kind song collectors upload “new” old songs from time to time. There are music collectors who collect only the songs of the old films (without collecting 78 RPM records), like, for example Dr. Surjit Singh ji. He allows any song lover to download these songs for FREE. A real social worker, I would say. My friend Shri Abhay Jain from the USA has given me more than 6000 songs from films of the 30’s and 40’s alone !
Many times HFGK provides names of some actors, singers , MDs, or Directors who evoke my interest as they are not commonly seen and I spend months collecting information about them from various sources at my disposal.
Film Aage kadam-1943 was made by Acharya art productions, Bombay. It was owned by the director of the film-N.R.Acharya. The cast included Motilal, Anjali Devi, Mubarak, Rajkumari Shukla, Padma Banerjee, Master amritlal, Leela Pawar, Narmada Shankar (elder brother of the comedian/lyricist Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi) and others. The cast has some artistes, who feature in the “Same Name Category” like Anjali Devi, Rajkumari Shukla, Master Amritlal and Leela Pawar.
There were many actresses who carried the name Leela. Some were famous, some were not.Leela Desai and Miss Leela (Chandragiri) formed a part of ” Same Name Confusion” pair, as both acted and sang in A grade films. Some others were, Leela Mishra (the eternal Leela Mausi), Leela Sawant, Leela Kumari and Leela Pawar. Later on came Leela Naidu and Leela Mehta also. Those who used their surnames faced no identity problem. As such Leela Sawant and Leela Pawar were actresses of B and C grade action films. Leela Mishra did roles of elderly persons and mothers from the very beginning.
However, Master Amritlal caused a lot of confusion with another film personality- Amritlal Naqgar. Master Amritlal was originally a stage and silent film artist from Gujarat, who acted in 20 Talkie films. His first film was Vikram Charitra-1932 and his last film was Roop Nagar-1947 as an actor He sang 23 songs in 10 films from his film Vikram Charitra-32 uptoPagli Duniya-44.
The other Amritlal (Nagar) was a renowned author who spent his time in Hindi film industry from 1940 to1947, after which he went back to his original profession as writer. Here is what the Encyclopedia of Indian films says about him…..
Amritlal Nagar ( 17-8-1916 to 23-2-1990). He was an extraordinary person. He handled almost every department of Literature-except perhaps Poetry and Autobiography. Short stories, Novels, dramas,travelogues etc etc were written by him During 1940 to 1947 period, he was in the film industry. He wrote stories, s/p, dialogues of as many as 20 films in Bombay , Kolhapur and Madras. He dubbed M.S.Subbulakshmi’s Tamil film ‘ Meerabai’ into Hindi. he also worked to translate Russian films like Zoya and Bukhara into Hindi. He won innumerable awards, including Padma Bhushan and Sahitya academy award. He was one of the very rare Hindi Literature stalwarts to work in the film industry for such a sustained period. As a Lyricist he wrote 33 songs in 4 films- Sangam-41, Kunwara Baap-42, Kisiko na kahna-42 and Raja-43. Unfortunately, due to similarity in the first name, most people consider them as one person who acted, wrote lyrics, sang songs and wrote stories, dialogues and screen plays !
In the Hindi film industry, there were many artists having almost the same names. These caused problems for the serious students of History of films, especially in crediting the filmography. Rajkumari was one such name. There were atleast 3 Rajkumari s, working almost the same time in Hindi films. Rajkumari Shukla was one of them. In addition there was T.R.Rajkumari from the south doing roles in a few Hindi films.
Raj Kumari Shukla, She was born in a well-known Brahmin family in Calcutta in 1903. Her own life has been quite tragic. She had to join the film industry not so much because of personal choice, but due to tragic personal circumstances. Like most young girls from Indian families, this virtuous lady, well-versed in household chores, got married. But her family life after marriage proved to be extremely unhappy — so much so that one day her husband gave her a brutal beating and drove her from his house.
Finding no refuge anywhere, she went to Jagannath Puri (in Orissa) and lived there in an ashram. Gradually, her family history and marital problems became known to one of the priests there, and he informed her parents. Her elder sister then brought her back to her house.
One theatre actor known locally as Gujarati Baba used to live nearby. Sometimes, she would get some theatre passes from him and go to local theatres to see some plays. This not only helped her to forget her unhappy past but also kindled in her young heart the desire to act in plays. The Gujarati Baba then persuaded her to adopt acting as a profession. Accordingly, in 1933, she joined Maadan Theatre and began her career as a leading lady, Film-goers of those days can still recall her “hilaali abroo, tez aankhen, kushaada peshaani aur siaah zulfen”. She excelled in emotional roles.
Starting her career in silent films, she came into her own with the advent of “Talkies”. Apart from Maadan Theatre, she worked for other film companies too. Her memorable films included “Intezaar”, “Zevar”, “Jagat Mohini”, “Fariyaad”, “Chaandni”, “Sharda”, “Panghat”, Tulsi”, “Swami, “Ek Raat”, “Man Ki Jeet”, “School Master”, Dulhan”, “Badalti Duniya”, “Aankh Micholi”, “Raj Nartaki”, “Jhoola” and “Najma”. She now acted more as a character artiste and vamp. Her realistic emoting in such negative roles makes the audiences shiver in revulsion. Her roles in films like “Ek Raat”, “Swami”, “Jhoola”, “Fariyaad” and “Dulhan” have been specially appreciated by film-goers.
She was only an actor and not a singer. She acted in 31 Talkie films. She also worked in few Gujarati and Bangla films. Her last recorded Hindi film was Nai Maa-46. She did sing just one song in her career. That was in the film Panghat-43. It was a duet with Baby Tara. At her times, the other more famous actress-singer Rajkumari Dubey Banaraswali was also very active. In few films both acted, but the songs were only by Rajkumari Dubey Banaraswali.
Rajkumari Shukla died on 14-7-1946.
(Information for the above has been taken from an Urdu book,”Filmi Titlian” published in 1945, and Film Directory,-1946, with thanks.)
Today’s song is sung by Motilal and Anjali Devi. At the time of this film, Motilal was already 33 year old and Anjali Devi was just 17 year old. Motilal was one of those actors/heroes who had their heroines too young to be equal to their daughters’ age. The other such (lucky) actors were Ashok Kumar and Shammi Kapoor, whom I remembered offhand. Readers may know some more such actors.
Now enjoy today’s 82 year old song, sung by 33 year old Motilal and 17 year old Anjali Devi….
Song- Kaanton sa chubha jaata hai (Aage Kadam)(1943) Singers- Anjali Devi, Motilal, Lyricist- Kailash Matwala, MD- Ramchandra Pal
Both
Lyrics
kaanton saa
kaanton saa
kaanton sa chubhta jaata hai
kaanton saa
kaanton saa
kaanton sa chubhta jaata hai
phir bhee
phir bhee
phoolon sa bhaata hai
?? se hai paas bulaataa
?? se hai paas bulaataa
meethha meethha dard dilaataa(?)
meethha meethha dard dilaataa(?)
aa aa
aa aa aa aa
nain se nainaa
nain se nainaa milte hee
rom rom mein chhaaya re
rom rom mein chhaaya re
unko naina dekh na paate
unko naina dekh na paate
dekhe to pal pal jhuk jaate
dekhe to pal pal jhuk jaate
jinke ?? ee ee ee ee
jinke heera(?) hote wohee
jinke heera(?) hote wohee
man mein aan samaayaa re
man mein aan samaayaa re
rom rom mein chhaaya re
rom rom mein chhaaya re
kal jo thha
kal jo thha
nainon ka taaraa
kal jo thha
nainon ka taaraa
aaj wahee hai chaand hamaaraa
aaj wahee hai chaand hamaaraa
kisne andhiyaare se ghar mein aen aen
kisne andhiyaare se ghar mein
kisne andhiyaare se ghar mein
deepak
deepak aaj jalaayaa re
deepak aaj jalaayaa re
rom rom mein chhaaya re
rom rom mein chhaaya re
ae ae ae ae ae ae ae ae ae ae
chhaaayaa re
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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