Aaj raat jaadoo sa chalne laga hai
Posted on: November 12, 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.
|
Blog Day : |
6326 | Post No. : | 19591 |
‘Shart’ (1969) was a mystery-thriller which was produced by Rajkumar Kohli and directed by Kewal Mishra. The cast included Sanjay Khan and Mumtaz in the lead roles with the supporting cast of Kumud Chhugani, Rajendranath, K N Singh, Ramesh Deo, Shammi, Hiralal, Murad, Rajan Haksar, Ashim Kumar etc.
Recently, I watched the film in which the hero of the film is obsessed with playing bets with his friends even for small amount just to get a kick out of it. During one of his betting, he unwittingly become suspect of a murder of a girl on whom he has betted. But later, he sees her alive as a dancer and finds that two of his own friends were involved in implicating him. I found the film being presented in an amateurish manner despite having the potential to make it into an interesting plot. With its popular songs, the film should have become a box office hit like ‘Khel Khel Mein’ (1975) which has somewhat similar plot but was presented in a concise manner to make it interesting for the audience.
Rajkumar Kohli (14/09/1930 – 24/11/2023), the film’s producer was an veteran produer-director who started his filmy career by producing his first Hindi film, ‘Dark Street’ (1961) with Ashok Kumar and Nishi in the lead roles. Thereafter, Nishi (real name: Krishnakumari Sharma) worked in most of his early films until she got married to him. For the next five years, he concentrated producing Punjabi films under his real name, Rajinder Kohli. His next Hindi film, ‘Lootera’ (1965) with Dara Singh and Nishi became a huge hit. ‘Gora Aur Kaala’ (1972) put him into ‘A’ grade film producer with Rajendra Kumar and Hema Malini in lead roles. Thereafter, he swithced over to making a multi-starred film, ‘Naagin’ (1976) which also became a huge hit. His next multi-starred film was ‘Jaani Dushman’ (1979) which too was a big hit.
Rajkumar Kohli launched his son, Armaan Kohli as a lead actor in his film, ‘Virodhi’ (1992). Coincidentally, Rajkumar Kohli’s graph of box office hit films took a downward turn with this film. He tried to support the career of his son by producing and directing, ‘Aulad Ke Dushman’ (1993) and ‘Qahar’ (1997) but did not succeed. He made his last attempt to regain his 1970s magic by producing and directing ‘Jaani Dushman’ (2002). The film failed miserably at the box office thus ending his filmy career of four decades. Rajkumar Kohli passed away on November 24, 2023 due to heart-attack.
The story of the film is as under:
Raj (Sanjay Khan) is obsessed with playing bet with his friends about anything and that too for a small amount and on every occasion, Raj wins the bet. This time, his friends decide to give him a tough bet to play. Kailas (Ashim Kumar), one of his friends who has never won a bet from Raj challenges Raj with a bet of Rs.10/- to hug a girl without getting back a slap from her. Raj accepts the challenge and walks towards the passing girl and hugs her. The girl is shocked and releases herself from his hug. Raj says sorry to her as he thought she was his lost sister. Both the girl and her father (Hiralal) console him. The girl even assures him that one day she will visit him. The girl happens to be Pinky (Kumud Chhugani). In another bet, Raj accepts a bet to take the girl seen at the swimming pool for a date and winning it because the girl, Sapna (Mumtaz) happens to be his girlfriend.
The next bet turns the story weird when Raj accepts the bet to light a candle and lay a wreath on a grave in the Christian cemetery in the midnight. When he has successfully completed his bet, a large group with a priest and a coffin arrive in the cemetery. Raj gets a shock when he sees a dead Pinky in the coffin. A confused Raj goes back home and lie on the bed without switching on the light. After some time, he switches on the light. To his horror, he finds Pinky on his bed in a dazed condition who falls unconscious before he seeks explanation from her.
Soon Raj hears the doorbell. When he opens the door, he finds Pinky’s father who says that Pinky has been missing for days. Soon he finds Pinky’s dead body on Raj’s bed. He charges Raj for the murder of Pinky. Before he continues his conversation, an unidentified man with smoking pipe shoot him dead and the revolver gets dropped on the floor. Raj unwittingly picks up the revolver. A police team led by Inspector Rajan (Rajan Haksar) arrive. Raj runs away from his house. On the way, he meets his friend, Malhotra (Rajendranath) who suggests him to stay in his house. Seeing him smoking pipe, he becomes suspicious of him and refuses his offer. Instead, he prefers to stay in another friend’s house, Ramesh (Ramesh Deo). But police has also got a wind of it that Raj is with Ramesh. They gatecrashes Ramesh house. At the time, Ramesh gives his car keys to run away from the backdoor of his house.
After avoiding the police jeep which has been chasing him, he lands in Sapna’s house who stays with her uncle (K N Singh). By this time, it is dawn. At the breakfast table, he sees a photo of Sapna with Pinky who is Sapna’s friend. Raj does not want to probe about Pinky as he is already in a soup and he does not want Sapna to become suspicious of him.
In the evening, Raj takes Sapna to a Club for a entertainment programme with the help of Ramesh to avoid the police. In the club, he is shocked to see Pinky giving a dance performance. After the completion of her dance, Raj rushes towards the green room only to find that Pinky has left. He follows her on the street and stops her to tell him as to who she is and who has murdered her father. Before that, an unidentified person hit on his head making him unconscious. Pinky escapes. Sapna’s uncle who was passing through the road picks up unconscious Raj and brings him home.
Ramesh visits Sapna house to enquire about Raj. He suggests Sapna to plan for an outing to cheer up Raj. While dancing with the tribals, Raj see Piinky once again and rushes towards her only to get hit by tree trunk. Sapna, fed up with Raj’s obsession with Pinky, brings her home to meet Raj when he gets surprised to know from her that she has seen Raj for the first time. In the meanwhile, police raids Sapna’s house and find Pinky’s dead body who was talking to Raj a little while ago. Raj is missing from the room and police again suspects Raj of killing Pinky.
The weird events happening in his life make Raj mad. First, he is already a suspect of murder of Pinky’s father and now he has become a suspect of Pinky’s murder. He decides to investigate the matter. He goes to the club in a disguised appearance where Pinky had given her dance performance earlier. Assuming that she is alive, she will be in the club for her evening dance. Indeed, Pinky was in the club to perform her dance. So also the henchmen of the mastermind are present to kill Raj. However, after the end of Pinky’s dance, Raj is a step ahead as he kidnaps Pinky and takes her to a undisclosed place where she spills the secret that she is the real Pinky and the dead Pinky was other girls wearing her mask to let police suspect him of the murder.
The whole exercise was with an aim of cornering the vast property of Sapna who will get ownership once she gets married. Since Sapna’s uncle has decided to get her married to Raj, the mastermind of this weird operations targeted Raj to make him the suspect of killing Pinky and her father. Being the suspect, the uncle will be forced to cancel the proposed marriage. At the end, the mastermind turns out to be Raj’s friend, Ramesh, who was eyeing Sapna’s property by getting married to her. After being exposed, Ramesh is arrested by police. Raj is absolved from the murders which clears path for him to get married to Sapna with her uncle’s blessing.
The film had five songs written by Anand Bakshi which were set to music by Laxmikant-Pyarelal. One song has been covered on the Blog. I present 2nd song, ‘aaj raat jadoo saa chalne lagaa hai’ rendered by Suman Kalyanpur. The song is picturised on Kumud Chhugani as a dance song. Sanjay Khan can also be seen in his disguised appearance.
The context of the song is that Raj (Sanjay Khan) has become the suspect for the murders of Pinky (Kumud Chhugani) and her father (Hiralal) and he is on the run. But he finds Pinky in his room and later dancing in a club. In order to get it verified whether Pinky is really alive, he revisits the club with his disguised appearance when, to his shock, he sees her performing the dance in the club. After the end of her dance, he kidnaps her to get to know as to why the weird things are happening concerning her and who is the mastermind behind the whole operations.
Incidentally, all these years, I was under the impression that this song was rendered by Lata Mangeshkar. I heard this song last week after many years and is pleasantly surprised to know that it is Suman Kalyanpur who has rendered this song.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Aaj raat jaadoo saa chalne laga hai (Shart)(1969) Singer-Suman Kalyanpur,Lyricist-Anand Bakshi, MD-Laxmikant Pyarelal
Lyrics:
aaaaaaaaaaaa
aaj raat jaadoo saa chalne lagaa hai
aaj raat jaadoo saa chalne lagaa hai
chaand parde se nikalne lagaa hai
aaj raat jaadoo saa chalne lagaa hai
chaand parde se nikalne lagaa hai
aaj raat jaadoo saa chalne lagaa hai
shabnam main naheen hoon
main shama hoon mere yaar
shabnam main naheen hoon
main shama hoon mere yaar
sun o deewaane
na kar sholon se pyaar
dekh parwaane
tu jalne lagaa hai
aaj raat jaadoo saa chalne lagaa hai
aaj raat jaadoo saa chalne lagaa hai
main na keh sakoongee
bin kahe tu jaan le
main na keh sakoongee
bin kahe tu jaan le
o rang-e-mehfil ko tu pehchaan le
rang mehfil kaa badalne lagaa hai
aaj raat jaadoo saa chalne lagaa hai
aaj raat jaadoo saa chalne lagaa hai
chaand parde se nikalne lagaa hai
aaj raat jaadoo saa chalne lagaa hai
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
Leave a comment