Mere man ka moraa naache
Posted on: July 24, 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 songs from an unknown or a less known film – Paisa-1941. This was the first film, having the first word ‘Paisa’ in its title. After this film, every decade, there were films having the word Paisa in its title. In 1956 – Paisa hi Paisa, in 1957- Paisa, in 1969- Paisa ya Pyar, in 1974- Paise ki Gudiya, in 1985- Paisa yeh Paisa, in 1992- Paise ke Peechhe, in 2001- Paisewali, and in 2004- Paisa Vasool. Obviously, the importance of Paisa had established itself in the film industry !
Film Paisa-1941 was one of those Bilingual films (Hindi and Marathi), which just came and went without making a noise. Even the Marathi version, it seems, had the same fate. I have not seen this film and actually came to know about this film only after I purchased the HFGK Volume-2.
The film was made by Jeevan Pictures, Bombay. It was directed by a veteran – G.P. aka Ganpatrao Pawar. He was one of the many husbands of Lalita Pawar. She had first married Hanuman More in a traditional way. When she entered the film line, she divorced him and married G.P.Pawar-her director of many films. They had a son-Jay. She divorced Pawar when she discovered his affair with her younger sister. Then she married a film producer- Rajprakash Gupta.
The cast of the film was Kanta Kumari, Madhav Kale, Indira Wadkar (paternal aunt of Hansa Wadkar. This was her last Hindi film), Shakuntala Paranjape (this was her last Hindi song), Vimal Ghaisas, Omkar Devaskar, Raja Pandit (Husband of actress Ratnamala), Balasaheb, V.D.Pandit etc.
BOMBAY- The Mayanagari, sometimes showed its Maya. It picked up unsuspecting souls and bestowed upon them the fame and a name as Leading actors, singers, Directors, Lyricists or whatever in films. Thus, a scholarly young man, standing in a bus queue in Madras is picked up and made a Hero of more than 40 films as ” Ranjan”. It also made an onlooker of shooting from the crowds of a studio, the famous and rich Hero of more than 50 films as ” Motilal”. An ordinary Motor Mechanic becomes a well known film Director in various languages and is called ” Sarvottam Badami’. A poor motor mechanic working in a garage becomes an All India famous poet-Lyricist and Producer Director called ” Gulzar.” The same Maya made a casual singer in Hindu Colony,Dadar in Bombay a famous playback singer of repute, when her singing was heard by a passing Music Director Hanuman Prasad, just by chance. She was known later as ” Geeta Dutt”. There are many such examples.
There are many such numbers of ” Accidental Stars”, but the same Maya also scuttled the Golden chances of capable aspiring small timers to become big stars. At Least two glaring examples are known. One is very well known to many, but the other is hardly known to anyone. First case is, Mehboob Khan was almost selected as Hero of India’s First Talkie film ” Alam Ara”-31. Even suitable costumes for him were also made ready, but then Maya played the trick and his name was pushed back, in favour of the more famous Master Vithal, to cover up the possible risk of the failure of the First talkie, which was an experiment. Nevertheless Mehboob Khan became a significantly notable producer, director and studio owner of India.
The other case of how Maya scuttled the chances of fame, name and career of a small-time actor who was on the verge of becoming a big star, is not known to most people. Now, take a look at the cast of today’s film as mentioned in this post. Do you see the name Omkar Devaskar ? Well, this is his story….
Omkar Devaskar was born on 24-1-1911 in MP (Central provinces then). After his schooling, he ran away to Bombay to seek employment and got a job as an ‘Assistant’ in the Imperial Film company. His job was to do any work given to him. The salary was Rs.20 pm. When he saw the film shootings, he had an urge to act in films. One day, he asked Ardeshir sheth about it and he started getting uncredited small roles in silent films.
The Imperial company decided to make a Talkie for the First time in India,mainly because of Dadasaheb Torne (Ramchandra Gopal Torne). It was he who prompted Irani to be the first in India to make a Talkie. Torne was his Manager for both Jyoti studio and Imperial Film Company. Torne was also an agent for Cinema Equipment imported from England and Germany. Torne imported Sound recording equipment and the company sent a German Engineer to explain and teach the technique to Indian technicians.
They first wanted to test the sound recording machine by recording and filming a song. Who would sing ? No one was ready to become the sacrificial goat. Irani saw Omkar and asked him to sing before the machine. A terrified Omkar lamely protested, but he had no choice. Ultimately he was ‘made up’ and the recording and filming started. Omkar sang a Thumri, ‘ Pyare Rasia Bihari’. Everybody present, including Irani, were stunned with the sweet voice and the ease of his singing style. It came off extremely well. About 500 feet of film was shot flawlessly. Irani was so impressed that he toyed with the idea of giving Omkar the first song in the film Alam Ara. Maya swiftly went into action. Unfortunately the recording was not saved, otherwise it would have been the first film song to be filmed and Omkar the First ever singer actor to do so. But Alas ! This is called the stroke of misfortune ! Destiny had slated this honour for W.M.Khan.
Missing this chance, anyway, Omkar became an actor and singer. His first talkie film was Imperial’s ” Sati Anusuya”-33. He sang 3 songs in the film ” Noor E Iman “-33, besides acting in it. Omkar acted in about 30 films in all. His last film was, perhaps, Khoj-1953. He sang 14 songs in 6 films. His last song came in the film Jagriti-49. Omkar was a regular actor in many Marathi films too. ( I have used information from Music beyond boundaries by Ashok Ranade and Marathi Cinema in Retrospect by Sanjit Narwekar, MuVyz,HFGK and my own notes, for this write up.)
I have no information about the film’s heroine- Kanta Kumari. My guess is, this was a pseudonym used by some Marathi actress for her 2 Hindi films. The Lyricist of this film remains unknown, but the Music Director was C. Balaji. I am sure, hardly anyone has ever heard his name so far. It is natural also, because Balaji gave music only to 2 Hindi films. First was Raja Gopi chand-1938 And the other film was Paisa-1941. Both his films were bilingual-in Hindi and Marathi. Basically Balaji was a Marathi film composer. He was the first music director to change his name to look like a South Indian name. C.Ramchandra came much later.
His real name was Balaji Gopal Chougule. Originally his family was from Kolhapur, but he was born at Varanasi on 12-10-1913. After the death of his maternal grandfather Balaji came to Kolhapur. Here he learnt music from Ustad Manji Khan (son of Ustad Alladiya khan), Shankarrao Sarnaik and Govindrao Tembe. Tembe taught him the skill to give music to films.
He started working with some drama companies like Kirloskar natak mandali and Yeshwant Sangeet mandali, as a Harmonium player. In 1937, he became assistant to Govindrao Tembe for the film ‘Pratibha'(Hindi/marathi). When Tembe left the film halfway, he completed its music, but his name was not credited. He got his first Marathi film independently, Kanhopatra. Its songs became very popular. Pendharkar gave him Raja Gopichand-38 as an independent MD. Later he did another film in Hindi/Marathi, Paisa-41.
In 1945, Balaji started learning music again, this time under Bhurji Khan (youngest son of Alladiya Khan). Balaji gave music to 5 Marathi films and 2 Hindi/Marathi films. When Shivaji University started in Kolhapur in 1962, he started an agitation for inclusion of Music in its curriculum. His efforts bore fruits and it was done in 1964. He gave tuitions of Music in his last days. C.Balaji expired on 11-9-1984 at his home town, Kolhapur.
Today’s song from this film is a rare song. I was looking for songs of this film for many months, but was unable to locate them anywhere. Suddenly I remembered that one of my friends from the USA, Abhay Jain had given me some 5500 songs from the films of the 30’s, the 40’s, and the 50’s, some years ago. I immediately checked and was pleasantly surprised to find not one but 4 songs of the film Paisa-1941. Of Course these were only audio songs. As usual I requested our friend Sadanand Kamath ji and as usual he very kindly uploaded it on his Youtube account. I thank Abhay Jain ji and Sadanand Kamath ji for this song’s availability.
The song is sung by Kanta Kumari, Shakuntala Paranjape (this was her last Hindi song), Khan Mastana and Omkar Devaskar. Enjoy….
Song- Mere man ka mora naache (Paisa)(1941) Singers-Khan Mastana, Kanta Kumari, Shakuntala Paranjpe, Devaskar, Lyricist-Unknown, MD- C. Balaji
Lyrics
Mere man ka
mere man ka
mere man ka
mere man ka
mora naache
khushiyaan naache
shobha naache
khushiyaan naache
shobha naache
honthhon par muskaahat naache
nainan putlee nainan naache
honthhon par muskaahat naache
nainan putlee nainan naache
naache
naache
naache
naache
mere man ka
mere man ka
mere man ka
mere man ka
mora naache
khushiyaan naache
shobha naache
khushiyaan naache
shobha naache
itna khush hoon kya batlaaoon oon oon
itna khush hoon kya batlaaoon
itna khush hoon kya batlaaoon
pal pal naachoon
pal pal gaaoon
pal pal naachoon
pal pal gaaoon
kesar kholoon
dhoop jalaaoon
kesar kholoon
dhoop jalaaoon
chai piyoon aur biscuit khaaoon
chai piyoon aur biscuit khaaoon
naache
naache
naache
naache
naache
naache
naache
naache
mere man ka
mere man ka
mere man ka
mere man ka
mere man ka
mere man ka
mora naache
khushiyaan naache
shobha naache
khushiyaan naache
shobha naache ae
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
July 24, 2025 at 3:57 pm
What a sweet song & straight forward singing without any frills of yodel or ‘harkat’
Thank you for the song.
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July 27, 2025 at 9:42 pm
Glad you liked it.
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