Raat ka aanchal dhhalka dhhalka hai
Posted on: August 19, 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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Today, August 19, 2025, is the 6th Remembrance Day of a ‘ruhaani‘ music director, Mohammed Zahoor Khayyam Hashmi (18/02/1927 – 19/08/2019), better known as Khayyam. His musical career can be divided into three parts. The first part (1948-67) was his struggling years during which he mostly got low budget films. In the second part (1967-74), he took sabbatical from the Hindi film industry and concentrated in composing non-film Hindi songs. In the last part of his musical career, (1974-2013) he rejoined his musical career in Hindi films during which he had a successful stint both financially and career-wise.
Khayyam was born in Rahon in Nawanshahr district (now Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar) of Punjab in a Muslim scholar’s family who loved poetry and music. There used to be a regular gathering in his father’s large library room to discuss poetry and music which included films as well as classical music. All the family members were highly educated. His father expected Khayyam to follow suit. But he was glued more to the gramophone record player listening to film songs than to his schoolbooks (akin to the addiction to smartphone among today’s school going children) as he wished to become an actor-singer like K L Saigal, his idol.
Expelled by his father from his house for neglecting his studies, Khayyam ran away and came to Delhi to stay with his uncle. Realising his nephew’s interest in becoming actor-singer, his uncle took him to his friends, Husnlal and Bhagatram who emphasised him that it was necessary to learn music to become an actor. So, Khayyam commenced his formal classical musical training under them and under Pandit Amarnath whenever he visited Delhi. He was under their tutelage for about 5 years.
After completion of the musical training, Khayaam joined the army in the midst of World War-II in 1943. After the end of the war, he took voluntary retirement from army sometime in 1945 and along with his friend, Rahman Verma, he proceeded to Lahore to fulfil his dream of becoming an actor-singer. He paid a visit to music director, G A Chishti’s music room who was impressed by his knowledge of music. He took Khayyam to work as an apprentice under him along with his friend, Rahman Verma. Soon, he became his music assistant. He accompanied Chishti to Kolkata who had got an assignment to compose music for S D Narang’s film. After the work was over, Chishti went back to Lahore. But Khayyam and Rehman Verma came to Mumbai in January 1947 and met his mentor, Husnlal-Bhagatram by which time they had become one of the top music directors. Khayyam sang his first song, a ghazal of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, donon jahaan teri mohabbat mein haar ke, a duet with Zohrabai Ambalewaali under Husnlal-Bhagatram for the film ‘Romeo & Juliet’ (1947).
Jaddanbai, mother of Nargis, who had produced, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (1947) was impressed with Khayyam’s performance as his voice resembled that of G M Durrani. She recommended his name to Wali Sahab which paved the way for him to get his first assignment as a music director paired with Rahman Verma for the film ‘Heer-Ranjha’ (1948). His mentor, Husnlal-Bhagatram suggested to adopt the pseudo name, Sharmaji-Vermaji due to the tense atmosphere prevailing after the partition. In this film, he used Geeta Dutt for all the songs allotted to him. He even rendered a duet song with Geeta Dutt in this film. Aziz Khan, the other music director, used Lata Mangeshkar and G M Durrani. After completion of the film, Rahman Verma left for Pakistan. But Khayyam’s pseudo name remained as Sharmaji.
The song which brought Khayyam into limelight was akele mein wo ghabraate to honge from ‘Biwee’ (1950), his third film. This did not help him much in his career path. ‘Footpath’ (1953) was his first film when he gave the music under his real name, Khayyam on the advice of the film’s director, Zia Sarahadi. Shaam-e-gham ki kasam aaj ghamgeen hain ham from this film became very popular as a ‘blue mood’ song. Khayyam had revealed in an interview that he had used western symphony based interlude in this song, especially the first interlude. For the first time in Hindi films, electronic musical instrument called Solo Box was used for this song. His other songs from the film were also melodious. According to Khayyam, the film’s producer, Chandulal Shah was so much delighted by the music of his film that he used to introduce Khayyam as his ‘Naushad’. Incidentally, Asha Bhosle rendered her first Cabret song, aa ra ra rum suhaana hai ye mausam in this film under his music direction.
The high points in musical compositions of Khayyam were reflected in all the songs of ‘Lala Rukh’ (1958). This was followed by ‘Phir Subah Hogi’ (1958) which was produced and directed by Ramesh Saigal. There is an anecdote as to how Khayyam got this film. Ramesh Saigal was toying with the idea of engaging Shankar-Jaikishan as the music director for the film as Raj Kapoor was in the lead role. Since the film was based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’, Sahir made a suggestion to Saigal that he wanted a music director who had read and understood ‘Crime and Punishment’. When Saigal asked Sahir if he had any one in his mind, he mentioned the name of Khayyam. Saigal agreed to the recommendation subject to Raj Kapoor’s concurrence. Khayyam’s was able to satisfy Raj Kapoor with his tunes. With the popularity of his songs in ‘Phir Subah Hogi’ (1958), Khayyam got the films like ‘Shola Aur Shabnam (1961), ‘Shagoon’ (1964), ‘Mohabbat Isko Kehte Hai,’ (1965) and ‘Aakhri Khat’ (1966). All these films had melodious songs though they did not click on the box office.
During the Chinese aggression in 1962, he set to music two patriotic songs, Aawaaz do ham ek hain and watan ki aabroo khatre mein hai which are still in the memory of the nation.
Khayyam had already spent about two decades in Hindi film industry but he was not in the reckoning in the list of top music directors. His well-wishers from the film industry used to tell him that while his songs become popular but his films were not successful on the box office front. Some of the film’s producers, though appreciative of his talent, were hesitant to give him the assignment on this account. Probably, those producers who believed in superstition may have felt that Khayyam was a jinxed music director. So he remained on the sideline.
Sometime in 1966, Khayyam decided to take a sabbatical from Hindi film industry which continued for nearly 7 years. During this period, he devoted his time and energy to compose some of his finest non-film songs numbering about 200. Here also, he worked with the top singers like Talat Mehmood, Mohammed Rafi, Asha Bhosle and Mukesh. Begum Akhtar who was very close to Madan Mohan, chose Khayyam for her LP Ghazal album in 1974. He also composed Meena Kumari’s album, ‘I write I recite’ (1971).
During 1960s, Mohammed Rafi approached Khayyam for training for his voice modulation and to improve his tonal quality as he felt that his singing in Hindi films had more or less stagnated. During his training period, Mohammed Rafi sang his first non-film ghazal, ghazab kiya tere waade pe aitbaar kiya under the baton of Khayyam which became very popular. Among other ghazals Rafi rendered under Khayyam nukta cheen hai gham-e-dil uss ko sunaaye naa baney, mere geeton kaa singaar ho tum and tere bharose hey nandlaalaa.
Khayyam also composed some light-hearted songs during his ‘first inning’ as per the demand of the film’s script. I give below a few samples:
jis pyaar mein ye haal hai uss pyaar ki taubaa – Phir Subah Hogi (1958).
hai kali kali ke lab par tere husn kaa fasaanaa – Lala Rukh (1958).
itnaa husn pe huzoor na guroor kijiye – Mohabbat Isko Kehte Hain (1965).
rut jawaan jawaan raat mehar baan – Aakhri Khat (1966).
Khayyam ended his sabbatical with the release of the film, ‘Pyaase Dil’ (1974) followed by ‘Sankalp’ (1974). The history of his ‘first innings’ repeated itself in that his melodious songs, did not lift the films on the box office front. Generally, it is said that once a film artist remains out of film industry for a long time, it is difficult for that artist to make a comeback. Khayyam may be the only among music directors who made a grand come back with the success of ‘Kabhi Kabhi’ (1976) for which he got the Filmfare Award. Incidentally, this film became Khayyam’s first silver jubilee film.
There is an interesting trivia as to how Khayyam got this film. Yash Chopra had selected Laxmikant-Pyarelal (LP) as the music director for ‘Kabhi Kabhi’ following the success of his film, ‘Daag’ (1973). However, Sahir Ludhianvi was not comfortable with LP for this project as he felt that the music director for this film has to have a poetic mind. Since Khayyam had composed Sahir’s poem’ ‘kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayaal aataa hai’ for Chetan Anand’s shelved film, ‘Kaafir’ (early 1960s) rendered by Geeta Dutt and Sudha Malhotra, he recommended Khayyam to Yash Chopra. Alternatively, he suggested that if he wants to give the film to LP, he would like to withdraw his poem from the film.
With two films in Khayyam’s second innings not creating any impact on the box office, Yash Chopra was in a piquant situation. But this time, luck was in Khayyam’s favour as he had just recorded the song ae dil-e-naadaan aarzoo kyaa hai justaju kyaa hai few days back in 1974 for the film, ‘Razia Sultan’ (1983). This song had created ripples by words of mouth among the select Hindi film fraternity with Yash Chopra included in it. Yash Chopra heard this song on the tape sent by Kamal Amrohi on his request. He was so impressed with the song composition that he along with Sahir Ludhianvi visited Khayyam’s house and requested him to compose the songs for his next film, ‘Kabhi Kabhi’ (1976). This was the second time, Sahir Ludhianvi recommendation of Khayyam as music director was accepted by the producer signifying his importance as a lyricist in the film making.
The success of this film paved the way for Khayyam to get associated with Yash Raj Films like ‘Trishul’ (1978), ‘Noorie’ (1979), ‘Naakhuda’ (1981) and ‘Sawaal’ (1982). Khayyam declined to do Yash Raj Films’, ‘Silsila’ (1981) as he did not like the theme of the film. With this, his professional relationship with Yash Raj Films’ ended.
The next feather in Khayyam’s cap was the outstanding music in ‘Umrao Jaan’ (1981) which is regarded as one of the classic films with immortal songs. He was bestowed with National Award and Filmfare Award for the best music director for this film. Again, he was not the original choice for ‘Umrao Jaan’ (1981). After composing melodious songs for Muzaffar Ali’s ‘Gaman’, Jaidev was the natural choice as the music director for ‘Umrao Jaan’ (1981). He had already composed almost all the songs for the film and he was toying with the idea of using Madhurani a trained Hindustani classical singer with specialisation in ghazal singing after Lata Mangeshkar backed out presumably due to some monetary dispute. However, the makers (probably financiers) wanted a popular singer for commercial viability. Jaidev left the film due to their disagreement on the choice of female playback singer. Finally, Muzaffar Ali selected Khayyam with instruction to select a female playback singer out of the popular singers.
Having accepted the assignment, the first thing Khayyam did was to go through the Urdu novel, ‘Umrao Jaan Ada’ (1899) written by Mirza Hadi Ruswa. after completion of his reading, he realised that the theme of the story almost matched with that of the film, ‘Pakeezah’ (1972). It was obvious that his compositions of the songs for the film would be compared with the chartbusters songs rendered by Lata Mangeshkar in ‘Pakeezah’ (1972). With these background, Khayyam selected Asha Bhosle despite the fact that her image by that time was that of western-influenced pop singer. Khayyam had worked with Asha Bhosle since 1949 and he had faith in her versatility in singing. The rest is history.
During his second innings, other films with his outstanding compositions were ‘Shankar Hussain’ (1975), ‘Chambal Ki Kasam (1979), ‘Noorie’ (1979), ‘Thhodi Si Bewafaai’ (1980), ‘Aahistaa Aahistaa’ (1981) ‘Baazaar’ (1982), ‘Razia Sultan’ (1983) etc. In the 1980s, two of his films with good song compositions, viz. ‘Anjuman’ (1986) and ‘Tere Shahar Mein’ (1986) remained unreleased.
I would like to discuss one of the career-high film of Khayyam’s musical journey in his second innings. The film is ‘Razia Sultan’ (1983). Once again, there was some twist in selecting Khayyam as the music director for this film. Kamal Amrohi had offered the film to him for the music direction but he had declined the offer. By the time the film went into production, Laxmikant-Pyarelal had become very popular. So, he offered the film to them. They had composed tunes for some songs in which Kamal Amrohi wanted one tune to be soft pedalled. LP called Kamal Amrohi in their recording studio to discuss the matter. However, Kamal Amrohi was made to wait for a considerably long time outside the studio. He got annoyed and went straight to Khayyam’s house and persuaded him to take up the assignment.
As per his standard practice before composing tunes, Khayyam read the all the research work done by Kamal Amrohi on the life of Razia Sultan of Slave dynasty. He accordingly selected the musical instruments to be used in his song compositions and the song genres. The most famous improvisation in the soundtrack of ae dil e naadaan is the introduction of santoor interludes between two lines in the mukhda part as well as some parts of antaras. The purpose of musical interludes after every lines may be symbolic of the dilemma in the mind of Razia Sultan.
In the last antara of the song, there are pauses between two lines when she sings ‘ye zameen chhup hai – silence – ye assmaan chhup hai- silence – probably to emphasise the calmness of the desert after the sandstorm had stopped. Only a perfectionist Khayyam could have thought of these innovative additions to the song. I personally regard this song as a crowning glory in the musical career of Khayyam. Unfortunately, the film flopped at the box office.
By the way, during the silence pauses, one can faintly hear the sound from an unique percussion called ‘pedal matka’ invented by percussionist, Vijay Indorkar. R D Burman used ‘pedal matka’ for the first time in ‘Jawwani Deewaani’ (1972). This percussion is capable of creating a sharp and flat sound and the intensity of the sharpness of the sound is controlled by the pedal. Khayyam has used the ‘pedal matka’ effectively in this song to give sound like ‘joo’. It is said that this type of sound gets naturally created in the deserts during the movements of sand dunes. It is called the ‘sound of silence’.
Khayyam’s musical compositions germinated from his heart. He was one of very few music directors of Hindi films for whom the song compositions were more of artistic pleasure than as means of livelihood. In this matter, he was like music directors, Sajjad Hussain and Jaidev who did not succumb to the pressures from producers, directors and even actors to dictate the type of musical compositions. He selected only films with good story and with song writers whose writing sounded more as poetry than lyrics. Hence, he was mostly associated with poets like Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaifi Azmi, Jaan Nisar Akhtar, Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, Gulzar, Naqsh Lyallpuri, Nida Fazli, Shahryar etc. Most of his songs were poetic melodies.
From 1990s onwards, Khayyam’s assignments as the music director started dwindling mainly because of the change of musical taste of the audience in the background of the dominance of music directors like Bappi Lahiri, Rajesh Roshan, Anand-Milind, Anu Malik etc. ‘Baazar-E-Husn’ (2013) was his last film as a music director. During this period, Khayyam composed few title songs for TV serials like ‘Khaandaan’ (1985), ‘Dard’ (1993-94). During his musical career in Hindi films from 1948 to 2013, Khayyam was the music director for 53 films comprising 322 songs. In addition, he composed nearly 200 non-film Hindi songs.
In 2007, Khayyam received Sangeet Natak Akademy Award in the creative music category. In 2010, he received Filmfare’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011, he was bestowed with Padma Bhushan by Government of India.
Khayyam suffered from age related ailment for some time in 2019 . He was admitted in a hospital for lung infections. After about two weeks in the hospital, he breath his last on August 19, 2019. His only son, Pradeep Khayyam had preceded him sometime in 2012. In his memory on the eve of Khayyam’s 89th birthday, on the wishes of his wife, Jagjit Kaur, they set up a charitable trust comprising of their entire wealth to help film artists and technicians in need of financial help. He did not celebrate his 92nd birthday in the background of Pulwama terrorist attack, Instead, he donated Rs. 5 lakhs to CRPF martyrs’ family.
On Khayyam’s 6th Remembrance Day, I have picked up one of songs from his film, ‘Mera Bhai Mera Dushman’ (1967) which is a peppy song. The song is ‘raat kaa aanchal dhalkaa dhalkaa hai’ which is the 4th song from the film to appear on the Blog (out of seven songs). The song is rendered by Asha Bhosle on the words of Kaifi Azami, Incidentally, in the credit title, Kaifi Azmi has been credited as lyricist while Majrooh Sultanpuri is credited as guest poet. Incidentally, after this film, Khayyam took sabbatical from Hindi films till 1974.
This song is more like an item number without much of the context to the story of the film. Moolchand is in a hurry to reach his house where he has arranged a dance by Laxmi Chhaya, a courtesan. In reality, it is a trap laid by Jaggu’s (Jagdish Kumar) friends to immobilise Moolchand with drinks. At the end, Laxmi Chhaya has attained her objective as Moolchand falls unconscious.
Note: The profile of Khayyam is mainly based on his numerous interviews published in media and on the video sharing platforms.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Raat ka aanchal dhhalka dhhalka hai(Mera Bhai Mera Dushman)(1967) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyrics-Kaifi Azmi, MD-Khayyam
Lyrics:
raat kaa aanchal dhalkaa dhalkaa hai ae ae
jaam tere haathhon se chhalkaa hai
o o o
raat kaa aanchal dhalkaa dhalkaa hai ae ae
jaam tere haathhon se chhalkaa hai
o o o
raat kaa aanchal dhalkaa dhalkaa hai
raat nasheelee jaam nasheele ae
raat nasheele jaam nasheele
jaan-e-tamannaa
jhoom ke pee le
roz milte hain kahaan
saaqee haseen kitne jawaan
roz milte hain kahaan
saaqee haseen kitne jawaan
o o o o o
raat kaa aanchal dhalkaa dhalkaa hai ae ae
jaam tere haathhon se chhalkaa hai ae
o o o
raat kaa aanchal dhalkaa dhalkaa hai
mehke huye hain zulf ke saaye ae
mehke huye hain zulf ke saaye ae
jaane nazar kyun jhuktee jaaye
aaj se pahle kabhee dil kee lagee jaagee naa thhee
aaj se pahle kabhee dil kee lagee jaagee naa thhee
o o o o
raat kaa aanchal dhalkaa dhalkaa hai ae ae
jaam tere haathhon se chhalkaa hai
o o o
raat kaa aanchal dhalkaa dhalkaa hai ae ae
meree khushee kaa khwaab naa toote ae
meree khushee kaa khwaab naa toote ae
haathh se tere ae jaam naa chhoote ae
zindagee hanstee rahe
naghmen rahe mastee rahe
zindagee hanstee rahe
naghmen rahe mastee rahe
ho o o o
raat kaa aanchal dhalkaa dhalkaa hai ae ae
jaam tere haathhon se chhalkaa hai
ho o o
raat kaa aanchal dhalkaaa dhalkaa hai ae ae
jaam tere haathhon se chhalkaa hai
ho o o
raat kaa aanchal dhalkaa dhalkaa hai ae ae
4 Responses to "Raat ka aanchal dhhalka dhhalka hai"
August 20, 2025 at 11:00 am
Sadanand ji
Once again a delightful post on the great Khayyam. Your post underlines why Khayyam is a great composer. There are moments in a song where you feel the mood/situation ,but do not realise why that feeling was created. Your mention about the deliberate silence in ‘Ae dil e nadan..” was a good pointer. Thanks
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
August 19, 2025 at 4:21 pm
Kamath Sir,
Reading this reminds me of Khayyam Saab’s unique gift to make music breathe. In “Ae Dil-e-Naadaan..”, the deliberate pauses create an echo of silence as if the desert itself were speaking.
That union of poetry and imagination is what keeps him immortal.
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August 19, 2025 at 7:19 pm
Thanks, Gandhi Vadlapatla ji.
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