Main to gaaoongee
Posted on: February 26, 2026
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 a Costume imaginary film Gul Bakawali-1947.
The year 1947 is a reminder not only for the Independence of India, but also for the upheaval that took place in the film industry that time. More than in any other industry in India, Muslims were plentiful, working in different sections and departments of the Hindi film industry. Majority of them migrated to the newly formed Muslim Nation of Pakistan. This did create a lot of disturbance in the film industry. Right from the beginning of 1947, there were signs that soon the British would leave India – after dividing it into two Nations, India and Pakistan. When the month and date became known for the Partition, there was a great hurry among the filmmakers to complete their projects on hand and in process, compromising many factors like quality of the film, number of songs and such other things.
This resulted in the record number of films made in 1947 alone – 181 Hindi films and about 100 films in other languages in India. This was a record which remained unbroken till 1985, when 187 Hindi films were made. Thus from 1931 to 1985, this record remained unbroken for more than 50 years ! Obviously, this resulted in a big compromise on quality to achieve quantity with many films produced half heartedly. Most or rather many films made in 1947 remained obscure, unheard of and many flopped due to poor quality. Actually only few films were released in 1947, because many films were released in 1948 and 1949, with some films being released in Pakistan too.
Did you ever hear about films Amar Asha, Angoorbala, Attention, Barrister, But Tarash, Chalte Chalte, Chandrahas, Dagabaz Dost, Dehati,Ek kadam,Gaurav,Giribala, Heera, Intezar ke baad, Jhalak,Jurmana, Khaufnak aankhen, Lalaat, Mangalsutra, Moti, Sewa gram, Stage girl, Tohfa or Utho jago ? Of course not all films were below standards. Some of the landmark films were also made in 1947, like Shehnai, Mirza Sahiban, Jugnu, Saajan, Naatak, Meera, Elan,Aap ki sewa mein, Dard, Do Bhai, Neel Kamal or Parwana etc. However by and large the picture was like this only.
The film was directed by Rustom Modi (brother of Sohrab Modi). There were 2 MDs – Phiroz Dastur (1 song) and Bundu Khan (7 songs). Lyricists were also 2. All the 8 songs were sung by Phiroz Dastur and Menaka Bai. The cast of the film Gul Bakawali-47 was Phiroz Dastoor,Rabab,Sanobar,Menaka,Shyam kumar,Jabbar etc. The film was released in Super Cinema,Bombay 0n 9-1-1948. The film had a popular story from the Arabian Nights.Fantasy stories and Fairy tales have been enchanting masses for centuries. This is because everybody wants a magic which will make him happy, seeking a solace in such stories. For several centuries such stories have been invoking the child in a man.
GUL-E-BAKAVALI or the magic flower of the Bakavali Tree is supposed to do many things which are unimaginable. Let us see the history of this story which has mesmerised the film producers for many years.
Gul-e-Bakawali is a popular medieval romance in many versions. The seventeenth-century poet Nawazish Khan was perhaps the first to write a Bangla version of Gule Bakawali, a story in verse about the love of Prince Taj ul mulk for the fairy Bakawali. The Sprinter catalogue records an Urdu Gule Bakawali written in verse in 1625. In 1722, Sheikh Izzatullah, a Bengali, wrote a prose version, Taj ul mulk Gule Bakawali, in persian. It is not known on which version Nawazish Khan based his poem.
There were several variant versions of Gule Bakawali, such as the poetic versions by Muhammad Mukim (1760–70), Muhammad Ali, Munsi Ebadat Ali (1840), Umacharan Mitra (1834), and Abdus Shakur, and the prose version by Bijaynath Mukhopadhyaya (1904). Kedarnath Gangopadhyaya wrote a play based on the story in 1978. Ebadat Ali’s Gule Bakawali is a dobhasi puthi.
The story was also popular in Urdu. Thus, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Munshi Nihalchand Lahori wrote a prose version titled Mazhabe Ishq (1803), and Dayashankar Nasim wrote a masnavi (poem) called Gulzare Nasim (1835).
Gul-e-Bakavali was the first picture with the same subject as a Silent film in 1924 directed by Kanjibhai Rathod and produced by Kohinoor films. It starred Jamna, Khalil, Fatma Begum, Noor Mohamed, Sabita Devi, Sultana, Usha Rani and Zubeida.
The story was made as Silent film again in 1930 (Starring Vishnu, Gulab .. Dir Mohanlal Shah)
* Gul-e-Bakavali was made into Hindi films five times – in 1932 ( starring Ashraf Khan, Zaibunnisa.. Dir Anand Prasad Kapoor), 1947 ( Starring Feroz Dastur, Menaka, Rabab, Sanober..Dir Rustom Modi), 1956 ( starring MG Ramachandran,Varalaxmi, Rajkumari…Dir Ramanna TR), 1963( starring Jairaj, Nishi.. Dir Jugal Kishore) and 1982( starring Feroz Khan , Amjad Khan … Dir Ravi (Kant Nagaich )..
* The story was pictured earlier in Telugu in 1938 with title Gulebakavali directed by Kallakoori Sadasivaravu and starring B. Jayamma. and again pictured as Gulebakavali Katha in 1962 (starring NT Rangarao , Jamuna, Nagaratnam .. Dir Kamalakara Kameshwara Rao)
* There are two Tamil versions, one from mid 30’s by Soundararajan (Tamilnadu Talkies fame!) and another version in 1955 , directed and produced by T. R. Ramanna and starring M. G. Ramachandran, T.R. Rajakumari and G. Varalakshmi…
The earlier Punjabi version was released in 1938 (*Baby Noorjehan , Ajmal , M Ismail … Dir Barkat Mehra) …
In Pakistan the story was pictured in 1961 (Ilyas Kashmiri, Jamila Razzaq .. Dir Munshi Dil .. MD.. Safdar Hussain ).
The story of this film was…..
Long long ago a king was blessed with a son by his second wife, but the astrologer had warned him that if he sees his son’s face before he is 28 years, the king will go blind. So the king sends his queen and the newborn out of the kingdom. They go and settle in a jungle where the prince grows up. His name is Taj ul Mulk (Phiroz Dastur). After 26 years the king and his soldiers are passing through a jungle where this prince is living. By chance the king sees him and suddenly he loses his eyes. He realises that it is his son. The queen also comes there. The Raj jyotishi says that only the flower of the magic tree Bakavali or Gul-e-bakavali can bring back the king’s sight. One condition is that only his son should bring it.
The king has 3 sons from his first queen, but they are useless. However they promise the king that they will bring the flower and set out in its search. Taj ul Mulk also goes searching for it.
Once Taj and the three other sons meet and they tie Taj with ropes, loot all his money and leave him like that for jungle animals to eat. The princess of state Bakavali is flying on her magic carpet with her friends, when she sees Taj. They get down and release him. Taj and the princess fall in love and immediately sing a song or two to solidify the ties.
The Princess promises Taj to get him the magic Flower. While she is bringing the flower, the 3 evil sons steal it and run away. The princess is turned into a stone statue. When Taj learns about it, he follows the 3 Princes and gets the flower, brings the Princess to Human life and also brings back the King’s site.
All’s well that ends well.
Today’s song is sung by Menakabai. She is one of the ‘Same Name Confusion ‘ pair. There was another singer and actress Menaka Devi (Calcutta Wali), in the same period. Both Menakas acted and sang in the Calcutta and Bombay made films. I had spent a few months putting in a lot of hard work in collecting their information and making their correct filmographies individually, so that in future people would not mix them up and right credit would be given for their right films. Their complete information is given in my book.
Getting information about obscure and very old films is extremely difficult. More difficult is to get information about the old actors etc.I do not know what others do, but I depend on old time books or books which give this information as well as back issues of film magazines like Film India etc. In addition some tattered copies of film directories like Filmdom etc. Actually, to get these documents also one has to do a lot of spade work, contact people of equal interests, shops of ‘old Raddi’, chor bazar, search street book sellers etc.
Doing all these exercises, I have collected some unique books, journals, old issues of film magazines in Marathi, Hindi, English and Gujarati and 2 Film Encyclopedias. in addition, my library gets supplemented with ‘ complimentary copies’ of such books from the authors from time to time. I have some enviable documents and books, which I am proud of. With the help of these valuable documents, I try to make my articles full of information which is unique and not available elsewhere easily.
one can raise a question “if you are borrowing all this from other sources, what is your personal contribution ?” The truthful and simple answer is “None” ! But then, remember, no one is born with all the knowledge. A simple equation like 2×2=? has to be learnt from your teacher in the school. World’s greatest Historians never met any Historical personalities nor were they present in any old wars. They got this information from various sources of documents from family treasures, old correspondence papers, old books etc etc. They get all this, systematically arrange it and publish their findings.
The credit is not for their books, but it is for their efforts and hard work to dig out information from various unimaginable and credible sources. Copying from IMDB, Google, Internet sites, various Blogs or Wikipedia and the likes of these is not very difficult, but most times, it lacks credibility, authenticity and genuineness of information. Most times mistakes and wrong information are just passed on from one source to another.
I am not trying to pat my own back but I want the readers to realise that your credibility depends on your genuine efforts to get information from the right sources. Many times when I get a really antique book or a very old magazine, I learn a lot which I never knew or my own knowledge is updated with the new evidence. I hope the readers are now in a better position to know the reality of old film information.
Film Gul Bakavali-1947 was directed by Rustum Modi, who was the elder brother of Sohrab Modi. To understand the background of the making of this film, we have to first take a look, in short, at the early build up of the careers of the Modi brothers.
Born on 2-11-1897, Sohrab Modi and his elder brother Rustom Modi spent their initial years in the Parsi community in Bombay, where their father was a Civil servant. The brothers were not good students in studies but were more interested in acting on stage. After their family shifted to Rampur in United Province (today’s Uttar Pradesh), when Sohrab was about 15 year or so, he used to read Urdu Books from the library of Nawab of Rampur, with whom his father worked as a Superintendent. This made Sohrab an expert in Urdu Language and diction. Coupled with his love for sports and bodybuilding, he soon became an impressive young man.
As he was growing, his brother Rustom helped him and he started doing small roles in stage dramas. At one stage his roles in “Khoon ka khoon”and “Saeed E Hawas” won laurels from the audience. By then Rustom had started his own drama company “The Arya Subodh Natak Mandali”. In 1931, Talkie films started and people were attracted to them. Sensing a danger to drama companies, Rustom Modi established “Stage Film Company” and filmed their “Khoon ka khoon aka Hamlet” and ‘Saeed E Hawas” in 1935 and 1936 respectively. However since people had already seen these dramas, these 2 movies did not click to expectations.
Sohrab Modi realised that filmmaking was a different game entirely. So, in 1936, the brothers started Minerva Movietone and a new film “Atma Tarang” was made. It was also received with a tepid response, with just 20 persons for the first show. Sohrab was disappointed, however, some critics appreciated his effort and encouraged him to go ahead. Soon he made successful films like Meetha Zahar-38, Divorce-38, Pukar-39 and Bharosa-40 and so on.
Rustom Modi, however, continued with his dramas and making films on dramas. On this background Rustom Modi made Paak Daman in 1940- again with his stage artists. This time, there was a good response and the old timers enjoyed the film, reminiscing what they had earlier seen as a Urdu Parsee Theatre drama.
Here is a song from this film, sung by Menakabai (Bombaywali). Enjoy the song….
Song- Main to gaaoongee (Gul Bakaavali)(1947) Singer- Menakabai, Lyricist- Munshi Shefta, MD- Bundu Khan
Lyrics
Main to gaoongee o re
apnee ragon ke taaron par
main to gaoongee o re
apnee ragon ke taaron par
ulfat ke geet sunaaoongee
ulfat ke geet sunaaoongee
main to gaoongee o re
apnee ragon ke taaron par
saajan mein mere soz bhara hai
saajan mein mere soz bhara hai
soz hee mere dil ?? hai
soz hee mere dil ?? hai
bekal ho kar saamne unke
bekal ho kar saamne unke
jin ke ?? dikhaaoongee
jin ke ?? dikhaaoongee
main to gaoongee o re
apnee ragon ke taaron par
aankhon se meree ashq rawaan hai
aankhon se meree ashq rawaan hai
ashkon mein toofaan ?? hai
ashkon mein toofaan ?? hai
chashme purnam tere karam se
chashme purnam tere karam se
unke paaon dhulaaoongee
unke paaon dhulaaoongee
main to gaoongee o re
apnee ragon ke taaron par
2 Responses to "Main to gaaoongee"
February 26, 2026 at 8:26 pm
Thanks for your appreciation and kind words.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
February 26, 2026 at 7:50 pm
Gathering information from multiple sources needs a lot of patience and love for the subject one is searching for. I know that you have plenty of both –patience & love for the subject. This in itself is commendable. Documenting the findings chronologically & logically is another ball game all together, this also you are accomplishing.
Hats Off to you !!!!!
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