O jeenewaale hanste hanste jeena
Posted by: Atul on: November 21, 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 the film Punarmilan-1940. The film was made by Bombay Talkies. It was directed by Najam Naqvi. The Music Director was Ramchandra Pal, who tuned the lyrics from 4 lyricists. The cast included Snehprabha Pradhan, Kishore Sahu, Shah Nawaz, Anjali devi, Mumtaz Ali, Pithawala, Sunalunu Devi and many others.
Film making had started in India in the early 1900s and many enthusiastic lovers of making images were doing a lot of work in this field. By the time the First Talkie Film came in 1931, there were quite a few film producing centres engaged in making silent films, like Bombay, Calcutta, Lahore, Poona, Kolhapur, Bangalore, Madras, Hyderabad etc. However, Bombay, Lahore and Calcutta were the three main centres where the bulk of movies were made. In those days, India was vertically divided into two parts-Calcutta on the Eastern part and Lahore and Bombay on the Western part for Hindi films. Madras, Bangalore and Hyderabad were busy in making southern language films.
Film making at Lahore was a losing proposition for two reasons. One- geographically, its finished product i.e. Films had no market in its West or north side. They had to look at the entire Indian subcontinent as their market and Secondly- Once the actors, Directors or the composers got an experience in Lahore, they would run to Bombay for bigger opportunities and poor Lahore would end up only as a stepping stone or at best a Training and launching pad for artistes ! Pancholi’s Khazanchi-41 was perhaps the First film from Lahore that turned out to be a profitable proposition for its makers.
By the mid 40s, it was well known that the Partition would take place and so artistes were not interested to remain in Lahore and preferred Bombay which was prospering as a wholesale Production Centre.
Calcutta had some disadvantages compared to Bombay, on 3 grounds. 1) Geographical- Their Hindi film market was only on its Western side, competing with 2 other centres. 2) Social- The Regional Pride was very prominent(even today,it is) and hence, except films, everywhere, knowing Bangla was a MUST. In Bombay, one could (and still can) live for 50 years and not speak Marathi, but it was impossible in Calcutta or Madras. Further, the regional cinema in Bengal fiercely competed with Hindi films here, sharing the only production centre in Eastern India. The result was, Hindi film production slowly diminished as Artistes made a beeline for Bombay. Not only the Punjabi or the North Indian artistes, but even Bangla Directors (Nabendu Ghosh, Bimal Roy, Satyen Bose, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Chatterjee etc), Music Directors and Singers( Pankaj Mullick, Pahadi Sanyal, K C Dey, S D Burman, Salil Chaudhari, Anil Biswas, Hemant Kumar, even R C Boral) and few actors(Abhi Bhattacharya, Mala Sinha, Talat Mehmood, Pradeep Kumar etc) shifted base to Bombay.
Bombay welcomed one and all from entire India, grew bigger and became the only Hindi cinema production Centre in India. It had markets in East, West,North and South. The number of Indian migrants to other countries was growing and it created an Overseas market for Hindi films as well. Regional pride did not interfere, as it had other centres too in Kolhapur and Poona. Local Language was similar to Hindi/spoken Urdu, the social and commercial aspects were friendly and the cosmopolitan culture was favourable for movie making.
It comes as no surprise that local artistes were in majority in the Bombay film world in its early days. Heros like master Vithal, Bhagwan, Nandrekar in the early era, Heroines like, Shanta Apte, Shanta Hublikar,Vanmala, Hansa Wadkar, Ratnaprabha, Snehprabha Pradhan, Nalini Tarkhad, Nalini Jaywant, Durga Khote, Leela Chitnis, Lalita Pawar (Amboo) etc in the 40s, and Nutan, Usha Kiran later on and composers like C.Ramchandra, Sudhir Phadke, Snehal Bhatkar, N.Datta, K.Datta, Datta Davjekar etc were among the long list of local artists who made it big in Bombay film world.
Out of these early Heroines, 3 Heroines- Shanta Apte (1916-1964), Snehprabha Pradhan (1920-19930 and Hansa Wadkar (Ratan Salgaonkar in real life,1924-1971) had few things in common.
They operated in films during almost the same time period.
They were educated and hailed from upper castes.
They all were rebellious in nature.
They all had failed marriages.
They all worked in Marathi stage dramas and
They all wrote Autobiographies in Marathi ( Shanta Apte- Jau mee Cinemaat ? means- shall I join films ? ), (Snehprabha Pradhan-Snehankita) and ( Hansa Wadkar- Sangte Ayka
means- Listen to me. A Hindi film Bhoomika-with Smita patil- was made on this book).
The year 1940 was the end of the first decade of Talkie films. From 1931 to 1939 most of the film music was made and sung by people who were experts in Classical Music. Classical music has never been the area of common people. It was born in Temples and nurtured in the Darbars of Kings and Nawabs. When film music relied heavily on classical mode, it became an imposition on the masses. Luckily, from the last 2 years of the 30’s, film music started changing and the emphasis shifted to traditional and Folk tunes over the classical.
1940 saw the emergence of Naushad with his first film ‘ Prem Nagar”, as an independent MD. He is the one who advocated the combination of classical with Folk music and this was accepted by other MDs. More people now turned to film songs.MDs like Naushad, Anil Biswas, C Ramchandra, Saraswati Devi, Gyan Dutt, Pankaj Mullick and their followers in the later part of the 40’s changed film music upside down.
National Studios emerged from the merger of Sagar Movietone and Mehboob gave his blockbuster milestone film ” Aurat”. Himanshu Rai died untimely and the reigns of Bombay Talkies came into the hands of Devika Rani. Ranjit brought more popular films from its factory. Though there were signs of slow death, New Theaters still continued with musical films. Prabhat brought its third successive Saint film ‘ Sant Gyaneshwar”. Wadias looked after their Stunt films with fearless Nadia and John Cavas.
In the south, S S Vasan started his Gemini Studios. Master Vinayak and P K Atre started Navyug Films. In August 1940, there was a big fire in New Theatres leading to heavy losses. The use of Harmonium was banned on A.I.R. Due to War Times, Raw Film controls were given to the Film Advisory Board. It also gave rise to Black Marketing of Raw film, in addition to already existing Rationing, and a new class of rich investors emerged in the film industry shaking its established Studio Systems and Culture.
The year 1940 made only 86 Hindi films, less than 100 for the consecutive third year in a row. Let us take a look at some important films of 1940.
New Theatres film Aandhi had good music and songs.
Bombay Talkies continued with Ashok Kumar and Leela Chitnis with the film Azaad, but it was not as popular as Jhoola, Kangan and Bandhan.
A dubbed foreign film -“Azadi E Watan” was the only Hindi film for which Malika Pukhraj had sung 2 songs.
Ranjit’s Achhut tackled a social evil, with good songs composed by Gyan Dutt.
A Stunt film of Shankar Vazare ” Aflatoon Aurat” had an English song in it.
Sagar’s last film ” Alibaba” by Mehboob was released. “Aurat” , a Landmark film by Mehboob for National Studios was the origin of its remake ” Mother India’57’.
Film ‘ Bharosa’ by minerva was based on an Incest story.
Sirco’s offering ‘ Geeta’ had a crime story, with double roles of Chandramohan and Durga Khote.
Prakash Pictures film ‘Narsi Mehta’ had Sant Tukaram fame Vishnupant Pagnis and some good bhajans.
Film Usha Haran saw the Debut of Sitara Devi.
Film Zindagi from New Theatres had very good songs by Saigal.
The story of the film was…
PUNARMILAN-1940 opens with a party hosted for celebrating the graduation of Kumar(Kishore Sahu), son of Gopinath,a rich Landlord.Jayanti(Sunalini Devi), his daughter is also present.After the party,in the night,Kumar finds Gangaram,the close friend of Gopinath, murdered and Gopinath standing with a Pistol.Kumar takes the Pistol and runs away to take the murder’s blame on him.Gopinath gets a paralytic attack and can not communicate. Police chase kumar in vain.
Kumar runs to another town,where he faints near the house of Koyal(Snehprabha Pradhan) a street dancer/singer.She takes him,nurses him and in due course falls in love with him,as per the scriptwriter’s wishes.
Meanwhile, Jayanti brings her father to the same town for treatment.A suave but crook businessman Mnohar(Pithawala) befriends her. To please her,he fixes the programme of Koyal in a theatre, where Jayanti meets her brother,Kumar. Maqnohar sees this and starts blackmailing Jayanti for marriage.She is taken to a Resthouse. Koyal and Kumar reach there and rescue Jayanti but Kumar is arrested.Meanwhile, Gopinath responds to the treatment and gives a statement to police that he killed Gangaram,as he was trying to rape Jayanti.
Kumar is released and there is Punarmilan of Kumar and Koyal.
Director Najam Naqvi was a case of ” Same Name Confusion”. When Devika Rani eloped with her Hero Najmul Hasan to Calcutta, the matter was not only the talk of the town, but the whole episode of elopement had become a matter of embarrassment for the continuity man working in the same studio. His name was Najmul Hasan. Because of the same name, this innocent chap -who had nothing to do with the elopement drama, had to suffer staring eyes and hush hush whisperings within the studio and the film circle of Calcutta !
He was Najmul Hasan Naqvi, born on 11-4-1913 at Moradabad-UP. He was working in Bombay Talkies doing odd jobs-continuity man and even as an actor in Achhut kanya-36.. He was a very hardworking person. After this episode of elopement, he changed his name to a shorter edition- Najam Naqvi.
He worked in the Direction department and his first film as an independent Director was PUNARMILAN-1940. He went on directing films like Raja Rani-42, Tasveer-43, Naya Tarana-43, Panna-44, Prithwiraj Sanyogita-46, Nateeja-47, Parayee Aag-48, Actress-48, Nirdosh-50, Rangili-52 and last film- Samrat-54.
In 1955, Najam Naqvi migrated to Pakistan and directed 7 films from Kunwari Bewa-56, Naghma e dil-59, Dil e nadaan-60, Qaidi-62, Ek manzil do rahein-62, Ek tera sahara-63 and lastly Payal Ki Jhankaar-66. Najam Naqvi died on 26-1-82 at Lahore. Due to the same name, many sites including IMDB mix up the filmography of these two artists.
Here is a song from this film, sung by Arun Kumar Mukherjee, Music Director and a singer, who was yet to bloom in the Hindi film industry. Enjoy….
Song- O jeenewale hanste hanste jeena (Punarmilan)(1940) Singer- Arun Kumar Mukherjee, Lyricist-Pt. Indra, MD- Ramchandra Pal
Lyrics
O jeenewaale ae ae
hanste hanste jeena
O jeenewaale ae ae
hanste hanste jeena
O jeenewaale ae
aansoo tere chhalak na aaye
chhalak chhalak kar dhhalak na jaaye
aansoo tere chhalak na aaye
chhalak chhalak kar dhhalak na jaaye
aankhon mein hee peena aa
aankhon mein hee peena aa
hanste hanste jeena
O jeenewaale ae ae
hanste hanste jeena
O jeenewaale ae
sooraj kabhee na doobe tera
jab tu jaage tabhee sawera
sooraj kabhee na doobe tera
jab tu jaage tabhee sawera
tera badley rang kabhee naa
tera badley rang kabhee naa
hanste hanste jeena
O jeenewaale ae ae
hanste hanste jeena
O jeenewaale ae
bijlee tujhko raah bataaye
baadal ye sandesh sunaaye
bijlee tujhko raah bataaye
baadal ye sandesh sunaaye
sukh ke sur mein baja baawre
sukh ke sur mein baja baawre
apnee jeevan veena aa aa
apnee jeevan veena aa aa
hanste hanste jeena
O jeenewaale ae ae
hanste hanste jeena
O jeenewaale ae
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