Baadal tu aag giraa de
Posted on: November 20, 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 a 72 year old Costume film- Shamsheer-1953.
Though the film was made by Sargam Pictures, Bombay, after completion of the film, all the rights were purchased by Bombay Talkies – which was already sinking and was unable to make films on its own. Just to save Bombay Talkies, all the current and ex employees of the company got together and made a film- Baadbaan-1954. However, this could not save Bombay Talkies and it was sold to Tolaram Jalani.
Film Shamsheer-1953 was directed by Gyan Mukherjee. It had 2 MDs- Arun Kumar Mukherjee and Anupam Ghatak. There were 3 Lyricists. The cast was Ashok Kumar, Bhanumathy, Smriti Biswas, Rama Shukul, Nana Palshikar, Mehmood, Bhagwan and many others.
Just 6 years after India’s independence, the Hindi film industry was working normally. Young and enthusiastic directors were trying out their hands at a variety of films. The country was stabilised and it looked with wide eyes at the changes in the world. Italian Neorealism was becoming popular among filmmakers all over the world. There was enough material in India which needed films depicting Neo-Realism, so that the social ills could be rectified.
In the year 1953, 2 films that impressed the audience were by Bimal Roy. One was Parineeta. It was a classic film based on the famous novel by Sharat Chandra Chatterjee. ” Do Bigha Zameen” , based on a short story by Salil Chaudhari was a hit film nationally and internationally. Bimal, greatly influenced by the ‘Nehru Socialism’ and the “Italian New Wave Films” , made this film showing the pathetic story of a poor land owner of Bihar, coming to a big city like Calcutta and becoming a Rickshaw Puller, with an unrealistic hope of making enough money to get back his mortgaged piece of land. This touching story won several awards, but one American film critic wrote ” It is very strange that a filmmaker from a newly independent nation of India has such a negative picture of his own country ! How will it motivate people to be successful in life ? ”
On the positive side, there was the musical Anarkali , the biggest Hit of 1953. When the film Mughal e Azam, a film on the same story, was released in 1960, film Anarkali was also re-released and it did a very good business. Raj kapoor’s Aah was good but the audience did not like Raj Kapoor’s ‘Dilip Kumar style’ acting as well as Pran doing the role of a good gentleman doctor, instead of his usual villain style acting. However, the songs became popular.
Other notable films were Boot polish, Patita, Shikast, Aas, Jeewan Jyoti, Raahi, Foot path, Jhamela, AVM’s Ladki etc. Film Mayur pankh introduced Asha Mathur and some foreign artists. Nehru’s favourite slogan ‘Vividhata mein Ekta’ was used as a theme in the film Teen batti Char Rasta, by V.Shantaram. He also presented the socialist theme of ‘ Rich-poor’ struggle in the film Surang. First Geva colour film Shahenshah was brought by G.P.Sippy.
Guru Dutt and O.P.Nayyar came together for the first time in the film Baaz. The National Film Awards started and the first award went to Marathi film ” Shyamchi Aai “, made by P.K.Atre starring Vanmala. Filmfare awards also started. Prabhat film company closed down. Music Director Ghulam Haider died in Pakistan.
Film Shamsheer-1953 was a remake of a hit Tamil film by S.S. Vasan. Till 1947,Hindi films were made mostly in Bombay, Lahore, Calcutta, Kolhapur and Poona. Most studios were located in these cities. South Indian language films were made mainly in Madras and Bangla films were made in Calcutta and Dhaka. The Partition in 1947 changed the picture completely. Wholesale polarisation took place. Producers of Hindi films had to flee from Lahore, leaving everything behind them and some artistes from Bombay left for Pakistan. Thus,after Partition,the exclusive centre for production of Hindi films was only Bombay.By 1950 things settled in India and Pakistan Film Industry.
Telugu film producers shifted to Hyderabad, Kannada films to Bangalore and Malayalam to Kerala. Madras, however,still made films other than Tamil, like Telugu Hindi etc. But now it was only Remakes of successful Tamil films or dubbed films. The 50s saw many Hindi films dubbed from southern languages(Read Tamil/Telugu).Initially,they were Mythological,Fantasy or costume films.In the 60s,however, even social films were remade.
Film production in Madras is very methodical and professional. They make films as per plans and in planned time. For this reason, in the 60s to 80s many Hindi film actors volunteered to to make films in south. The producers in south too had their favourites. In the Music area, there were, Ravi, C.Ramchandra or Madan Mohan, for lyrics and story, Rajinder Krishna and Pradeep, and preferred actors were Jeetendra,Rajendrakumar,Sunil Dutt and Mehmood.
Though Polarisation took place in film production,the attraction to come to Bombay and work here continued.Artistes from various centres still came to Bombay. The biggest contribution came from Bengal,in music,direction and acting areas. Artistes from South tried their hand with Hindi films,either by Remade or dubbed films. Thus the greatest south actors like Sivaji Ganeshan, M G Ramchandran, N T Rama Rao, A.Nageshwar Rao, Jaylalita, Janaki, Susheela, Bhanumathi, Prem Nazir of the older gen and Rajanikanth,Kamal Hasan and Chiranjeevi from the next Gen were seen in Hindi films. Only Dr.Rajkumar, the Kannada Superstar never worked in Hindi films. In fact,except for just 1 Telugu film, Sri Kalahasti Mahatmyam-1954, Dr.Rajkumar never worked in any other language film.
In the music department also, many composers like K.Narayan rao, S.Rajeshwar rao, C R Subramanyam, E Shankar, R Sudershanam, Ramesh Naidu, Adi Narayanrao, Vishwanath-Rammurthy, Lingappa etc worked in Hindi films. There was one name from South,which was so famous,but it is surprising that he too gave music to Hindi Films. His name was Ghantasala.
The major difficulty for southern artists was speaking in Hindi. Due to this, they hesitated to work in Hindi films and instead, preferred dubbing their hit films in Hindi, released them on All India basis and hoped for becoming famous. Initially, in the period of the 50’s and 60’s decades, there was a spate of dubbed films, as well as some remade films in Hindi. Later on and now of course only hit films are remade in Hindi. The count of dubbed films has gone down considerably. These days, I find that even hit films of Hindi are also remade in southern languages.
Since the times when the adventurous S.S.Vasan-Producer, Director and Owner of Gemini Studios, made his film ” Chandrakanta”- in Hindi in 1948 on a mammoth scale (with over 600 prints of the Hindi version for simultaneous release on All India basis on 24th December 1948), the Southern film industry woke up. After the film Chandrakanta was successful, Vasan started making remakes of his Tamil hit films in Hindi one after another. When other filmmakers of the South saw Vasan busy doing this and visiting his bank very often with several bags full of money to deposit, they too joined the bandwagon !
Thus, the entire decades of the 50’s and the 60’s saw many films from South, in the form of Remakes of Southern Hit films, Dubbed or shot at Madras for the All India audience of Hindi films. After Vasan’s Gemini, A.V.Meiyyappan’s AVM, Nagi Reddy’s Vauhini Studios and L.V.Prasad’s Prasad productions gave many films, made with all Southern, all Bombay or a mixed cast of actors. Many major Heroes of South secretly nurtured a desire to shine in the Hindi belt. They joined this race. Actors like M.G.Ramchandran (MGR), N.T.Tama Rao (NTR), A.Nageshwar Rao (ANR), Sivaji Ganesan, Gemini Ganesan etc., actresses like Bhanumathy, Jayalalitha, Jamuna etc and character artistes like Relang, S.V.Ranga Rao etc appeared in Hindi films. ( A very loooong list of such remakes and dubbed films is available on IMDB ). Even today many Southern Hit films are remade or dubbed in Hindi and the addition is, many Hindi Hits are also remade in Southern languages. The West Bengal Film Industry which actually led this trend in the 30’s and the 40’s has fallen way behind now.
The story of film Shamsheer-1953 was about a popular rebel Vikram of the Kathiawar region in Gujarat. The king was a tyrant and levied heavy taxes on the subject. His army used to loot the poor and oppressed. Overall the kingdom was an anarchy. Vikram stood against all this and the general public supported him too. The king was looking for an opportunity to destroy Vikram. He played a trick. He used his own beloved Rupam to entice Vikram and arrest him. Roopam does her job skillfully and Vikram is captured by the king. Vikram is tortured in the jail. Roopam could not see his woes. She actually realised that while fooling Vikram, she had fallen in his love. With the help of some supporters, Roopam rescues Vikram, but she is captured.
The king announces that if Vikram does not surrender immediately, Roopam will be killed. Vikram hatches a plan. He surrenders, while his supporters attack the army and thus rescue Roopam. There is a war between Vikram and the King in which the king is killed. The people are overjoyed and crown Vikram as their king. Roopam becomes his queen.
One of the cast members was Nana Palshikar. Nana Palshikar aka Narayan Balwant Palshikar (20-5-1908 – 1 June 1984) was a film actor who appeared in over 125 Hindi films. He made his film debut in 1935 with Dhuandhar, and went on to play character roles in both Hindi mainstream and New wave films. He was also cast in small parts in a few international productions such as Maya (1966), The Guru (1969) and Gandhi (1982). Palshikar was awarded the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, in 1962 and 1965. He was recognised with an award in the same category by the Bengal Film Journalists’ Association in 1965.
Palshikar made his first film appearance in 1935 along with Leela Chitnis in Sukumar Chatterjee’s Dhuandhar. He appeared in two more films in this decade, Kangan and Durga (1939), both of which were produced at the Bombay Talkies production house and were the two final films directed by German director Franz Osten.
After a long break of 14 years, during which he appeared only in two films Bahurani (1940) and Maali-44, he returned to the screen in Bimal Roy’s 1953 picture Do Bigha Zamin (Two Acres of Land), in which he played Dhangu Maheto, alongside actors such as Balraj Sahni and Nirupa Roy. The film was a major critical success and won several national and international honours. He followed it with supporting roles in other successful films of this decade, such as V. Shantaram’s Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje, Bimal Roy’s Devdas, Raj Kapoor’s Shree 420, Sombhu Mitra’s Jagte Raho and Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anari.
In 1960, Palshikar appeared in Kanoon, a courtroom drama involving a murder case. Directed by B. R. Chopra, the film saw Palshikar playing Kaalia, a petty thief who is caught and charged with murder for no fault of his own. Palshikar’s performance earned him his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. In a retrospective review in 2009, The Hindu noted: “the star of the second half is Nana Palshikar, who slips into the role of a petty thief with a commanding performance.”
In 1963, Palshikar appeared in Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s Shehar Aur Sapna (The City and The Dreams). It is a social film which portrays the struggle of pavement dwellers in the backdrop of rapid industrialisation. The film, a love story that takes place in a drain pipe, received the President’s Gold Medal Award and the National Film Award for Best Feature Film. Palshikar’s performance as Johnny earned him his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor, and he was acknowledged as Best Supporting Actor (Hindi) by the Bengal Film Journalists’ Association.
John Berry’s Maya (1966) saw Palshikar playing Sajid Khan’s father. In 1969, James Ivory cast him in the foreign co-production The Guru. Ivory said: “I didn’t know a great deal about him when we cast him… He was said to be a very good actor, which I took on faith.” Judith Crist from the New York Magazine described his small part of “The Guru’s Guru” in the film as “an unforgettable cameo”.
In the 1970s, Palshikar continued to portray father figures or authoritative characters such as judges. For instance, he played a father in many films such as B. R. Chopra’s Dhund, based on Agatha Christie’s play The Unexpected Guest in 1973 and Yaaron Ka Yaar in 1977. However, these roles were generally relatively minor and he was often uncredited for his performances, such as his role as a judge in Jwar Bhata in 1972.
He continued playing a father into the 1980s, appearing in Aakrosh (1980), playing Om Puri’s dad. His last major film was in the epic film Gandhi in 1982, a Richard Attenborough directed biographical film based on the life of Mohandas Gandhi, who led the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century. However, his role was very minor, playing a villager. His last appearance was in the film Kanoon Kya Karega, again playing a parent.
Nana Palshikar acted in 126 films in all. Not many people know that he had written a song in the film Maali-1944. He died on 1 June 1984 in Bombay, aged 77. ( Thanks to Cinerang by Isak Mujawar for this post along with muVyz, wiki and my notes.)
Here is a song from this film, sung by Bhanumathi. You can see her typical south Indian pronunciations of Hindi words. Enjoy….
Song – Baadal tu aag gira de (Shamsheer)(1953) Singer – P Bhanumathi, Lyricist – Pt.Madhur, MD- Anupam Ghatak
Lyrics
Kuchh na kaahoon kuchh na sunoon
dil ye jaley pyaar mein
baadal tu aag gira de
o o
baadal tu aag gira de
dard hanse main bhee hansoo
gham bhee hanse pyaar mein
dard hanse main bhee hansoo
gham bhee hanse pyaar mein
paagal tu preet lutaa de
o o
baadal tu aag gira de
khoob main aabaad hoon
barbaad ban ke jee rahee ee ee
pyaas bhee kya pyaas hai
ke aansuon ko pee rahee ee
neend naheen chain naheen
honth(?) base pyaar mein
neend naheen chain naheen
honth(?) base pyaar mein
jeewan kee pyaas badhaa de
o o
baadal tu aag gira de
preet ke ye geet hanse
mast hoon main haar mein
zindagee ke phool ko kaantaa kiya bahaar ne
dhool ude khaakh pade man ke singaar mein
khushiyon ke naao duba de
o o
baadal tu aag gira de
manzil pe ho ke khadee
manzil ko chhod diyaa aa
sapna ye kisne mera
sapne mein tod diyaa aa
saaj naheen geet naheen
sur hai jhankaar mein
saaj naheen geet naheen
sur hai jhankaar mein
tootey taaron ko milaa de
o o
baadal tu aag gira de
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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