Mere angnaa mehndi ka boota
Posted on: October 6, 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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‘Mehndi’ (1983) was produced by Dinesh Kumar and was directed by Asit Sen. The cast included Vinod Mehra, Ranjeeta, Raj Babbar, Tamanna, Raj Bothara, Madan Puri, Usha Kiran, Seema Deo, Meena T, Mohan Choti, Birbal etc. Bindiya Goswami and Sh akti Kapoor made their special appearances in the film. This was Asit Sen’s last Hindi film as a director.
There are confusion galore about two Asit Sen’s works in Hindi films on the internet. Suffice to say here that Asit Sen, the director of the film under discussion did not act in any Hindi film. He directed his first Hindi film ‘Mamta’ (1966) while Asit Sen, the comedian/character actor has also directed only two Hindi films, ‘Parivaar’ (1956) and ‘Apraadh Kaun’ (1957). Hence, there is a clear demarcation of their work as director in terms of the timeframe. Unfortunately, Asit Sen, the director is hardly remembered today who had directed some Hindi classic films such as ‘Mamta’ (1966), ‘Anokhi Raat’ (1968), ‘Khaamoshi’ (1969), ‘Safar’ (1970), ‘Annadaata’ (1972) and some Bengali films. Even if he is remembered, he is often mistaken with Asit Sen, the comedian. For example, an article in ‘The Hindu’ which appeared on April 02, 2010, under ‘Blast From The Past’, calls Asit Sen, the director of ‘Mamta’ (1966) as ‘a disciple of Bimal Roy’. Surely the writer has confused with Asit Sen, the comedian who had worked with Bimal Roy as his assistant director for his films of 1950s.
Asit Sen (24/09/1922 – 25/08/2001), the director of the film under discussion was born in Dhaka but spent his childhood in his grandfather’s house in Nagaon (Assam) who was working in the railways. After completion of his high school, Asit Sen shifted to Kolkata for higher education. Being interested in photography, he was soon drawn into films. His uncle, Ramananda Sengupta was a renown cinematographer in Bengali films from 1938 to 1976 under whose guidance, Asit Sen learnt the art of cine camera operations. Incidentally, Ramanand Sengupta was the cinematographer for outdoor locations in Kidar Sharma’s first directed film, ‘Dil Hi To Hai/Aulad’ (1939).
Asit Sen made his directorial debut with an Assamese film ‘Biplabi’ (1948) for which he was also the cinematographer. He directed his first Bengali film, ‘Chalachal’ (1956) which became a box-office super hit. Later, it was remade in Hindi as ‘Safar’ (1970) under his direction for which he won Filmfare Award for the Best Director. Asit Sen’s two landmark Bengali films with Suchitra Sen were ‘Deep Jwele Jai’ (1959) and ‘Uttar Phalguni’ (1963) which were remade in Hindi as ‘Khamoshi’ (1969) and ‘Mamta’ (1966) respectively under his direction. ‘Mamta’ (1966) was the biggest box office hit film among the films he directed. It was also Suchitra Sen’s biggest hit among her Hindi films.
For directing his first Hindi film, ‘Mamta’ (1966), Asit Sen had shifted to Mumbai in 1965 and remained in Mumbai until his last Hindi film, ‘Mehndi’ (1983). During his Hindi film career, he has directed Ashok Kumar, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Shashi Kapoor, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Waheeda Rahman, Nutan, Sharmila Tagore, Saira Banu, Jaya Bhaduri etc. His last few Hindi films like ‘Bairaag’ (1976), ‘Vakil Babu (1976) and ‘Mehndi’ (1983) had flopped at the box office. He went back to Kolkata and directed two Bengali films, ‘Prarthana’ (1984) and ‘Pratigna’ (1985), after which he retired from the films. After retirement, he worked as a teacher in the National Institute of Films and Fine Arts until his passing away on August 25, 2001. His wife had predeceased him many years back with his only son, Partho Sen who is a director, writer and actor in Bengali films.( Note: The personal life profile of Asit Sen is mainly drawn from Bengal Film Archive).
The main features of Hindi films (and also for Bengali films) directed by Asit Sen were a strong storylines, mainly from the novels of well-known writers, women centric characters, his ability to extract brilliant performances from the main actors (one can remember the brilliant performance from Feroze Khan in ‘Safar’). Lastly, his films often had melodious songs with good lyrics.
Coming back to the film under discussion, the story and the screenplay of ‘Mehndi’ (1983) was written by Gulshan Nanda. I have watched the film on one of the video sharing platforms very recently, The video quality is not of a good standard to watch it in one sitting. The story of the film is as under:
Gautam (Vinod Mehra) is an Officer in the Indian Army, and is very friendly with another Army Officer, Ajit Singh (Raj Babbar) who is in love with Madhuri (Ranjeeta Kaur) and plans to get married after his return from the battle front. Both Gautam and Ajit are posted in the forward position awaiting further instructions to proceed to the battle front. While Ajit gets the orders to proceed to the battle front, Gautam is assigned to deliver an urgent message to a Colonel. Before going to the battle front, Ajit promises Gautam that after return from the front, he would introduce Madhu (Ajit calls Madhuri in her short name, Madhu) to him.
Gautam on his way to deliver the message gets injured by firing from the enemy front. Somehow, he drags on to a remote village where Gauri (Bindiya) a nurse takes care of him after removal of a bullet from his leg. During his recuperation, Gautam falls in love with Gauri who reciprocates his love. After he is fully recovered from his injuries, he proceeds to finish his work but promises her that he will return soon to take her to his hometown to marry her.
After few days, Gautam does return to Gauri’s village and is shocked to find Gauri’s dead body in her house while two persons who have sexually assaulted her, run away after seeing Gautam. He runs after the culprits and catch them. But his has lost his love, Gauri forever.
In Gautam’s home, there is a happy atmosphere as the war gets over and her mother expects Gautam to return soon. In Madhuri’s house also, there is happiness as the after the end of war, she is expecting Ajit to return. But he has not yet returned. Soon, both Gautam at his place of duty and Madhuri’s father (Madan Puri) in their hometown are informed that Ajit has been missing on the battle front and is presumed dead.
With double sad news, Gautam returns to his hometown. His mother (Usha Kiran) has arranged marriage with a girl, Madhuri (Ranjeeta Kaur). Initially he refuses to get married but when his mother has a heart attack, he relents and marries Madhuri without being aware that Madhuri is Madhu of his friend, Ajit. It was more as a marriage of convenience for both of them to satisfy their respective parents. While there is no hard feeling between them, seeing each other reminds them of their past lovers which keeps them aloof. One day, Gautam spills his fast relationship with Gauri to Madhuri which ended in a tragedy. But Madhuri has no strength to reveal her past relationship with Ajit especially when she learns that Gautam and Ajit were close friends.
After few months, Gautam realises that his aloofness has affected Madhuri to such an extent that she has told him that in this world only the surroundings have remained her companion. He decides to change himself to be her companion all the time. A perceptible change in Gautam has brought cheer to Madhuri’s married life. Gautam hosts a party to celebrate the birthday of Madhuri in his house and in this party, a storm in their married life is brewing as Ajit gives a surprise visit to Gautam. He had become prisoner of war and now he has been released.
Unaware of the fact that Madhuri and Ajit’ were in love with each other, Gautam enthusiastically introduces his wife and the birthday girl, Madhuri to Ajit. Both are shocked beyond imagination. Soon, both control their composures without letting Gautam know about their past. Gautam, on the other hand is so happy to see Ajit that he forces him to be his guest for few days. Ajit gets to know from Madhuri the circumstances under which both she and Gautam had to get married under pressure from their parent. Ajit consoles her and emphasises that she should forget about their past and concentrate on well-being of Gautam.
This conversation is heard by Gautam who gets terribly upset that he has deprived his friend his beloved. He tells Madhuri that he will set her free from the bond of marriage so that she can marry Ajit. But she refuses to agree. He tells her that let he and Ajit decide the issue. He goes to bring Ajit to Madhuri’s room. But instead of bringing him, Gautam decides to kill himself by revolver which Ajit intervenes. During the shuffles, the bullet accidentally gets fired killing Ajit instantaneously. Shocked by his death, Gautam returns to Madhuri where he finds her fainting because she has taken poisonous stuff to kill herself to avoid the predicament she has been put. However, doctor saves her life and Gautam and Madhuri start their married life afresh.
The film is not an usual love triangle as is seen in this genre of most of the Hindi films. In this film, the friends were in love with different girls. However, the circumstances made one friend to get married to his friend’s beloved without being aware of it. Therefore, the treatment of the story is quite different. Their past love haunts the married couple creating an aloofness in them. However, when they mend their ways to make their married life cheerful, the wife’s lover and husband’s best friend turns up which reignites wife’s past. Again the treatment to the situation is different in that both the friends are in competition with each other to sacrifice – one ready to sacrifice his married life to release his wife from the bond of the marriage and other friend tells his ex-beloved to forget him and take care of the well being of his friend. By doing so, they forget the psychological impact on the woman who is a wife of one friend and the ex-beloved of another friend.
The film had the potential to transform itself into a ‘middle of the road’ film. Unfortunately, the film wavered from an interesting situation in the story to box office elements of adding a sub-plot of a villain entering in the story who has got nothing to do with the main characters of the film. I think, this may be the first case in a film in which a villain has been introduced as an ‘item number’. There are two songs in the film – one in the army camp and another as a dance song in the guise of raising army charity fund which appear more like item numbers than connected with the story. The film failed at the box office front and with this, the career of Asit Sen as Hindi film director came to an end.
The film had six songs (inclusive of one song in two parts) written by Verma Malik which were set to music by Khayyam. Two songs have been covered on the Blog. I present, the third song, ‘mere anganaa mehndi kaa bootaa’ rendered by Asha Bhosle and picturised on Bindiya Goswami. The first part of the song can be called a ‘day-dreaming’ song while the second part of the song is the repeat of some verses of first and the last antaras, rendered in a sad mood in the background. A feature of this song is that in the film’s soundtrack, the first stanza starts with antara followed by mukhda’ However, in the record version, the song follows the usual mode of mukhda-antara.
The context of the Part-1 of the song is that after Bindiya Goswami has nursed Vinod Mehra from his bullet injuries, both have fallen in love with each other. Vinod Mehra has promise her that he would marry her after his return from the battle front. Bindiya Goswami starts imagining her ‘khushnuma’ (pleasant) feelings anticipating her day of reckoning as promised by Vinod Mehra.
The second (sad) part of the song appears in the background when Vinod Mehra returns to the village to meet Bindiya Goswami as promised by him and finds her dead body in the house.
This song is one of the good examples of Raag Pahadi-based melody with a foot tapping rhythm (probably created by Madal Drum) and good orchestration, giving a feel of being in a serene place in the mountain region.
Video Clip (Part-1 & 2):
Audio Clip (Part-1):
Audio Clip (Part-2):
Song-Mere angnaa mehndi ka boota (Mehndi)(1983) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyrics-Verma Malik, MD-Khayyam
Lyrics (Based on Video Clip):
——————-
Part-1
——————-
ho o
ho o
paaon mein paayal
paayal mein ghunghroo
ghunghroo mein geet chupaaike
ho o
tere liye main
aa gayee re mitwaa
haathhon mein mehndi lagaaike
bandh ke chalee aayee hoon aise
jaise dor patang mein ae ae
mere anganaa mehndi kaa bootaa
maano aa…. aa
dholnaa……aa
bindiyaa suraj ban ke chamkee
khanak gayaa meraa kanganaa re ae
ho o
dil kehtaa hai kayee janmon se
tu hai meraa apnaa re ae
sun re sipahiyaa
jeet gayaa tu
in ankhiyon kee jung mein ae ae
mere anganaa mehndi kaa bootaa
maano aa…..o o
dholnaa…aa
ho o
ho o
doob ke tere do nainon mein
na jaane kahaan khoyee hoon
ho o
galey lagaa ke dekh zaraa tu
jaagee hoon ke soyee hoon
pyaar kaa sapnaa ban ke tu aayaa
mann kee soyee umang mein ae ae
mere anganaa mehndi kaa bootaa
mehndi rachee ab ang ang mein
rahoon tere sang mein
main parwat kee bel lipat kar
rang jaaun tere rang mein aen
mere angana mehndee kaa bootaa
maano aa..o
dholnaa aa aa
ho o
ho o
———————
Part-2 (Sad Version)
———————
tere liye main aa gayee re mitwaa
haathhon mein mehndee lagaaike
bandh ke chalee aayee hoon aise
jaise dor patang mein aen
mere anganaa mehndee kaa bootaa
doob ke tere do nainon mein
na jaane kahaan khoyee hoon
galey lagaa ker dekh zaraa tu
jaagee hoon ke soyee hoon
pyaar kaa sapnaa ban ke tu aayaa
mann ke soyee umang mein en
mere anganaa mehndee kaa bootaa
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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