Meree hundee sakaaro maharaj re
Posted by: Atul on: January 7, 2026
- In: Bhajan | Devotional song | Guest posts | Invoking divine powers | Krishn Bhajan | Lord Krishna related songs | Manna Dey solo | Manna Dey songs | Post by Arunkumar Deshmukh | Remonstrating with the Almighty | Seeking divine intervention | Songs of 1950s (1951 to 1960) | Songs of 1957 | Yearwise breakup of songs
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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 a Bhajan from the Religious film (Bhakti Pradhan)- Narsi Mehta-1957.
This film was made by Producer/Director Devendra Goyal for his banner Goyal Cine Corporation, Bombay. The music was by Ravi aka Ravishankar Sharma, who had debuted as an independent Music Director, with the film Vachan in 1955. In a very short time, he had earned a good name. There were popular bhajans like, Darshan do Ghanshyam, Jay Govinda Gopala, Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye, Sab ki naiya paar lagaiya’ Ramdhun lagi etc. On the whole this film was full of religious fervour, good music and a show of histrionic talents by experienced artists. The cast included Shyama, Shahu Modak, Lalita Pawar, Radha Kishen, Madan Puri, protima Devi and many others. There were 4 Guest artists, including S.N.Tripathi.
India had been under the Mughal and the British rules for hundreds of years. A Nation of Hindu majority was ruled by the Minority Mughals, who perpetrated a lot of injustice and tried to destroy the Indian Culture with barbaric brutalities. This gave rise to the Bhakti movement to awaken the Indians and make them self conscious about their own strengths.
The Bhakti Movement was India’s own way to combat foreign attackers, cruel rulers and the sleeping people of India. The movement from 1300 to 1600 AD produced many religious Saints and social reformers from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and from Assam to Gujarat. Indian culture is such that the advice given by a religious saint is more acceptable than that given by a social reformer. Thus, in this hour of need, India’s Saints tried to teach message of reforms such as removal of Untouchability, freedom from Varnashram lifestyles, importance of education, Women’s emancipation and other such matters,through their poems, dohas, Abhangs and writings as well as kirtans. They tried to make the masses wake up against the ill effects of social practices that were being observed those days.
Saints appeared in ALL areas of India,during this period. However,due to language problems, knowledge and information about Saints in other regions trickled down very slowly. States which shared the use of Devanagari script were aware about them in a better way. Thus, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and the Northern Hindi belt states exchanged their knowledge about their saints more frequently than other regions such as Bengal, the Eastern states or the southern states where the scripts were different. Andhra and Karnataka were closer as their scripts are similar, except perhaps the alphabet ‘K’. Tamil and Malayalam scripts have Dravidian origins and were not easily accessible for the rest of India.
GUJARAT- the name itself evokes thoughts of Trade and Business. Due to their Business talents, Gujarat was known to Romans, Greeks and Persians, since the pre Christ era. Gujarat Maritime merchant history dates back to the First century after Christ.
Gujarat had produced many worthy souls who made the country proud of them. The top being Mahatma Gandhi ji. Then there were Sardar Patel, Vikram Sarabhai(Space Ace), Morarji Desai, the Ambanis, Azim Prem ji, Parsis of Navsari etc etc. In the religious field, Gujarat had its share with Jalaram Bappa, Narsi Bhagat, Dadu Dayal, Dayanand Saraswati, Rang Avdhoot ji, Rameshbhai oza, Hemchandra Surishwar, Pramukh Swami etc etc. (these are only indicative examples,not exhaustive).
Saint Narsi Mehta or simply Narsi Bhagat( 1414 to 1481) was one of the milestones of the Bhakti Movement ( 15th to 17th Century). The first ever Talkie film in Gujarati was on Narsi Bhagat. ” Narsi Mehto”-32 was made by Chimanlal Desai in his famous production company Sagar Movietone. The well known author Biren Kothari ji has described the making of this film in minute details in his epic book,” Sagar Movietone”.
Sagar selected the Marathi stage and film actor Marutirao Pehalwan for the role of Narsi Mehta and Umakant Desai debuted with his role as Lord krishna. Marutirao Pehalwan married actress Tara, sister of Sitara Devi. After retirement they settled in Dhule,Maharashtra, where he started a Dairy Business. World famous dancer Gopi Krishna was their son. Nanubhai Vakil had directed the film. The second film ” Narsi Bhagat”-40 was made by Prakash pictures of Bhatt brothers. Vijay Bhatt directed it and Vishnupant Pagnis (Sant Tukaram fame) had done the main role. The songs became very popular. The 1957 version was the 3rd film and the 4th film came out in 1985, in which Sudhir Dalvi (Sai Baba fame) had done the lead role.
Narsinh Mehta was born in Vaishnava Nagar community at Talaja and later shifted to Junagadh (then Jirndurg) in Saurashtra, Gujarat. He lost his parents when he was 5 years old. He could not speak until the age of 8. He was raised by his grandmother Jai Gauri.
He married Manekbai probably in the year 1429. Mehta and his wife stayed at his brother Bansidhar’s place in Junagadh. However, his cousin’s wife (Sister-in-law or bhabhi) did not welcome Narsinh very well. She was an ill-tempered woman, always taunting and insulting Narsinh Mehta for his worship (Bhakti). One day, when Narasinh Mehta had enough of these taunts and insults, he left the house and went to a nearby forest in search of some peace, where he fasted and meditated for seven days by a secluded Shiva lingam until Shiva appeared before him in person. On the poet’s request, the Lord took him to Vrindavan and showed him the eternal raas leela of Krishna and the gopis. A legend has it that the poet transfixed by the spectacle burnt his hand with the torch he was holding but he was so engrossed in the ecstatic vision that he was oblivious of the pain. Mehta, as the popular account goes, at Krishna’s command decided to sing His praises and the nectarous experience of the rasa in this mortal world. He resolved to compose around 22,000 kirtans or compositions.
After this dream-like experience, transformed Mehta returned to his village, touched his bhabhi’s feet, and thanked her for insulting him. In Junagadh, Mehta lived in poverty with his wife and two children, a son named Shamaldas, and a daughter for whom he had special affection, Kunwarbai. He revelled in devotion to his hearts’ content along with sadhus, saints, and all those people who were Hari’s subjects – Harijans – irrespective of their caste, class or sex. It also seems that he must have fallen into a somewhat ill repute for his close relations with Lord’s sakhis and gopis, Narsinh mehta’s women followers, with whom he danced and sang. The Nagars of Junagadh despised him and spared no opportunity to scorn and insult him. By this time, Mehta had already sung about the rasaleela of Radha and Krishna. The compositions are collected under the category of shringar compositions. They are full of intense lyricism, bold in their erotic conception and are not without allegorical dimensions, this saves the compositions from being something of erotic court poetry of medieval India.
Soon after his daughter Kunwarbai’s marriage (around 1447) to Shrirang Mehta of Una’s son, Kunwarbai became pregnant and it was a custom for the girl’s parents to give gifts and presents to all the in-laws during the seventh month of pregnancy. This custom, known as Mameru, was simply out of the reach of poor Narsinh who had hardly anything except intransigent faith in his Lord. How Krishna helped his beloved devotee is a legend depicted in ‘Mameru Na Pada’. This episode is preserved vividly in the memory of Gujarati people by compositions by later poets and films. Other famous legends include ‘Hundi (Bond)’ episode and ‘Har Mala (Garland)’ episode. The episode in which none other than Shamalsha Seth cleared a bond written by poverty stricken beloved, is famous not only in Gujarat but in other parts of India as well. The Har Mala episode deals with the challenge given to Mehta by Ra Mandlik (1451–1472) a Chudasama king, to prove his innocence in the charges of immoral behavior by making the Lord Himself garland Narsinh. Mehta depicts this episode. How Sri Krishna, in the guise of a wealthy merchant, helped Mehta in getting his son married is sung by the poet in ‘Putra Vivah Na Pada’. He went to Mangrol where, at the age of 79, he is believed to have died. The crematorium at Mangrol is called ‘Narsinh Nu Samshan’ where perhaps one of the greatest sons of Gujarat was cremated. He will be forever remembered for his poetic works and devotion to Lord Krishna. He is known as the first poet of Gujarati.
The story of the film was….
Narsinh Mehta was a poor mute boy, born in a Brahmin family of Junagadh district(Gujarat) in 1414 AD. From childhood, he had leanings towards sadhus and attending Keertans. When he was 8 years old,a Sadhu gave him blessings and he could speak. In order to curb his Bhakti activities, the family got him married to Manik Mehti. He even got a son and a daughter, but his love for God did not diminish.
His Bhabhi one day insulted and taunted him so much that a sad Narsi left the house and went to the Jungle. There he fasted and meditated for 7 days continuously. Finally Lord Vishnu appeared and took him to Vrindavan to see Krishna’s Rasleela. After this experience he returned to the home and thanked his Bhabhi for insulting and prompting him to go to the Jungle.
He became immersed in Krishna Bhakti and recited poems and did kirtans. Sarangdhar, Bhabhi’s brother tried very hard to trouble him and also to get him arrested by Junagadh’s king. In all these ordeals, God came to his help and even the King submitted to him becoming his devotee. The film has shown several of his miracles and also has several bhajans. All in all this film was very interesting to those who like religious films with miracles and bhajans.
The role of Narsi Mehta was done by Shahu Modak. Shahu Modak was a regular actor in many Religious films. He did Krishna’s role in over 30 films. He was born in a Christian family of Ahmednagar(Maha.),on 25-4-1918. He was trained in music by his Uncle Nivritinath Modak . He also got trained by ustad Abdul kareem khan. There was a Gym in his house and he became an expert in wrestling too. He was discovered by Bhalji pendharkar and producer Nanasaheb Sarpotdar gave him his first break in films.He made his debut with a bilingual film from Prabhat-‘Shyamsundar’-32,as a child artist. Shanta Apte also was a child artist debuting in this film.He also sang a song in this film.
In the next year itself he did a Hero’s role in another bilingual-“Awara shahzada”-33 ( out ghatkecha Raja in Marathi). With this film,he entered the Film History books for doing the First double role in a Talkie film ever. He was a Prince-Rajkumar and a Pauper-Bholaram in this film. The director of this film was Master Vithal,who himself was the First Hero to do a Double role in a silent film ‘ Prisoner of Love”,in 1927.
Shahu became famous when he did the Havaldar Ganapat’s role in the landmark movie of Prabhat films-Aadmi-39 (Maanus in Marathi). From 1932 to 1986 he acted in about 110 films His last film too was a mythological-Krishnaleela-86,in which he did Krishna’s role last time at the age of 68 years.he featured in many films of prakash films,which was a Mythological film specialist studio. Shahu Modak initially sang his own songs.he must have sung about 30 songs. from the film Bhakta Pooran-52,he started taking playback.But in 1971 he sang a song in the film ‘ Main sunder hoon “.
Shahu Modak died on 11-5-1993. There are 2 interesting things about Shahu Modak. One, he was a very accurate Astrologer. he had ,it is said, hepredicted his own date of death. Secondly,like Manhar Desai (Malcolm Alfredo Desai), he too was a Christian and both did Hindu Gods’ roles in Mythological films.
Here is a famous song from this film, sung by Manna Dey. Enjoy….
Song- Meree Hundee sakaaro maharaj re (Narsi Bhagat)(1957) Singer- Manna Dey, Lyricist- G.S.Nepali, MD- Ravi
Lyrics
ye pooja ke phool
jhaanjh khadtaal
aur iktaara
poonjee yehee meree
phir kaise
rin se hot chukaara(?)
meree hundee sakaaro maharaj re
saanwro giridhaaree
meree hundee sakaaro maharaj re
saanwro giridhaaree
tera Narsi pukaare hai aaj re
saanwro giridhaari
saanwro giridhaari
nat naagro giridhaari
meree hundee sakaaro maharaj re
saanwro giridhaaree
teree bhakti kee lagee dhun baalaapan mein
jeevan guzaar diya maine bhajan mein
bhakton pe jab jab bhee bheed padee saanwre
tumne hee taare hain kaaj re
saanwro giridhaaree
meree hundee sakaaro maharaj re
saanwro giridhaaree
hey Deenanath Prabhu
main tera daas hoon
daulat se door tere charnon ke paas hoon
mujhpe jo ?? kaalikh lagee to
tujh pe hansega samaaj re
saanwro giridhaaree
aaye thhe paas mere vyaapaaree bhai
tujh ko hee saunp gaye saaree kamaai
tere bharose maine o bansee waale
mandir mein tere wo poonjee lagaai
toone jo na meree hundee chukaai
jaayegee teree hee laaj re
saanwro giridhaaree
saanwro giridhaaree
nat naagro giridhaaree
meree hundee sakaaro maharaj re
saanwro giridhaaree
meree hundee sakaaro maharaj re ae
meree hundee sakaaro maharaj re
saanwro
saanwro
saanwro
giridhaaree
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