Ek daal pe do phool khiley
Posted on: February 26, 2026
This article is written by Peevesie’s mom, 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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Hullo Atuldom
“Suhaag” (1979) was a film produced by Rajinder Kumar Sharma, Ramesh Sharma, Shakti Subhash Sharma, Prakash Trehan and directed by Manmohan Desai. The story writer was Prayag Raj, K.K. Shukla was the screenplay writer & the dialogues carried the trademark of Kadar Khan – every dialogue in the film matched the mood that Manji (as Manmohan Desai was fondly addressed by his friends & admirers) envisioned for his films. Laxmikant-Pyarelal were the music directors for songs that were written by Anand Bakshi. Shailendra Singh, Mohd Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Anwar were the playback singers used for the songs. The song ‘main toh beghar hoon’ had Shashi Kapoor mouth a few words, hence he is also credited in the list of playback singers.
“Suhaag” made it’s debut on the blog in 2012 with the song ‘ae yaar sun yaari teri’ when I was a fledgling writer on the blog; it is still two songs away from YYIIPPEEEEhood. The following five songs are present on the blog.
| Song | Date of post |
|---|---|
| Ae yaar sun yaaree teree | 16 November 2012 |
| Main to beghar hoon apne ghar le chalo | 20 January 2014 |
| Athhrah baras kee tu hone ko aayee | 16 July 2014 |
| Hey kaal ke panje se maata bachaao | 10 October 2016 |
| Teree rab ne banaa dee jodee | 11 October 2018 |
As I sat to write this post I read a few interesting things on a site on internet. Jennifer Kapoor & Ramola Bachchan have been listed as costume designers and Sunil Sikand (actor Pran’s son) was a second unit director in the film. (I felt these to be interesting sub-notes, hope the readers also feel so).
The film was a straight-forward Manmohan Desai film- that means there is Durga (Nirupa Roy) who is conned into marriage by a wiley rich man Vikram (Amjad Khan) who then abandons her. She seeks him out, in the company of her father (Brahm Bharadwaj) but is humiliated and turned away. He even refuses to acknowledge the infants (twins, who later grow up to be the heroes and are not identical) in the lady’s arms. The lady faces further problems as her father passes away leaving her to fend for herself. Instantly, she falls into the trap of Jaggi (Kadar Khan) who promises her a job but is waylaid into a brothel. Jaggi grabs one of the children and threatens to kill it if she doesn’t entertain some guest (Jagdish Raj) who turns out to be a cop in plain clothes. On discovering the cop, Jaggi escapes with the baby he was holding, runs into Pascal (Jeevan) and hands over the baby to him. In the meantime, the cop rescues Durga who consoles herself that she has atleast one of her sons (Kishan) with her. Kishan (Shashi Kapoor) grows up to be a cop. The other child (Amitabh Bachchan as Amit) is reared to be a petty criminal. The paths of Amit & Kishan cross a few times before a friendship develops and Amit keeps getting to meet Durga without knowing her true identity.
Since there are two heroes we need two heroines. Amit is besotted by Basanti (Rekha) who is a (noble hearted) tawaaif & Kishan encounters Anu (Parveen Babi) when he goes to raid a disco owned by Jaggi & his son Gopal (Ranjeet). As if all the twists in the tale were not sufficient to keep the audiences glued to their seats, Manji adds one more angle to the story. Basanti & Anu are sisters and Anu is unaware of the struggles that Basanti is enduring so that Anu can complete her education. Basanti & Gopal’s paths cross when he tries to rape her and she hits him. She thinks that she has killed him and hence escapes from her village and promptly lands in a kotha in the town.
The film comes to a close when Anu discovers Basanti in the city; Basanti discovers that she had not killed Gopal after-all; Vikram seeks refuge in Durga’s home & Kishan (who is blinded in an accident by then) discovers who his father is. The heroes discover that they are brothers only in the climax, just before they set out on a mission to save their father from an accident planned by Jaggi. The film closes with Vikram donating his eyes to Kishan as a ‘prayaschit’ of being the cause of the blindness. THE END.
I hope I have explained the ‘straight-forward Manmohan Desai’ aspect of the film; i.e. an elaborate start where the family gets separated; keep crossing each other through the film; before uniting in the climax. Then there will be a few good songs which will be situational, not standing out as sore-thumbs.
Let me state why we are revisiting the film today, it is Manmohan Desai’s birth anniversary today- he would have turned 89. Manji’s father was film producer & owner of Paramount studios Kikubhai Desai from 1931 to 1941. Manji’s older brother Subhash Desai became a producer in the 1950s and gave Manji his directorial ‘Chhalia’ in 1960. Manji’s wife was Jeevanprabha and his son is Ketan Desai (a filmmaker himself) who is married to Shammi Kapoor & Geeta Bali’s daughter Kanchan. He had directed around 20 films in his 37 years in the industry and had every single actor born into the Kapoor family of that time with the exception of Prithviraj Kapoor. His leading ladies Babita (in Kismat) & Neetu Singh (in ‘AAA’, ‘Dharam Veer’, ‘Parvarish’) went on to become daughters-in-law of the Kapoor Khandaan. Nirupa Roy was almost a constant in all his films, after ‘AAA’ Amitabh Bachchan became a constant in his films. Manji created a coup of sorts, when he had all the actors, who had ever worked in his films, face the camera for a song in ‘Naseeb’ in 1981, which was ( I think) his silver jubilee year in films. He made it look like he was celebrating the success of his 1977 release ‘Dharam Veer’.
Manmohan Desai was a clever filmmaker who knew how to keep his audiences engaged from frame one to the end.
The song with this post is the song with which the film shows how the children get separated etc. much like the AAA (Amar Akbar Anthony) song where the three brothers donate blood to the injured blind lady without knowing that she was their mother. It is sung by Anwar and I always thought that it was a Mohd Rafi song.
Song-Ek daal pe do phool khile (Suhaag)(1979) Singer-Anwar, Lyricist-Anand Bakshi, MD-Laxmikant Pyarelal
Chorus
Lyrics
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
ek daal pe do phool khile
ek daal pe do phool khile
khilte hee jo bichhad gaye
bichhad gaye
hmm hmm hmm hmm
hm hmm hmm hmm
ek daal pe do phool khile
khilte hee jo bichhad gaye
bichhad gaye
ek daal pe do phool khile
aa aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa
duniya ke paas sabhee kuchh thha
ek maa ke paas yahee kuchh thha
ye baagh na thhe
veeraane thhe
wo bhee to ujad gaye
ujad gaye
ek daal pe do phool khile
khilte hee jo bichhad gaye
bichhad gaye
ek daal pe do phool khile
ek daal pe do phool khile
khilte hee jo bichhad gaye
bichhad gaye
ek daal pe do phool khile
wo daalee tadap ke yoon royee
jaise rotee hai maa koi
wo daalee tadap ke yoon royee
jaise rotee hai maa koi
un phoolon kee ye kahaanee hai
jo toot ke bikhar gaye
bikhar gaye
ik daal pe do phool khile
khilte hee jo bichhad gaye
bichhad gaye
ek daal pe do phool khile ae ae
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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