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.
This article is his 1700th post in the blog.
Blog Day :
6296
Post No. :
19485
Today’s song is from the film Jhamela-1953.
This is my 1700th post on this Blog. I am very pleased with this landmark. At the age of 86 years, if I am able to write so many articles, it is nothing less than God’s Blessings. This century is the third century I have achieved in a single year i.e. in 2025 ! The 15th century came on 28-1-2025, the 16th century came on 28-5-2025 and now the third century came today, on 13-10-2025. What a coincidence !
Starting my career as a medical Representative in Glaxo Laboratories, I retired in 1998 as the General Manager- Marketing and today I am a Director in 2 well known Pharma companies. After my retirement I ran my own Consultancy firm for 10 years and then I left the Pharma industry with 40 years’ experience.
During this period I excelled in Astrology and won the ‘Jyotish Praveen’ title from Poona Jyotish Mahasabha. I also earned a Brown Belt in Judo, besides acting in dramas etc. I traveled all over India, Pakistan. Nepal and Sri Lanka, U.K. and USA. After retirement I visited Europe, Switzerland and Australia with my wife.
With all this, I turned to my original love for old films and music. At the age of 71 years, I learned how to use computers from my grandchildren. I started surfing and making comments on various Blogs on the internet. My first post came on 1-10-2012 on ASAD Blog. I interviewed close relatives of a few old-time artists and published them on the internet. I have written on Marathi films, Telugu films and even Kannada films on different blogs. There was a time when I wrote on 5 to 6 different Blogs at a time on different topics like history of films and film songs etc. But my first love has always been AtulSongADay. In the last 7 years, I have written 11 books on old film artistes and other topics like “Same name Confusions” etc. I honestly believe that I could do all this in this field due to the encouragement of Atul Ji, who had initiated me to write a post on 1-10-2012. Thank You ATUL JI !
In this Blog, I got very good company from friends, many of whom I have been able to meet in the ‘Get-togethers’ held in Mumbai from time to time. I also met ATUL JI, when he attended one such ‘Get-together’ at my place in Mumbai. I have kept all the longbooks wherein I first hand-write my articles, before typing them. I have 37 such long books chronicling all my 1700 posts as well as interviews, lined up serially with dates of writing, date of posting on the Blog, serial number, film,song and year details of each post.
Coming to today’s film, ‘Jhamela’ (1953) was a film made by Master Bhagwan after his colossal hit film ‘Albela’ of 1951. Prior to ‘Albela’, Bhagwan was making and directing only stunt films. The making of ‘Jhamela’ has an interesting history. After ‘Albela’, Bhagwan wanted to make a film called ‘Beta Laadla’ with Raj Kapoor and Nargis. He had talked to Raj and he had accepted it for Rs. 55,000 only. Bhagwan had kept RK’s cheque also ready. Meanwhile there was a party to celebrate the ‘Albela’ success, at Sai Prasad, CR’s house.
During the party, there was a discussion about Bhagwan’s next social film and PL Santoshi announced ‘Jhamela’ as his next film. Bhagwan was surprised and said,”What jhamela ? There is no story, nothing.” Santoshi said “The story can come later. First you make an announcement. The name is catchy and CR will give music”. Due to pressure from guests like S Mukherjee, CR, Santoshi and other guests, Bhagwan made the official announcement.
However, in spite of the success of ‘Albela’, Bhagwan’s luck started going down and down. Though he made many films like ‘Jhamela’, ‘Rangeela’, ‘Bhagam Bhag’, ‘Bhala Admi’, ‘Pyara Dushman’, ‘Kar Bhala’, ‘Shola Jo Bhadke’, ‘Sachche Ka Bolbala’, ‘Hum Deewane’, ‘La Bela’ etc., he did not see same luck again. ‘Bhagam Bhag’, ‘Pyara Dushman’, and ‘Shola Jo Bhadke’ did somewhat better.
It was from the film ‘Albela’ that CR gave music to Bhagwan’s film in his real name. Prior to this, he gave music to his stunt films as ‘Annasaheb’.This type of use of pen names was followed by many MDs. GM Durrani gave music as Gunjan, SD Batish gave music as Nirmal Kumar. Snehal Bhatkar used several names like Vasudev, B Vasudev, VG Bhatkar and Snehal, before taking up another pen name Snehal Bhatkar for the rest of his career. Actually his name was Vasudeo and Snehal was his daughter’s name. These are well known, but hardly anybody knows that Anil Biswas gave music to film ‘Begunah’ (1949) in the name of Haribhai. His co-MD in this film was Shyamu – none other than C Ramchandra. This information is given in the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema by Rajadhyaksha on pages 67 and 190.
Although the team for ‘Jhamela’ was the same as Albela and they tried their best, still ‘Jhamela’ was not successful. Somebody had told Bhagwan that titles ending with ‘la‘ were lucky for him. Bhagwan tried this even, but he did not succeed in films like ‘Jhamela’, ‘Rangeela’, ‘Kar Bhala’, ‘Sachche Ka Bolbala’ and ‘La-Bela’. All this led to Bhagwan’s downfall to rock bottom. He had to sell his houses, cars etc and go back to the chawl where he had started from in his career. Bhagwan is a real case of ‘Rags to Riches to Rags‘.
The cast of the film was Master Bhagwan, Geeta Bali, Badri Prasad, Baby Shakuntala, Baburao, Leela Gupte etc.etc. Badri Prasad was a wonder in the annals of Hindi film history. There is no other known person in history who was an actor, lyricist, singer, Music Director, producer, Director and a Choreographer- all at the same time in his career. He was simply unique. There was no one else like him.
As Actor- 147 films ( I remember him in Albela-51, as Bhagwan’s father, in Bhagam Bhag-54 as Shashikala’s uncle and missing father of Nalini Jaywant in film Hum sab chor hain-56 )
As Singer- sang 11 songs in 7 films
As M.D.- 16 films ( Bala joban, Vishnu Bhakti, Fashionable India, Romantic India, Zambo the ape man, Swaraj ke sipahi, Badhe chalo, Yangrilla, Himalay ki beti, Double cross, Zambo ka beta, Jhuti sharm, Anuradha, Vanmala, Madhusudan and Zevar-42)
As Lyricist-1 film
Producer – 1 film
Director – 1 film
Choreographer- 22 films ( from Namoona-49 to Shoor veer-88)
BADRI PRASAD was born on 14-11-1902,in Benaras, UP. He started acting in Ramleela in the Bhelpura area in Benaras. From there he reached Calcutta, spent time with New Theatres and other studios and then landed in Bombay in 1932. His first film as an actor was Navchetan-1932..
Then he worked as an assistant to some composers and gave music for the first time to Bala Joban-1934. Then came Vishnu Bhakti, Fashionable India,Romantic India, Badhe Chalo, Swaraj ke Sipahi, Anuradha, Double cross,Himalaya ki beti, Yangrila, Zambo the ape man, Zambo ka beta,Jhooti Sharm, Madhusudan, Vanmala and his last film as a composer was Zevar-1942.
Then he continued working in character roles. In 1949 he first did Choreography in Namoona-49. After that for the next 40 years he choreographed in films till his last film .
He continued acting till his last film Dhoop chaon-1977- a period of 44 years.
As a composer many famous singers sang for him, like Amirbai Karnataki, Noorjehan, Snehlata, Shyamsunder, Radharani, Sarla Devi,Ameena, Gauhar, E Rama Rao, Ramanand, Vatsala Kumthekar , Vimla Kumari,Iqbal Bibi etc etc.
Badriprasad was a learned man with command over Hindi, Urdu, English and Sanskrit. He wrote many plays for AIR also. He had a very big collection of books in his house. He was called Pandit Badri Prasad, due to his expertise in Sanskrit. He was a man of few words, so his fabulous career remained unknown and he was known only as a character artist.
He had 2 daughters. One daughter Surekha Pandit remained with him till his death. Surekha too was an actress, doing bit roles in films (Anupama, Mere sanam, Nartaki, Gaban, Sant Gyaneshwar, Mere Huzur,Aadmi aur Insaan, Saat Hindustani, Do dooni chaar, Shehar aur sapna,Aarti etc etc.). After marriage she was known as Surekha Parkar. He died on 4-11-1988 at Bombay.
Note – There was another Choreographer Badri Prasad Awasthi, who was born on 4-4-1925. He continued being a choreographer in the 1990s also, after the older Badriprasad died in 1988.
( Some information is used herein from the article on Badri prasad by Surekha Pandit in Madhuri dated 1st May 1981, with thanks.)
Today’s song is sung by Meena KapoorMangeshkar. As far as I know, this was the only song she sang for C. Ramchandra.
Song- Yehee hai teree duniya to phir tu bhee naheen Bhagwaan (Jhamela)(1953) Singer- Meena Mangeshkar, Lyricist- Rajinder Krishan, MD- C Ramchandra
Lyrics
yehee hai teree duniya
to phir tu bhee naheen bhagwaan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
yehee hai teree duniya
to phir tu bhee naheen bhagwan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
is duniya kee dagar dagar par paap kapat kaa dera
tu hee bata de kab tak hoga is duniya mein savera
tu hee bata de kab tak hoga is duniya mein savera
ye tere insaan rahenge kab tak yoon haivaan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
yehee hai teree duniya
to phir tu bhee naheen bhagwan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
bhai bahan ka pyaar na samajhe kaisee hai duniya teree
bhai bahan ka pyaar na samajhe kaisee hai duniya teree
teri nazaron hee ke aage lut gayee izzat meree
tu patthar kee ek murat hai kyaa samajhe armaan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
yehee hai teree duniya
to phir tu bhee naheen bhagwan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
banaaye kaise ye insaan
Heartiest Congratulations 🎊 on your 1700th post Sir jee. Thanks for enriching our knowledge about the history of Hindi Cinema, and also enriching our Iives by your inspirational presence around us.
Congratulations, Arunji, for this landmark. What a studied, well researched and constant work you have done! Meeting you at your place twice has been a lifelong memory.
Hearty congratulations on your 1700th post on the Blog.
The pace at which your posts appear on the Blog in recent times are inversely related to the progression of your age. My good wishes are with you for continuation of this trend.
Sorry for the belated congratulations as I had some problems with my laptop which got sorted out today.
This blog discusses Bollywood songs of yesteryears. Every song has a brief description, followed by a video link, and complete lyrics of the song. This is a labour of love, where “new” songs are added every day, and that has been the case for over SEVENTEEN years. This blog has more than 19700 song posts by now. This blog is active and online for over 6000 days since its beginning on 19 July 2008.
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
October 13, 2025 at 5:06 am
Congratulations on touching 17K century marks.We aspire for more such milestones for you.
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October 13, 2025 at 6:27 am
Thank you.
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