Khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoo
Posted on: December 31, 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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Today, December 31, 2025, is the 7th Remembrance Day of Writer-Actor Kader Khan who created a niche for himself in the midst of Hindi film’s first super star writer duo, Salim Javed. In fact, he went one step ahead of them as he was also a prolific character actor of various shades.
The life profile of Kader Khan ( 22/10/1937 – 31/12/2018) is an inspiring one. It is one more of ‘rags to riches’ stories of artists in Hindi film industries. He was born in Kabul but due to poverty, his family shifted to Mumbai and stayed in Kamathipura area in Mumbai. Soon, he lost his mother when he was an infant. His step mother ensured that Kader Khan completes his education. In the midst of extreme poverty, he completed his matriculation and joined Ismail Yusuf College in science stream. After passing Civil Engineering, he got a job as a lecturer in Saboo Siddik College of Engineering on a monthly salary of Rs.300/-. He worked as a lecturer for about seven years up to 1975.
Kader Khan started writing and acting in amateur plays staged in his college. The person who was responsible for creating interest in acting and writing plays was none other than Ashraf Khan, theater and the film actor of 1930s and 40s. He picked up when he saw as a boy of about 9 years sitting in a graveyard murmuring some dialogues. He took Kader Khan to his house and gave him the role of a young prince in his play ‘Wamiq Azra’. Kader Khan’s role was well appreciated by the audience and he received cash prizes from some of them. With this, he became interested in writing and acting in plays.
When Kadar Khan was in his first year in the college, an audition camp for the college drama was in progress. His audition was taken by Prabodh Joshi, one of the prolific writers of Gujarati plays (Four episodes of TV Serial, ‘Nukkad’,1986 was written by him) who selected him for the role of Fakir in the play, ‘Bahadur Shah Jafar’. When Kader Khan was reading the script for his part of the role, he found some inconsistency. He raised the issue with Prabodh Joshi who agreed with him and told him to make the necessary changes. Instead of making changes, Kader Khan rewrote the entire script. When Prabodh Joshi read the revised one, he was happy and said that there is nothing left of his contribution in the script. So, he accredited Kader Khan’s name as the writer. Thus, the play, ‘Taash Ke Paate’ happened to be his first officially written play which later was staged in professional circuits.
Kader Khan regards Prabodh Joshi as his mentor for creating his interest in writing. It was he who suggested to him that any writer has to have an eminent author as his muse. He suggested him to read some Russian writers like Maxim Gorky, Chekov and Stanislavski. When he read Gorky’s novel, ‘Mother’ he felt as if he is reading his own life story. Kader Khan won his first major drama competition conducted by ‘Jagruti’ in which his drama, ‘Local Train’ swept almost all the awards and he won a cash prize of Rs,1500/- for the play.
Kader Khan’s friends were pestering him to try his luck as a writer in Hindi films but he was interested only in theatres and the teaching profession than the films. It was only after Dilip Kumar and Narender Bedi watched his play, ‘Taash Ke Patte’, they called him to join the films. His first film as a writer was ‘Jawaani Deewaani’ (1972) directed by Narender Bedi for which he got a fee of Rs.1500/- the same as that he had won in the drama competition. In ‘Sagina’ (1974), he was taken as an actor in the role of Anupam Dutt. He wrote Rajesh Khanna’s ‘Roti’ which was directed by Manmohan Desai. Kader Khan had got a fee of Rs.21000/ one of his earlier films as writer. When he was asked for his fees for ‘Roti’ (1974), he repeated the same fee. but Manmohan Desai said he will be paid Rs.1,21,000/- because he is writing for Manmohan Desai’s film. Subsequently, it became his bench mark fee as a writer.
Kader Khan was associated as a writer in films with Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Jeetendra and Govinda among others. Among the directors, he was majorly associated with Manmohan Desai, Prakash Mehra, Narender Bedi, Rakesh Kumar and K Raghavendra Rao. As a writer (mostly as a dialogue writer) he worked in nearly 200 films and as an actor, he worked in more than 400 films.
In his final years, Kader Khan suffered from various ailments for which he had to shift to Canada with his family for medical treatment. He was later hospitalised in Canada where he breathed his last on December 31, 2018. He was posthumously awarded ‘Padma Shri’ in 2019. (Note: The life profile of Kader Khan is mainly based in his interviews with Vividh Bharti and with ‘Filmfare’ which appeared in January 2, 2019, issue).
In addition to writing and acting in films, Kader Khan produced the film, ‘Shama’ (1981) – the only film he produced, though officially his wife, Azra Khan was credited on film’s credit titles as producer. The film was directed by Naiem Basit. The cast included Girish Karnad, Shabana Azmi, Aruna Irani, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Kader Khan, Surendra Pal, Master Raju, Sudha Chopra, Satyen Kappu, Purnima, Dina Pathak, Yunus Parvez, Shriram Lagoo, Goga Kapoor, Jagdeep, Nilu Phule, Amjad Khan and Vinod Mehra. The last few actors listed have done the guest appearance in the film.
I was not aware of the availability of this film on a video sharing platform until Prakashchandra ji brought to my notice a few days back. It turns out the film was uploaded about two months back. I watched the film and felt that it has some relevance in pre-independent Bengali background. And my presumption was confirmed when I checked the credit titles in which the name of the story writer was mentioned as Jarasandha (real name: Charu Chandra Chakraborty who was a novelist and short story writer). I personally feel that Kader Khan has tweaked the original story to fit into a Muslim social drama.
The film’s story is about a financially well-off Muslim family led by a widower who faces the disobedience from his younger brother leading to the conflicts between traditions and control by the elder and the younger’s desire to have a personal freedom.
The story of the film is as under:
Nawab Yusuf Khan (Girish Karnad), a widower, stays with his college-going younger brother, Aslam (Surendra Pal) and his school-going son, Shahnawaz (Master Raju Shreshta). His estate is managed by Dinoo Munshi (Kader Khan). In the same village, there is another family of Maulvi Karimuddin (Satyen Kappu) who stays with his wife (Purnima), daughter, Shama (Shabana Azmi) and Prakash Ghosh (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) whom he has looked after from his childhood after his father was executed during the British rule and later the death of his mother. Prakash is a lawyer and a freedom fighter.
Aslam is studying in the college in a city for which Nawab Yusuf sends him money periodically. Munshi feels that Aslam’s requests for money has become too frequent but Nawab Yusuf ignores his advice by asking him to send the money as demanded. Later, Yusuf comes to know that Aslam has been spending money on a courtesan, Phiroza (Aruna Irani) whom he intends to marry. Yusuf calls back Aslam to the village and gets him married to Shama against his wish. On the wedding night, Aslam runs away from the village and gets married to Phiroza. Karimuddin is shocked and dies leaving his wife and Shama who is now looked after by Mehrunissa (Dina Pathak) who happens to be Yusuf’s aunt.
After some time, Aslam returns to the village with his wife, Phiroza, her mother, Nadira (Sudha Chopra) and the maternal uncle, Dilawar (Yunus Parvez) just to keep his claim on the house and other family property. Yusuf is not comfortable with Aslam’s arrival especially when his son Shahnawaz starts taking interest in learning courtesan’s dance. He leaves the house for few months after sending Shahnawaz in a boarding school. One day, Yusuf meets Mehrunissa who takes him to her house. She suggests him to get married to Shama, which he agrees. After marriage, Shama shifts to Yusuf house. She suggests Yusuf to bring back Shahnawaz home. Yusuf, Shama and Shahnawaz get along very well with each other to the displeasure of Aslam.
One day, Aslam orders Munshi to hand over all the documents and keys of the lockers to him which he refuses by revealing him that he has no right over the assets of Yusuf as he is his step brother. Aslam thinks of other option to get control over Yusuf’s wealth by quarrelling with him and insulting Shama. A fight ensues between the two in which Yusuf gets injured and dies while falling from the staircase.
Aslam files a case claiming the guardianship of Shahnawaz because after the death of Yusuf, he would inherit his wealth on his 18th year. Prakash, who is a lawyer, represents Shama and pleads for Shama to be the guardian of Shahnawaz, while lawyer (Nilu Phule) representing Aslam pleads for his client, Aslam to be the guardian since he is the uncle of Shahnawaz while Shama is his step mother. The court decides to give the judgement on its next hearing.
Soon Prakash meets Shama in her house to apprise her of the court’s proceedings. However, Aslam charges Shama having the elicit relation with Prakash just to create a point in the court against Shama. Prakash is furious and slaps Aslam after which he, his maternal uncle and maid servant pounce upon Prakash who gets injured and lies motionless. Aslam tries to molest Shama. Watching this, Shahnawaz takes out Yusuf’s revolver from the drawer and fires at Aslam killing him instantaneously. Shahnawaz is arrested. In the court, Shahnawaz accepts the killing and he is kept in a juvenile prison. The Jailor (Goga Kapoor) is kind to him. He allows him to join the prison’s school.
In the meanwhile, Shama meets the state Governor (Shriram Lagoo) and pleads for a merci on Shahnawaz giving the background before he was compelled to kill Aslam. Phiroza, who has been seeing the injustice to Shama, escapes from her house to give her statement to the court but she is shot by Dilawar. In her statement before she dies, Phiroza confirms to the police that her husband Aslam has tried to sexually assault Shama after which Shahnawaz killed him. Governor grants pardon to Shahnawaz and he is released from the prison. The family unites.
On the occasion of the 7th Remembrance Day of Kader Khan, I have picked one of the songs from his only film as a producer of ‘Shama’ (1981). The film had six songs written by Zafar Gorakhpuri (4), Asad Bhopali (1) and Vithalbhai Patel (1) which were set to music by Usha Khanna. One song has been covered on the Blog. I present the 2nd song, ‘khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mahakoon’ which rendered by Asha Bhosle on the words of Vithalbhai Patel. It is a mujra dance song picturised on Aruna Irani with Surendra Pal watching the dance.
Just before the mujra dance song sequence, Munshi (Kader Khan) points out to Nawab Yusuf (Girish Karnad) that the frequency of demand for money from his younger brother, Aslam (Surendra Pal) who is studying in a college in the city, has been frequent in the recent times. After this dialogue, the mujra dance song appears providing explanation as to why the demand for money has been frequent from Aslam.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon (Shama)(1981) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyricist-Vitthal Bhai Patel, MD-Usha Khanna
Lyrics (Based on Audio Clip):
khushboo ban
khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon
khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon
tohree chaukhat pe beete umariya aa
tohree chaukhat pe beete umariyaa
oonchee atariyaa reshmee chunariyaa
chaahoon na kuchh bhee saanwariya aa aa
khushboo ban
khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon
khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon
tu hai nageenaa
angoonthee mein jadaaoongee
phulwa tu mera hai
joode mein lagaaoongee
salma sitaara hai
maang mein sajaaoongee
tu hai nazaara mera
aankhon mein chhupaaoongee
chaahoon na tohse nathhaniya aa aa
khushboo ban
khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon
tohree chaukhat pe beete umariyaa
tohree chaukhat pe beete umariyaa
oonchee atariyaa reshmee chunariyaa
chaahoon na kuchh bhee saanwariya aa aa
khushboo ban
khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon
khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon
tere naam kee mehandee haathhon mein rachaaoongee
tujhko pyaar ke sej pe main sulaaoongee
tan mann se apne main tujhko rijhaaoongee
jaam-e-mohabbat main honthhon se pilaaoongee
tujhpe ye jannat lutaaoongee ee ee
khushboo ban
khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon
tohree chaukhat pe beete umariya aa
tohree chaukhat pe beete umariyaa
oonchee atariyaa reshmee chunariyaa
chaahoon na kuchh bhee saanwariya aa aa
khushboo ban
khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon
khushboo ban tohre aangan mein mehkoon
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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