Ro ro ke poochhtee hai
Posted on: January 7, 2026
- In: Background song | Chhaaya Ganguly Solo Songs | Chhaaya Ganguly Songs | Guest posts | Melancholic song | Movie not mentioned in HFGK | Pathos | Post by Sadanand Kamath | Song not figuring in HFGK | Song unlisted in HFGK | Songs of 1970s (1971 to 1980) | Songs of 1978 | Yearwise breakup of songs
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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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6382 | Post No. : | 19792 |
‘Gaman’ (1978) was produced and directed by Muzaffar Ali who also wrote the story. The cast included Smita Patil, Farooq Shaikh, Jalal Agha, Geeta Sidharth, Sulabha Deshpande, Arvind Deshpande, Nitin Sethi, Arun Joglekar, Nana Patekar, Amir Bano, Hiradevi Mishra, Satish Shah, Protima Bedi etc. It was a debut film for Muzaffar Ali as producer-director. Others who made debut in this film were Nana Patekar, Shahryar as lyricist, Chhaya Ganguly and Hariharan as playback singers. The film was certified by the Censor Board on October 24, 1978, and was released by the Film Finance Corporation (now NDFC) at Eros and other theatres in Mumbai on March 16, 1979.
Muzaffar Ali belongs to the royal family of the Principality of Kotwara in Lakhimpur-Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh where he presently stays. Muzaffar Ali, in an article published in ‘The Mirror’ dated May 17, 2020, stated that the inspiration for making this film came to him while he was working for Air India in their Publicity Department in 1971. His office was on the 18th floor of Air India Building at Nariman Point, from where he could see scores of black and yellow taxies constantly moving on the road. Most of the taxi drivers were migrant from the Hindi heartland. Year on year, the influx of migrants continued, changing the landscape of the city. The migrants who came to Mumbai with a hope of earning enough money not only to maintain themselves in Mumbai but also to remit money to their families in the villages. Most of the migrant workers got stuck in Mumbai because they could not earn enough money to save and return to their native places. This, in essence, became the theme of the film.
The main theme of ‘Gaman’ (1978) has been summed up in two ghazals in the film:
1. seene main jalan aankhon mein toofaan saa kyun hai
2. aap ki yaad aati rahee raat bhar
The first ghazal reflects Farooque Shaikh’s poignant tale of loneliness in Mumbai as a migrant where he finds everyone in the city faces some or the other problems. He has experienced the harsh realities of the urban migration in the city of dream where there is contradictions in everything. After some time, even a migrant will forget about his own identity as there has been perceptible change in his own attitude. The second ghazal reflects the impact of the migration on the family left in the village – especially his wife, Smita Patil who also spends her life in loneliness and despair of a different kind especially after the death of her mother-in-law. Every day, there is a flicker of hope for her that her husband will return which is metaphorical presented by the flicker of light of the lamp in her hut below which there is the darkness.
The gist of the film’s story is as under:
Ghulam Hasan (Farooq Shaikh) stays with his wife, Khairunnisa (Smita Patil) and his old and sickly widowed mother (Amir Bano) in Kotwara village in Uttar Pradesh. Due to poverty and the lack of opportunities to get the gainful employment, he migrates to Mumbai leaving his wife and his old sickly mother hoping to find work and earn income to remit to take care of his family in the village. He meets his village friend Lallu Tiwari (Jalal Agha) in Mumbai at whose instance he has migrated to Mumbai. Lallu has migrated to Mumbai long back and works as a taxi driver. He gets Ghulam trained as a taxi driver and offer a space to sleep in his dingy hutment.
Lallu is in love with Yashodhara ( Geeta Siddharth) and they struggle to find a place to meet and even a make-shift house to get married. Yashodhara is being forced by his ruffian brother Shiva (Nana Patekar) to work in Dubai to earn money for the family instead of marrying poor Lallu. But Yashodhara is adamant not to work in Dubai. Finally, Lallu is eliminated by Shiva and his gang to keep him out of Yashodhara’s life.
With the death of his friend in a taxi accident and the murder of his mentor, Lallu, the loneliness in the midst of the crowded city and a separation from his wife break his patience and Ghulam finally decides to leave the city forever. At the station, he stands while other passengers around him are on the move as the train arrives. Suddenly, Ghulam realises that if he travels to his village, most of his savings will be gone. The trains come and halts. Ghulam stands frozen without moving towards the train to board. The train departs (gaman).
The film ends with Ghulam looking at the departed train through the collapsible door (symbolising his ‘imprisonment’ in Mumbai as a migrant) with the background of the song ‘ras ke bhare tore nain saawariyaa’ while Khairun is destined for an indefinite wait for Ghulam to return.
The dialogues in the film is mainly written in Awadhi for the main characters while local characters in Mumbai are given the dialogues in Bambaiyya Hindi. There are interesting dialogues like when Lallu points out to Ghulam, the VT station from outside where he had alighted from the train, he is awed by its grandeur. Lallu sarcastically tells him that in Mumbai, everything looks grand from outside but inside, it is topsy turvy. Once travelling in the local train, the train stops for a considerable time at one place due to some accident in which one person is mowed down by the train and gets killed. Ghulam is shocked by the reactions of the fellow passengers as one passenger says – ‘anyway the man has died, what is the purpose of stopping the train and delay the other passengers in reaching to their offices’. Ghulam gets many types of shocks, for which Lallu says that he would get used to these after some months in the city.
There is an interesting trivia which Muzaffar Ali shared on his Instagram post on May 13, 2024. While they were shooting in Kotwara village which is incidentally a part of his erstwhile Principality of Kotwara (he still has his royal palace in this village), Smita Patil asked him as to why he did not do something to help the villagers (some of them are craftsmen). He was dumbstruck as he had no answer. But her question haunted him. It was in 1990 when he met Meera (later, his wife), they decided to shift from Lucknow to Kotwara. They started ‘House of Kotwara’, a fashion house with the sole purpose of reviving the traditional craft of Kotwara and other villages in Awadh region like ancient embroidery techniques of Chikankari, Aari and Zardozi. His venture has been providing rural employment to women in Awadh region at their door step (Dwaar Pe Rozi) for those who are unable to leave their houses for jobs.
The film had six songs composed by Jaidev, but only five songs were released on EP gramophone record in 1978 which have been represented on the Blog. I present the remaining song, ‘ro ro ke poochhtee hai bano shah-e-zaman se’ which was not released on gramophone record. The song is rendered by Chhaya Ganguly like chants without music. The song gets played in the background on the of the 7th day of Muharram as Smita Patil is seen, probably dyeing a fabric in the village while her husband, Farooque Shaikh is driving a taxi in Mumbai. She is expecting him to visit to the village for Muharram. Amir Bano is also seen in a sombre mood.
The song under discussion is not an usual filmy song but a Noha (a lamentation song) rendered like a chant without any music. This Noha was written by Urdu poet, Syed Alam Wasti sometime in 1950 in 20 verses (lines) of which only 6 verses are used in the film. The Noha is written as a narrative poem generally rendered during the Islamic month of Muharram as a lament for the tragedy of Imam Hussain in the battle field (rann) of Karbala. In the film, the chant of Noha in the background is symbolic of a wife’s despair and longing for her husband to return. Chhaya Ganguly has rendered the Noha in a passionate manner creating a poignant atmosphere for the listener.
With this, all the songs from ‘Gaman’ (1978) have been covered on the Blog.
Video Clip:
Song-Ro ro ke poochhtee hai(Gaman)(1978) Singer-Chhaaya Ganguly, Lyricist-Syed Alam Wasti
Lyrics:
hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm hmm
ro ro ke poochhtee hai
bano shah-e-zaman se
ro ro ke poochhtee hai
bano shah-e-zaman se
kadiyal jawaan kee mayyat
kis tarah laaye rann se
ro ro ke poochhtee hai
Kaasim chale jo rann ko
Kubraa tadap ke bolee
Kaasim chale jo rann ko
Kubraa tadap ke bolee
kis tarah sabr hogaa
kis…….
kis tarah sabr hogaa
ik raat kee dulhan se
ro ro ke poochhtee hai
jhoola jo khaalee dekhaa aa aa
ro kar Saqeena bolee
jhoola jo khaalee dekhaa
ro kar Saqeena bolee
amma hamaare Asghar
ab tak na aaye rann se
ro ro ke poochhtee hai
hmm hmm hmm
hmm hmm hmm
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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