Jaago jaago jaago bhor suhaanee aayee
Posted on: August 25, 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 the film Usha Kiran-1952.
In the month of September-2014, I had started a series on this Blog, titled “songs from Artists’ name films”. It ran from 18-9-2014 to 8-10-2014. I covered 10 films like Madhubala-1950, Nargis-1946, Veena-1948, Renuka-1947, Madhuri-1932, Hurricane hansa-1937, Zubeida-2001, Kamla-1946 and Asha-1948. When I came to the 10th and the last film Usha Kiran-1952, I realised that actress Usha Kiran was not in the cast of that film. In all other films, then discussed, the titled actress was in its cast. I was shocked. Nevertheless, I wrote the article and sent it for posting. But then on, I became alert and checked all the films selected for any series, fully and carefully.
This incident was just like what had happened in the life of actress Usha Kiran. While doing the film Gauna-1950, she and her director- Amiya Chakravarti fell in love and were deep into it. She was just 21 year old then. one day Usha Kiran came to know that Amiya was already married and had children too. This came as a shock to her, when Amiya’s wife herself came to meet her personally. She offered to divorce Amiya if they are so much in love, because she did not want her children to know about it and if Usha Kiran wanted to marry Amiya. This opened Usha Kiran’s eyes and she promised Amiya’s wife that from that day, she will never ever meet Amiya. Usha Kiran stuck to her promise and later got married to Dr. Manohar Kher, a long time good friend. Before marriage Usha Kiran told Dr. Kher, all about her love episode with Amiya Chakravarti, but he accepted her with all that !
Today’s song is from the film Usha Kiran-1952. It was a film made by Malwa productions Bombay and the production of the film and its supervision was by the nawab of Kurval from Uttar Pradesh. Those days,many kings and Nawabs got interested in making films. For some of them,the added attraction was the film’s Heroine. Some state chiefs,however,genuinely helped and encouraged Cinema as an art form.One such example was the Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur State.
He not only provided land and other concessions to film makers,but also established a film company called “Kolhapur Cinetone” and later became a partner in ” Maharashtra Film Company” of Kolhapur, wherein, all the future Director/partners of Prabhat film company were working. he also made Kolhapur a film production centre and producers from Bombay came to Kolhapur for shooting their films. Kolhapur and its surroundings like Amboli Ghats were the favourites of Raj kapoor and he did shooting of his some films here.
The cast of the film was Nimmi, Geeta Bali, Altaf, Mazhar Khan, Lalita pawar, Cuckoo, Zubeida, Mirza Musharraf and many others. Nimmi was one of the 3 artists of Hindi films, who were famous for weeping in almost every film they did. One was Meena Kumari, then Nimmi and lastly actor Nazit Hussain !
Nimmi (born Nawab Bano; 18 February 1932 – 25 March 2020), was an actress who achieved stardom in the 1950s and early 1960s in Hindi films. She was one of the leading actresses of the “golden era” of Hindi cinema.
She gained popularity by playing spirited village belle characters, but has appeared in diverse genres such as fantasy and social films. Her best performances are considered to be in the films Sazaa (1951), India’s first technicolor film Aan (1952), Uran Khatola (1955), Bhai-Bhai (1956), Kundan (1955), Mere Mehboob (1963), Pooja Ke Phool (1964), Akashdeep (1965), and Basant Bahar (1956). Raj Kapoor changed her name from Nawab Bano to “Nimmi”.[
Nawab Bano was born in Agra to a Muslim family. Her mother was a tawaif,singer and an actress, known as Wahidan. She was well connected within the film industry. Nimmi’s father, Abdul Hakim, worked as a military contractor. Nimmi’s birth forename of “Nawab” was given by her grandfather while her grandmother added “Bano”. As a young child, Nimmi had memories of visiting Bombay, and her mother being on good terms with Mehboob Khan and his family, who were prominent and influential within the movie-making business.
When Nimmi was 11 years old, her mother suddenly died. Her father lived in Meerut where he worked and had another family; by this time, his contact with Nimmi’s mother was minimal. Nimmi was therefore sent to live in Abbottabad near Rawalpindi with her maternal grandmother. The partition of India happened in 1947, and Abbottabad went to Pakistan. Nimmi’s grandmother moved to Mumbai (then known as Bombay) and settled in the household of her other daughter, known by the name Jyoti. A former actress, Jyoti was married to G. M. Durrani, a popular Indian playback singer, actor, and music director.
In 1948, via the connection with her mother Wahidan who had worked with him in the 1930s, the famous filmmaker Mehboob Khan, invited the young Nimmi to watch the making of his current production Andaz at Central Studios. She had shown an interest in movies and this was an opportunity to understand the film making process. On the sets of Andaz, Nimmi met Raj Kapoor, who was starring in the film. At that time, Raj Kapoor was filming his production of Barsaat (1949). Having already cast the famous actress Nargis in the female lead role, he was on the lookout for a young girl to play the second lead. After observing Nimmi’s unaffected and shy behaviour as a guest on the sets of Andaz, he cast the teenaged Nimmi in Barsaat opposite the actor Prem Nath. Nimmi played the role of an innocent mountain shepherdess in love with a heartless city man. Barsaat, released in 1949, made movie history. It was a phenomenal and commercial success. Despite the presence of established and popular stars Nargis, Raj Kapoor and Prem Nath, Nimmi had a very prominent and well-received role and was an instant hit with the audiences.[4]
After Barsaat, Nimmi was flooded with film offers. She quietly polished her histrionic abilities and developed a mannered but effectively unique style of acting. The diminutive actress, with her saucer shaped expressive eyes, quickly won a loyal fan base with her intense and expressive performances.
She worked with top heroes like Raj Kapoor (Banwara), and Dev Anand (Sazaa, Aandhiyan). To her great advantage, Nimmi formed a very popular and dependable screen pair with Dilip Kumar, after the success of films like Deedar (1951) and Daag (1952). Aside from Nargis with whom she co-starred in Barsaat and Deedar, Nimmi also appeared alongside many notable leading ladies including Madhubala (Amar), Suraiya (Shama), Geeta Bali (Usha Kiran), and Meena Kumari (Char Dil Char Rahen (1959). Nimmi was also a singer and sang her own songs in the film Bedardi (1951) in which she also acted. However, she never continued singing, and recorded songs only for this film.
Mehboob Khan cast her in Aan (1952). The film was made with an extremely large budget. Nimmi played one of the female leads. Such was Nimmi’s popularity at this point that when a first edit of the film was shown to the film’s financiers and distributors, they objected that Nimmi’s character died too early. An extended dream sequence was added to give Nimmi more prominence and screen time in the film. Aan was one of the first Indian movies to have a worldwide release. The film had an extremely lavish London premiere which Nimmi attended. The English version was entitled Savage Princess. On the London trip, Nimmi met many western film personalities including Errol Flynn. When Flynn attempted to kiss her hand, she pulled it away, exclaiming, “I am an Indian girl, you cannot do that!” The incident made the headlines and the press raved about Nimmi as the “… unkissed girl of India”.
Nimmi further revealed in a 2013 interview, that at the London premiere of Aan, she received four serious offers from Hollywood, including one from Cecil B. DeMille who greatly admired the film and Nimmi’s performance. Nimmi declined these offers, choosing to focus on her flourishing career in India. After the great box-office success of Aan, Mehboob Khan asked her to appear in his next film Amar (1954). Nimmi played a poor, milkmaid seduced by a lawyer (Dilip Kumar). The film also starred Madhubala as Kumar’s wronged fiancée. Its controversial subject of rape was way ahead of its time and although the film was not a commercial success, Nimmi’s intense performance and the film were applauded by critics. It remained the favorite film of Mehboob Khan amongst his own productions. She acted and turned producer with the popular film Danka (1954) which was released under her own production banner. Kundan (1955), produced by Sohrab Modi co-starring newcomer Sunil Dutt, gave Nimmi a memorable double role as mother and daughter. Her sensitive portrayal earned her further recognition as a talented and spirited actress. In Uran Khatola (1955), her last of five films with Dilip Kumar, she starred in one of the biggest box-office successes of her career.
Nimmi next had two big successes in 1956 with Basant Bahar and Bhai-Bhai. In 1957, at the age of 24, Nimmi received the critic’s award for best actress for her role in Bhai Bhai. These films were also notable for her songs which were dubbed by Lata Mangeshkar. By this point, with a largely consistent run of success at the box-office, Nimmi had firmly established herself as one of the most bankable and popular leading ladies in Hindi cinema.
In the late 1950s, Nimmi worked with renowned directors Chetan Anand (Anjali ), K. A. Abbas (Char Dil Char Rahen) and Vijay Bhatt (Angulimala). Prepared to take risks, Nimmi took on controversial characterizations, such as the prostitute of Char Dil Char Raahen (1959). It was during this phase that Nimmi became very selective as she strove for better quality projects and roles. However, her judgment was sometimes questionable when she rejected films like B. R. Chopra’s Sadhna (1958), and Woh Kaun Thi? (1963), both of which went on to be big successes for Vyjayanthimala and Sadhana, respectively.
At this point, Nimmi opted for early retirement and marriage, but not before investing her best efforts into one last film production. Director K. Asif had started his version of the Laila–Majnun love legend, Love & God even before completing his magnum opus Mughal-e-Azam (1960). Nimmi believed that Love & God would be a fitting swan song to her career and her claim to eternal fame just as Mughal-e-Azam had immortalised its leading lady, Madhubala. K. Asif had problems casting the male lead before finally selecting Guru Dutt as Nimmi’s co-star. However, Guru Dutt’s sudden and premature death put a halt to the film’s shooting. Sanjeev Kumar was cast as his replacement but the film was shelved altogether when the director K. Asif died. Nimmi had retired from films for over two decades by the time K. Asif’s widow Akhtar Asif released Love & God on 6 June 1986 in incomplete form.
Her husband Ali Raza died in 2007. On 25 March 2020, she died at age 87. After a prolonged illness, she was taken to the Juhu hospital after complaining of being unable to breathe. That same evening, doctors confirmed she had died. She had been in and out of hospitals during the last year of her life.( based on wiki information, my notes and various books.)
The story of the film Usha Kiran-1952 was….
The King’s trusted guard, Captain Kiran is given a secret mission to deliver some documents to the King’s brother in Tajgarh, where the rebels have raided some areas. He has to travel in cognito. The rebels are led by Ranbir, who comes to know about this mission.
He sends Beli, his sweetheart to lure Kiran and get all the documents. Before this, Beli has already accidentally met Kiran and lost her heart to him- one way only. She is happy and sad also to have this mission against Kiran now.
During his journey, Kiran meets Usha and both fall in love with each other. On the way, Kiran meets Ranbir who wants to fight with him, but Kiran avoids him and goes away. On his way, the rebels catch him and injured Kiran is thrown into a river. He is saved by a villager, who takes him to his village.
In that village, Kiran meets his lost mother after many years. She recognises him, but Kiran does not show that he has recognised her and goes away. All this is informed to Ranbir, He catches the mother and tortures her, but she does not reveal anything.
When Kiran knows this, he goes there but is caught and documents are taken from him. He is kept as a prisoner to be killed the next day. Ranbir prepares to go as a courier with the documents , to Tajgarh.
Meanwhile Usha reaches there, and meets Beli. Both, together with King’s loyal villagers attack rebels and rescue Kiran and his mother. Hearing this news, Ranbir tries to attack Kiran. There is a fight and Beli is killed while saving Kiran. In the fight, Ranbir is also killed by Kiran and all the rebels are arrested.
Kiran delivers the documents to King’s brother. Usha and Kiran get married. All is well with everybody….including the film audience !
Here is a 73 year old song from this film, sung by Zohrabai, Geeta Dutt, Asha Bhosle and G.M.Durrani. Enjoy….
Song-Jaago jaago jaago bhor suhaanee aayee (Usha Kiran)(1952) Singers- Zohrabai Ambalewali, Geeta Dutt, Asha Bhosle, G M Durrani, Lyricist- Kamil Rashid, MD- Hanuman Prasad
Lyrics
Jaago
jaago
jaago
jaago
bhor suhaanee aayee
jaag uthha sansaar
jaag uthha sansaar
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
panchhee chahke
manwa lahke
naache ban mein mor
ban mein mor
ho o o
chalee sajaniya sang piya ke ae ae ae
chalee sajaniya sang piya ke
prem nagar kee oar
prem nagar kee oar
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
man lahraaye
man lahraaye
haaye re haaye re haaye ae ae ae ae
haaye re haaye re haaye
soye balamwa mor
soye balamwa mor
soye balamwa mor
asha doley
ghoonghat kholey
thhandee hawa ka zor
hawa ka zor
mast hawa ka zor
thhandee hawa ka zor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
khul khul jaaye baal ka joodaa
khul khul jaaye
khul khul jaaye baal ka joodaa
jaise ghata ghanghor
jaise ghata ghanghor
mal-mal dhoun toree chunariya
mal-mal dhoun toree chunariya
doley re manwa mor
doley re manwa mor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
udtee jaaoon
udtee jaaoon sang piya ke
jaise patang aur dor
jaise patang aur dor
jaise patang aur dor
ek naya sansaar basaayen aen
ek naya sansaar basaayen aen
chalen gagan kee oar
chalen gagan kee oar
chalen gagan kee oar
chalen gagan kee oar
chalen gagan kee oar
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
aayee bhor
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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