Jhoole mein laal jhulaave re
Posted on: March 3, 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 re-made costume film from the South – Nishan-1949.
Besides being a Musical films’ year, 1949 was also an year when the South Indian filmmakers, especially S.S.Vasan, became active after the film Chandralekha-1948 became a successful one and brought in huge profits. It became an attraction for the filmmakers in the South. They understood that the Hindi film market was many times bigger than the Southern film market and that it was possible to capture a part of it with their south made Hindi films.
Initially, in the early era, Bombay was the biggest centre for film making. When the Talkie films started, other smaller centres in those times, like Lahore and the South, woke up. For Lahore, language was not a problem and so there was a traffic between Lahore and Bombay film people for work and technology. Thus few centres for film production prospered in Lahore-like Pancholi and Shorey etc.
But for the South, Language was the biggest hurdle in having connections with Bombay. For the first few years, some Tamil and Telugu films were made in Bombay. Some southern filmmakers like L.V.Prasad worked in Bombay in their initial career and learnt the tricks of the trade-as they say. Later on L V Prasad became one of the biggest film producers in South, owning Studios, Laboratories and related industries. Incidentally, while in Bombay, L V Prasad became the only actor who worked in the First Hindi Talkie, Alam Ara-31, First Tamil Talkie,Kalidas-31 and First Telugu Talkie, Bhakta Prahlad-32 all made in Bombay !
However soon the South established its own production centre at Madras and made Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada films. In 1948, S.S.Vasan of Gemini Studios, released his ambitious Tamil/ Hindi film ” Chandralekha ” all over India with 600 film prints. The extraordinary success of ‘Chandralekha’-48 gave a clear idea to South producers how huge the Hindi market was. With a 3 million investment, Vasan earned 20 million from ‘Chandralekha’.
After the unprecedented foray of Gemini’s Vasan’s hit film Chandralekha-48. Subramaniam Srini Vasan or simply S S Vasan, became aware of the unlimited scope of the Hindi belt market for south-made Hindi films.
Vasan was a writer, Editor, producer and Director, but above all, he was a Business Tycoon. He had established the popular Tamil magazine “Anand Vikatan”, and owned Gemini studios, Gemini Laboratories and Gemini distribution circuits. He soon decided to take advantage of the success of Chandralekha and made another Trilingual film . In Tamil it was called “Apoorva sahodarargal”, in Telugu, it was “Apoorva Sahodaralu”, and in Hindi it was called “Nishan”-49. This film too was a great success.
Encouraged by this, S S Vasan made his 1943 Tamil Hit film “Mangamma Sapatham”-43, into a remake in Hindi with the name “Mangala”-50.
Not by coincidence, but by design, the Hero for all these 3 remakes and the originals was Ranjan. (This film was remade in Sinhalese as “Mathalan” in 1955 and in Telugu as “Mangamma shapatham”in 1965- featuring N T Ramarao, later the Chief Minister of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, and Jamuna).
Encouraged with all this, the enthusiastic adventurer Vasan took his 1949 hit Tamil film ” Vazhakan ” and made a Telugu remake, “Jeevitham”-50 and a Hindi remake,” Bahar-51″, introducing Vyjayanthimala. ‘Bahar’ was a box office hit. Vasan next made ” Ladki-53″ in Hindi, with simultaneous remakes in Tamil (Penn) and Telugu (Sangham).
Today’s film under discussion, Nishan-49 is a remake of the original Tamil film, ‘ Apoorva Sahodarargal ‘-49. It was based loosely on Douglas Fairbanks’ film ” The Corsican Brothers “-41. The inspiration came from Alexander Dumas’ novel of the same name published in 1844.
When the Tamil film was being made, the Hero was decided as M.K.Radha of Chandralekha fame, Heroine was P.Bhanumathy, but an actor for the Villain’s role was not decided. Many actors were considered, but finally Vasan decided on R.Nagendra,a veteran of Kannada stage. Vasan’s judgement proved correct. Nagendra acted so well that all critics were full of praise. Vasan continued with Nagendra for the Telugu remake( Apoorva Sahodaralu) and for the Hindi version-Nishan. It is to the credit of Nagendra that he picked up fluent Tamil, Telugu and Hindi pronunciations quickly and with great accuracy too in no time !.
The cast of the film was P.Bhanumathy, Ranjan, Nagendra Rao, J.S.Kashyap, Maya Banerjee, B.K.Kalla, Narayan Rao etc. The songs were composed by a team of 3 MDs, namely M.D.Parthasarathy, Rajeshwar Rao and B.K.Kalla. As per Vasan’s system, Parthasarathy was in the team to help the other 2 MDs and supervise them. All the 8 songs of the film were composed by these 2 composers, 4 each.
The story of the film was….
Mahendra and Martand are rival kings. When Mahendra’s wife gives birth to conjoined twins, Dr. Nanji separates them skillfully. In a surprise attack, Martand and his men set fire to Mahendra’s fort thinking that the entire Mahendra clan perished. But the good doctor has taken the babies to the safety of his house. And thereafter the elder twin Vijay grows up in the city, while the younger twin Vikram is brought up in the forest by the loyal Maruti.
When they are 25 years old, the doctor sends for them and introduces them to each other and makes them aware of their history. The twins swear to avenge the dastardly killing of their father and restore the glory of their kingdom. Meanwhile, Vijay saves the beautiful Ranjana from the aging yet lust-filled Martand and his men. Vijay and Ranjana fall in love in due course.
Problems arise between the brothers in the forest, as Vikram too falls for Ranjana. And being the younger of the conjoined twins, Vikram aches with frustrating feelings of physical desire whenever Vijay and Ranjana are together. Not wanting to be the cause for the brothers turning against each other and in order to enable them to reach their avowed objective without further distraction, Ranjana leaves Vijay in the forest, only to fall straight into the clutches of Martand. The rescue of Ranjana, and Martand getting his retribution, form the rest of the exciting tale.
We have been talking about S.S.Vasan and his Hindi films from the South. His life story is equally inspiring. S.S. Vasan or Subramaniyam Srinivasan ( 4-1-1904 to 26-8-1969 ) was an astute businessman. Vasan-owner of Gemini studios and Gemini empire, had tasted success with multilinguals like Chndralekha-48, Nishan-49 and Mangala-50.
Film Mangala-50 was a remake of the Hit Tamil film ‘Mangamma Sapatham-1943’. After the unprecedented foray of Gemini’s Vasan’s hit film Chandralekha-48. Subramaniam Srini Vasan or simply S S Vasan, became aware of the unlimited scope of the Hindi belt market for south-made Hindi films. Vasan was a writer, Editor, producer and Director,but above all, he was a Business Tycoon. He had established the popular Tamil magazine “Anand Vikatan”,and owned Gemini studios, Gemini Laboratories and Gemini distribution circuits. He soon decided to take advantage of the success of Chandralekha and made another Trilingual film . In Tamil it was called “Apoorva sahodarargal”, in Telugu, it was “Apoorva Sahodaralu”, and in Hindi it was called “Nishan”-49. This film too was a great success. Encouraged by this ,S S Vasan made his 1943 Tamil Hit film “Mangamma Sapatham”-43, into a remake in Hindi with the name “Mangala”-50.
Not by coincidence, but by design. The Hero for all these 3 remakes and the originals was Ranjan. (This film was remade in Simhalese as “Mathalan” in 1955 and in Telugu as”Mangamma sapatham” in 1965- featuring N T Ramarao, later the Chief Minister of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, and Jamuna).
Vasan’s bio is not complete without the information and history of his Milestone Hindi film Chandralekha-1948. I call it a Milestone Film, because it was the pioneer film that started the south- made, dubbed, remade and independent Hindi films for the All India Hindi audience. What’s more, it happened at a time when the flow of such Hindi films made in the East- Calcutta- had diminished and after some time totally gave up the space to south made films.
Film chandralekha-1948 made by S.S.Vasan was considered a ‘wonder’ in those days. Not only was it the costliest film ever made in India in those times, but it also was the first ever film to make its versions in English, Japanese and Danish languages and shown in the USA, Europe, Tokyo and Denmark. A lot has been written about the making of this film in several newspaper articles and various books by eminent authors.
However, for the benefit of our new readers, let us know how this film was made. The Hindi version of Chandralekha-1948 was fully directed by the Producer and the owner of Gemini pictures, Madras- S.S.Vasan, unlike when for the half part of the original Tamil film was directed by T.G.Raghavachari, who left the film halfway due to disagreements with Vasan and Vasan had to take over the film to make his Directorial debut.
The Hindi version of Chandralekha was Vasan’s first film in the language. For this version, Vasan re-shot several scenes and used a slightly different cast. Agha Jani Kashmiri and Pandit Indra wrote the dialogue for the Hindi version, while Indra and Bharat Vyas were the lyricists. Rajeswara Rao, who composed the soundtrack for both versions, was assisted by Bal Krishna Kalla on the Hindi version, while Parthasarathy and Vaidyanathan composed this version’s background music.The Tamil version was over 18,000 feet (5,500 m) long, but the Hindi version was edited down to 14,495 feet (4,418 m).
When the original Tamil version started its shooting in 1943, no one thought that it would take 5 years in its making. The final film was released in 60 theatres, at a time, in Tamil dominated areas of Madras Presidency on 9-4-1948. Then Vasan started making a Hindi version and completed it in December 1948, releasing it on 24-12-1948, in the Hindi All India market with 603 prints !
After Raghavachari’s departure, the drum-dance scene he directed remained in the film. The scene involved 400 dancers and six months of daily rehearsals. It was designed by chief art director A. K. Sekhar, choreographed by Jayashankar and filmed with four cameras. Randor Guy estimated that the scene cost ₹500,000 (about US$105,000 in 1948); in his 2015 book, Madras Studios: Narrative, Genre, and Ideology in Tamil Cinema, Swarnavel Eswaran Pillai estimated that the scene cost ₹200,000—the entire budget of a typical Tamil film of the period. The scene included the Kathakali and Bharatanatyam classical dances and the Sri Lankan Kandyan dance. A. Vincent, who later became an established cinematographer and director in Malayalam cinema, assisted Ghosh in this film.
Chandralekha was in production for five years (1943–1948), with changes to its story, cast and filming which generated substantial time and cost overruns. The film ultimately cost ₹3 million (about $600,000 in 1948), and was the most-expensive Indian film at the time. Vasan mortgaged all his property, received financial assistance from The Hindu editor Kasturi Srinivasan and sold his jewellery to complete the film. Adjusted for inflation, Chandralekha would have cost $28 million in 2010. According to historian S. Muthiah, with the free-floating exchange rate in effect at the time it was the first film with a budget of over a million dollars made outside the United States.
South Indian cinema became prominent throughout India with the film release and inspired South Indian producers to make their Hindi films for the All India Hindi film audience.
Later, Vasan wanted to make a Hindi film first and depending upon its success, he would make a Tamil version. He selected R.K. Narayan’s popular English novel-Mr. Sampath-The printer of Malgudi (pub. 1949) to make his Hindi film. He chose Motilal as its Hero and invited him to Madras to make the film. Motilal himself was a very punctual, professional and organised actor. He liked and was impressed with the southern way of professional and planned schedules of shootings. The film was completed ahead of its scheduled period.
Vasan had a lot of expectations from this Hindi film. There were rave reviews of critics about Motilal’s natural acting. However, the common public did not support their views and the film flopped miserably. Lack of spectacular scenes-expected from Vasan’s film were absent. Moreover the poor music added to the kill. The film’s Heroine Padmini ( one of the Travancore sisters) was no doubt a famous star of the South but in the Hindi speaking belt she was hardly known. She was an excellent dancer, but acting wise she was no match to even ‘B’ grade Hindi Heroines that time. It was much later that she built her place in the Hindi films, with dubbed dialogues. Out of all the Southern heroines, I would give full marks to Vyjayanti mala for developing good Hindi quickly.
After this debacle, there was no question of making any Tamil remake of this film. That much business sense Vasan did have. Much later, in an interview, he accepted that the cinematic liberties he took with the original novel was one of the major causes-along with poor music,of failure of Mr. Sampat-52. After this film, it is said that R.K. Narayan refused to allow any film on his novels…till the Hindi film Guide. Here too, he is on record that he simply hated the film Guide-65, with so many changes in his novel. The film Guide-65 , however, was a landmark and successful film anyway.
S S Vasan directed 13 Hindi films….Chandralekha-48, Nishan-49, Sansar-51, Mangala-51, Mr. Sampat-52, Bahut din hue-54, Insaniyat-55, Raj Tilak-58, Paigham-59, Gharana-61, Aurat-67, Teen bahuraniyan-68 and Shatranj-69.
Here is today’s song, sung by chorus. Enjoy….
Song- Jhoole mein laal jhulaave re (Nishaan)(1949) Singer-Chorus, Lyricist-Pt. Indra, MD-Rajeshwar Rao
Lyrics
raja ke dwaar
maharaja ke dwaar
??
maharaja ke dwaar
??
maharaja ke dwaar
??
?? hazaar
kiye solah singaar
diya hamko nihaar
?/ bahaar aaya
?? tyohaar
??
maharaja ke dwaar
??
maharaja ke dwaar
o re raja ke
maharaja ke
??
jhoole mein laal jhulaave re
meree badee mijaajan jaccha
ghee khaand khopre khaave re
meree badee mijaajan jaccha
saasu bhee laad ladaave
shishu ne dutkaare
kul vansh kee bel badhaave re
kul vansh kee bel badhaave re
meree badee mijaajan jaccha
mahlo mein piya bulaave
jachcha raanee sharmaave
saason sukh sampat paave re
saason sukh sampat paave re
meree badee mijaajan jaccha
jhoole me laal jhulaave re
meree badee mijaajan jaccha
dheem ta dheem to dheem
???
dhitram dhitram dhitram
???
dheemt dheemt dheem
???
dhitram dhitram dhitram
???
dheem ta dheem to dheem
???
dhitram dhitram dhitram
????
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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