Halke halke aayee chal ke
Posted on: November 10, 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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This song post is the 1000th article contributed by him in the blog.
‘Apne Paraaye’ (1980) was produced by Mushir-Riyaz and was directed by Basu Chatterjee. The cast included Amol Palekar, Shabana Azmi, Utpal Dutt, Ashalata Wabgaonkar, Girish Karnad, Bharti Achrekar, Maneesha, Manik Dutt, Gopi Sapru, Zareena, Amal Sen etc.
This was Bharati Achrekar’s first Hindi film. She is the daughter of Hindustani classical singer, Manik Verma and lyricist Amar Verma.
This was Ashalata’s (Ashalata Wabgaonkar) first major role in a Hindi film. She had debuted in Hindi film with ‘Zanjeer’ (1973) in a role of the foster mother of Amitabh Bachchan.
Ashalata Wabgaonkar (02/07/1941 – 22/09/2020) was one of the prominent Marathi theatre artists who ruled this medium for nearly four decades as an actor-singer. She was born in Palolem village in South Goa as Ashalata Naik. However, she grew up in Gamdevi in South Mumbai and completed her high school from St. Columbus Girls’ High School. She completed her post-graduation in Psychology from SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. During her school days, she acted and sang in amateur dramas – both in Konkani and Marathi.
Sometime in mid-1950s, the Kala Vibhag (Cultural Wing) of The Goa Hindu Association, an organisation set up in 1923 by Hindu Goans based in Mumbai decided to enter the Marathi Drama Competition of Bombay (now Maharashtra) State. Having won its first Marathi drama in 1955 in the competition, the Kala Vibhag was looking for a beautiful actress who could also sing for their Marathi Sangeet Natak (musical drama), ‘Sanshaykallol’ (Doubtful Uproar) which was to be presented for Drama Competition for 1956. One of the members of Kala Vibhag identified Ashalata Naik, then 14-year school going girl, and approached her mother for the permission to act in the drama. First, she refused by saying that she wanted her daughter to act in the films after the completion of her education. However, the person convinced her that Ashalata would get well trained as an actor once she joins theatre which will eventually open an opportunity to get her roles in films. The drama also won the first prize in competition and Ashalata won the best actress award.
In the midst of her career in amateur Marathi and Konkani dramas, Ashalata completed her graduation and post-graduation. Now, she was ready to join the professional Marathi theatre. An opportunity came to her by way of a musical drama, ‘Matsyagandha’ (1964) produced by the Goa Hindu Association. In this musical play, Ashalata did the role of Satyavati, the daughter of a fisherman, who marries the king of Hastinapur, Shantanu, the role performed by Goan singer-actor, Ramdas Kamat. For this musical play, she underwent the training in Hindustani classical singing under another Goan, Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki who was also the music director for ‘Matsyagandha’. The drama got the excellent response from the audience and more than 500 performances were staged. The musical drama became a milestone in the career of Ashalata as a singer-actor. After this, she was associated with a number of Marathi dramas – both musical and non-musical for over four decades. She also worked in many Marathi films and Marathi TV serials whenever, she was free from her Marathi plays.
Though Ashalata started working in Hindi films with her debutant film, ‘Zanjeer’ (1973), her career in Hindi films really picked up when Basu Chatterjee selected her for a major role in the character of Siddheshwari in his film, ‘Apne Paraaye’ (1980) after watching her performance in one of her Marathi plays. Thereafter, she worked over 100 Hindi films which included ‘Aahista Aahista’ (1981), ‘Namak Halaal’ (1982), ‘Shaukeen’ (1982), ‘Coolie’ (1983), ‘Sadma’ (1983), ‘Sharaabi’ (1984), ’Tawaaif’ (1985). Ankush’ (1986), ‘Mahananda’ (1986), ‘Sutradhaar’ (1987), ‘Ghaayal’ (1990), ‘Agni Sakshi’ (1996) and many more. She worked in her last Hindi film, ‘Ada – A Way of Life’ (2008).
Ashalata also wrote the book in Marathi, ‘Gard Sabhowati’, a memoire based on her large collections of articles which used to appeared in a Marathi journal, ‘Pratyaksh’ for many years.
Ashalata Wabgaonkar died from COVID-19 on September 22, 2020 in Satara, Maharashtra, while shooting for a Marathi TV serial ‘Aai Maazi Kalubai’. She was 79. Due to the Covid protocol, her family members could not come to Satara to perform her last rites. Instead, one of her co-artists of the TV serial performed her last rites in Satara. In a way, she passed away with boots on.
‘Apne Paraaye’ (1980) was based on a Bengali novel, ‘Nishkriti’ (1917) by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. The story depicts the joint family system and its dynamic that was in vogue in early 20th Century of Bengal. The story revolves around three married brothers, two real brothers and one the youngest half-brother who live in a joint family. The cousin’s wife despite being youngest is given the responsibility of running the household, becuae she is a strong-willed woman. However, her husband is the weakest in terms of his financial contributions. This has not been an issue in the family so far until the second brother and his wife join the joint family after their transfer. The wife of the second brother, who is a bit egoistic, develops jealousy towards the youngest one. To placate the situation, the half-brother and his wife leave the house and shift to family’s ancestral home in the village. Even in the village, the wife of the second brother is after them as the village house belongs to the entire family and not to the half-brother. When the family is about to get disintegrated, the elder brother visits the ancestral home in a village and gets to know the realities. His timely decision with the support of his wife save the family from breaking and unites the family.
The story of the film is as under:
Elder brother, advocate (Utpal Dutt) lives with his wife, Siddheshwari (Ashalata), step-brother, Chandranath (Amol Palekar) and his wife, Sheela (Shabana Azmi) with their children in a joint family system in Kolkata. Advocate’s immediate younger brother, Harish (Girish Karnad) with his wife, Nayantara (Bharati Achrekar) lives in Patna as a practising lawyer. Chandra does not earn anything while his wife, Sheela is a strong-willed woman who is also a disciplinarian for the children in the family. Because of her these qualities, Siddheshwari has entrusted the running of the household to Sheela despite the fact that her husband does not contribute anything in terms of money. The family has been living together happily with elders and children bonding with each other.
The happiness in the family is disturbed when Harish and his wife, Nayantara and their only son decide to shift to Kolkata and joins the joint family. Harish assists his elder brother in his law firm. Within few days, Nayantara’s ego is hurt and she develops jealousy toward Sheela as despite being youngest, it is Sheela who has been running the household and admonishing children in the family if they break her discipline. Nayantara is not happy that Sheela’s husband does not contribute money in the household expenditure but if she requires any money, she has to ask from Sheela.
Things become out of control when Nayantara creates a rift between Siddheshwari and Sheela by accusing the latter of mismanagement of the household’s finance. To bring the peace in the joint family, Advocate decides to shift Chandra, Sheela and her children to the ancestor’s house in the village where he can tend some agricultural land to sustain his family. However, the caretaker of the village house and agricultural field siphons off the agricultural income and misrepresents to Nayantara that Chandra has been lavishly spending the agricultural income. Nayantara instigates her husband to file a case against Chandra for vacating the village house as it belongs to the entire family and he has no exclusive right on the agricultural income.
Months have passed and Siddheshwari has no information as to how Chandra and his family have been carrying on. She is worried and requests her husband to make a visit to the village to meet Chandra and his family and presents some gifts to them on the occasion of Durga Pooja. He reluctantly agree despite the fact that he has to be present for the final hearing of the court case involving the family’s property dispute.
Advocate visits the village and meets Chandra and his family and is shocked to see their pathetic conditions as they have been living from hands to mouth and all the jewellery of Sheela is missing from her person as they had to sell to fight the court case and to sustain themselves. Advocate gets to know as to who is behind to make their life miserable. He stays with them for a couple of days more.
On the same day when Advocate is on a visit to his village, Harish comes back home completely disappointed as he has lost the court case about property dispute as his elder brother, Advocate has transferred the ownership of the village house and agricultural field in Chandra’s name and the caretaker has been dismissed. With their conspiracy exposed and Harish, realising that he should not have listened to Nayantara, decides to leave the house with his family and go back to Patna to resume his law practice. After a couple of days, Advocate returns home with Chandra’s family and is surprised that Harish and his family are leaving to go back to Patna. Harish pleads with Advocate that his leaving for Patna would be in the best interest of the family. Nayantara assures Siddheshwari that they will occasionally pay a visit to them. All the children are happy that they will be pampered by Siddheshwari. It is Advocate and his mild-mannered wife, Siddheshwari whose efforts keep the family from disintegration.
The film had four songs written by Yogesh which were set to music by Bappi Lahiri. Two songs have been posted on the Blog. I present the 3rd song, ‘halke halke aayee chal ke’ which is a lullaby rendered by Lata Mangeshkar who lip syncs for both Shabana Azmi and Ashalata.
The context of the song is that after Amol Palekar and Shabana Azmi shift to the ancestral village along with their children, just to avoid the confrontation with his second brother, Girish Karnad and his wife, Bharti Acharekar, financially, things are not working good for the family. His children were used to put into sleep in the night after Ashalata, the elder brother’s wife will sing lullaby. Shabana Azmi sings the same lullaby to her son who is ill. The flashback of Ashalata singing the same lullaby are reflected in son’s mind and recalling how all the children used to play.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Halke halke aayee chal ke (Apne Paraaye)(1980) Singer-Lata, Lyricist-Yogesh, MD-Bappi Lahiri
Lyrics:
hmm hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm
halke halke aayee chal ke
bolee nindiya raa…nee
chupke chupke
kyaa soche re
o nainon ke taare
tu so jaa re
halke halke aayee chal ke
bolee nindiya raa…nee
chupke chupke
kyaa soche re
o nainon ke taare
tu so jaa re
tujhko jo dekhoon
ghadee do ghadee jhoom loon
so jaaye tu to sukh chain se to
palken teree choom loon
tujhko jo dekhoon
ghadee do ghadee jhoom loon
so jaaye tu to sukh chain se to
palken terin chum loon
kabse tujhko le jaane ko
aayee nindiya dwaare
tu so jaa re
halke halke
aayee chal ke
bolee nindiyaa raa…nee
chupke chupke
kyaa soche re
o nainon ke taare
tu so jaa re
jab ye ghulegee re aankhon mein nindiya teree
maa jaisee koi
mamta mein doobee
tujhko milegee paree
jab ye ghulegee re aankhon mein nindiya teree
maa jaisee koi
mamta mein doobee
tujhko milegee paree
in sapnon mein tujhko apne mil jayenge pyaare
tu so jaa re
halke halke
aayee chal ke
bolee nindiyaa raa…nee
chupke chupke
kyaa soche re
o nainon ke taare
tu so jaa re
tu so jaa re
tu so jaa re
14 Responses to "Halke halke aayee chal ke"
November 11, 2025 at 5:03 am
Wish many many such posts from you. Congratulations.
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November 11, 2025 at 6:57 am
Dear Sadanand ji,
Heartiest Congratulations on reaching an important milestone.
your articles are a lesson on how to write a perfect post, with proper back up of studied efforts and as much as possible information about the film and it’s people. I have been a fan of your writings since the beginning.
I wish you many more milestones here.
-Arunkumar Deshmukh.
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Sadanand Kamath
November 11, 2025 at 8:30 am
Arun ji,
Thank you for your profuse appreciation. I am honoured by making me your fan of my writings.
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November 11, 2025 at 11:09 am
Congratulations on reaching post number 1000. All the best for many more centuries & thousands
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November 11, 2025 at 3:49 pm
Dear Sadanand ji,
Heartiest Congratulations. And your choice of this song is brilliant for this occasion.
Wish to receive many more from you.
Regards and blessings,
Uma🙏
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November 11, 2025 at 5:28 pm
Sadanand ji,
Hearty Congratulations.
It is quite evident from your posts that considerable time and efforts are put in to develop the articles by including multiple facets of the subject.
Many Thanks for all your endeavors.
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November 12, 2025 at 2:40 pm
Congratulations on completing 1000 posts in the blog. Your informative and well researched posts are always a source of inspiration.
About this Lori of “apne paraye”, I had the lyrics of this one too. I have a story also to share pertaining to the time of it’s release. Maybe will share it with another song of this film. I have not seen the movie, but the story as presented by you made good reading. It is how we humans behave in given situation and how we handle things when at the receiving end of these same situations.
looking forward to more from your qalam.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
November 10, 2025 at 6:17 pm
Heartiest Congratulations on your 1000th post Sir jee 👏 🙌
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November 11, 2025 at 8:22 am
Thanks, Avinash ji.
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