Main baagh kee sundar titlee
Posted on: March 17, 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.
|
Blog Day : |
6451 | Post No. : | 20024 |
Today’s song is from an utterly obscure, unknown film of the first decade of the talkie era – Kaun kisi ka-1939.
I have been writing posts on old films starting from the 1930s to the end of the 1960s, but I had not heard about this film till a few years back.
During the early era, very few films from the 1930’s are well known or atleast known, but most films remained unknown. Only the films made by well known film studios like Prabhat, Ranjit, Sagar, New Theatres, Minerva, Bombay Talkies etc are known to people.
Here are the generally known films of 1939, made by known studios, which are remembered even today for different reasons like different stories, famous and popular songs or even Top rated actors etc. Aadmi, Adhuri kahani, Badi Didi,Brandy ki Botal, Dil hi to hai, Dushman, Ek hi Raasta, Ghazi Salahuddin, Hukum ka Ekka, Imaandaar, India in Africa, Kangan, Kapal kundala, leather face, Navjeevan, Pukar etc. Rest of the films of 1939, like traffic on the highway, just zoomed past without leaving any trace.
Film Kaun kis ka-1939 had none of this in it. This film was made by Hindustan Cinetone. It was directed by Chimanlal Luhar, a talented person. He was a rarity in those days as he was a Science graduate. In times, when there were very few educated people in the film industry, he was respected everywhere. The Music Director of this film was Rafiq Ghaznavi, Lyricist was Munshi Dil and the cast of the film was Padma Devi, Shobhana Samarth, Khurshid, Nazir Ahmed, Mubarak, K N Singh, Maruti Rao, Khalil Ahmed, Gope etc.etc.
Most of these actors, director and the MD disappeared by the end of the 40’s, because many of them were the spill overs from the Silent Era. Except a few like K.N.Singh, Gope, Mubarak or Shobhana Samarth, none of the other names will mean anything to our readers in the age bracket of 40 to 60 years. The Partition further precipitated this condition and made matters difficult to track old artistes and get their information. Considering the poor conditions in India of preserving and documenting events, information and life stories of old time artistes, it became a Herculean task to collect information on such persons.
The coming of sound to films changed filmmaking forever. Till then what was a fragmented production activity, slowly became an industry. Earlier, silent films were made at a cost of 8 to 10 thousand rupees. Now the talkie needed 25 to 50 thousand per film. Automatically, the hobbyists and poorer filmmakers disappeared. So did the acting crew who could not speak Hindi fluently or sing a song.
One finds that suddenly, there was a deluge of talented, creative and enterprising people from various professions and different backgrounds to take up the challenges of this new industry. The changing society in India is partly responsible for this deluge. Due to education and attraction to cities, many people were rapidly getting uprooted from their traditional occupations and they looked forward to these opportunities. For example a motor mechanic Sarvottam Badami became a sound recordist (and later, a director too) and a traditional carpenter like S Fattelal became the great set designer in Prabhat films. An ordinary poster painter, Baburao Painter became a director. Many such examples are available. The deluge was made up of producers, directors, sound recordists, writers, lyricists, singers, technical staff and of course the actors and actresses.
Among the first generation of heroes, namely Khalil, Sandow, Sohrab Modi, Master Nissar, Chandramohan, Prithviraj Kapoor, Motilal, Ashok Kumar, Master Vithal, Jal Merchant, Bilimoria brothers and Saigal emerged as the main players. Among actresses Mehtab, Bibbo, Kajjan, Gauhar, Sitara, Sita Devi, Zubeida, Cooper sisters, Sabita Devi, Leela Chitnis, Durga Khote, Devika Rani, Naseem, Jamuna, Kanan Bala etc. became popular.
The hero of this film, Master Khalil Ahmed (variously mentioned as Khalil, Master Khalil, and Khalil Ahmed) was the first ever star of the silent era as well as talkie films from 1920 to 1940s. Born on 15-7-1903, he became a hero in Kohinoor’s ‘Gul E Bakavali’ (1924), opposite Zubeida. He was the first handsome and macho hero of those times. He acted with all top heroines of his time. Some of his 30 silent films are, ‘Kaala Naag’, ‘Kulin Kanta’, ‘Lanka Ni Laadi’, ‘Cinema Queen’ etc.
He featured in his first talkie film, ‘Draupadi’ (1931), made by Imperial, opposite Ermeline (aka Sudhabala ). Then came ‘Daulat Ka Nasha’ (1931), ‘Bharati Mata’ (1932), ‘Niti Vijay’ (1932), ‘Do Rangi Duniya’ (1933) and ‘Saubhagya Sundari’ (1933). In 1934 Khalil went to Calcutta on the invitation of East India Films. His first film in Calcutta was ‘Kismet Ki Kasauti’ (1934). Then he joined Tollywood Studio (Madon Theatres). Here his first film was ‘ Gaibi Gola’ (1935), in which Baby Noorjehan made her debut as a child star.
He was in great demand in Bombay also, so Khalil started doing films in Calcutta and Bombay, by frequently travelling between the two cities. This caused a lot of stress on him, but he always kept his commitments. During this period, he also got married and got children. He settled in Calcutta and travelled often to Bombay to do films there.
Khalil did different roles, including Hindu Gods. He never changed his name. In those days very few Muslim actors kept their real names. Incidentally, during his peak time, there were two more artists named Khalil. One was Khalil Aftab, who was a lyricist and he acted in the films ‘Dard E Dil’ (1934) and ‘ The Mill’ (1934) (this latter film was banned and was released later in 1936 as ‘ Ghareeb Parwar’). The other actor was Khalil Khan, who had acted in the film ‘Deepak Mahal’ (1940). In all, Khalil acted in 29 Talkie films. He died quite young, on 28-11-1941, at Calcutta. Too much travelling and stress must have taken its toll on him. He was only 38 years old. He left behind one wife with 5 children.
Khalil did 13 films in Calcutta – ‘Kismet Ki Kasauti (1934), ‘Gaibi Gola’ (1935), ‘Miss Manorama’ (1935), ‘Jawaani Ka Nasha’ (1935), ‘Divine Sacrifice’ (1935), ‘Raj Dulari (1936), ‘Bulbul e Iran’ (1936), ‘Parivartan’ (1936), ‘Adarsh Mahila’ (1937), ‘Aflatoon’ (1937), ‘Karmaveer’ (1938), ‘Abla Ki Shakti’ (1941) and ‘Merchant Of Venice’ (1941).
In Bombay, he did 15 films in Bombay – ‘Draupadi’ (1931), Daulat Ka Nasha’ (1931), ‘Bharati Mata’ (1932), ‘Niti Vijay’ (1932), ‘Do Rangi Duniya’ (1933), ‘Saubhagya Sundari’ (1933), Typist Girl (1935), ‘Shaitan Ka Paash’ (1936), ‘Khudai Khidamadgar’ (1937), ‘Kiski Pyaari’ (1937), ‘Kaun Kisi Ka'(1939), ‘Hamara Desh’ (1940), ‘Pyaar’ (1940), ‘Waayada’ (1940), and ‘Taj Mahal’ (1941) – his last film.
Khalil acted with most of the leading heroines of his time like, Noorjehan (Sr), Jilloo (Zulekha Ibrahim – she was known by Jilloo Bai in her later career), Kajjan- 6 films, Mushtari – 3 films (She died too young, in her teens only), Miss Rose – 2 films, Violet Cooper – 2 films, Radha Rani, Ram Pyari, Begum Akhtar (she was then known as Akhtari Faizabadi), Sulochana, Ameena, Leela Desai, Indurani, Gulab, Ermelin and Sheela etc. Khalil was very good natured and a popular actor among his co-stars and producers.
A Muslim by birth, he performed a variety of roles in films. His initial acting phase included roles of Shri Krishna and Shri Ram. Disenchanted by the communal riots during those times, he gave a speech in the Indian Motion Picture Congress, on 4th May 1939. Baburao Patel’s Film India published this extract from his speech- “I have played Hindu Gods in films. I worked under Hindu producers only. I am disturbed by these riots. I am popular among Hindus and Muslims. We are devotees of Art and Art has no religion.” Indian Film Industry was perhaps the only industry which was mostly a secular one, since its inception,till recent times. Master Khalil Ahmed was an example of those times.
Music Director of this film, Rafiq Ghaznavi, was a multi-faceted artiste. He acted in 18 films, directed 1 film, sang 30 songs in 15 films and gave music to 22 films composing 191 songs.
Private life of a celebrity has always been a matter of curiosity for the common man and if the celebrity is from the show world like films ,then there are all attempts to dig out the ‘ behind the scene’ stories about the famous people.
In the early era, the female artistes were from the courtesan or the singing families. Most males too were not much educated. Thus there were many cases of illicit relationships and children out of wedlocks. For the rich producers, having an ‘extra facility’ was a matter of a few thousands. In those days social media and the film magazines were not common, hence such matters hardly came into the open. The insiders, however, knew many stories. Few personalities like actor Shyam, Rafiq Ghaznavi, Prem Adeeb,C.Ramchandra were some of the artistes who were claimed to be involved in ‘ extracurricular activities ‘. So were some Producers and Directors.
When careers are on the rise, talents are bright and the work is extraordinary, it hardly matters what the artists do in their private lives. People are happy with their work. Yesteryear Actor,Singer and Music Director RAFIQ GHAZANAVI was one such person.
Rafiq was born on 15-11-1907, at Lahore. Rafiq was a singer from his school days and he became famous by the time he completed his Matriculation. He had learnt music from a blind expert. He was called by H.M.V. to Lucknow and several records were made of his songs. He completed his graduation. He was an expert in Hindi, Urdu, English, Punjabi, Pashto and Afghan Persian languages fluently. He was a voracious reader of English books. He edited a magazine “Raavee”. His stage shows were always housefull. He was honoured by the American Art Society with a Gold Medal. He was famous in the art circles of Lahore.
His first film as a composer was ” Pavitra Ganga”-1932. Then came Prithviraj Sanyogita-33 and Deewaani-34 etc. He was a good friend of producer Director Mehboob Khan. The voice accompanying the Mehboob Productions Logo is that of Rafiq Ghazanavi, “Muddai lakh bura chahe to kya hota hai, wohi hota hai jo manzoor-e-Khuda hota hai”. The famous Logo consisted of a Hammer and Sickle, indicating the socialistic inclination of Mehboob Khan, who was a great follower of Pandit Nehru’s ideology. When 14 year old Nargis was offered the heroine’s role in Mehboob’s ” Taqdeer ”, the music was entrusted to Rafiq Ghaznavi. Shamshad Begum was brought from Lahore specially to sing her first songs in Bombay for “Taqdeer” and Rafiq Ghaznavi was directing her songs. This was Rafiq’s last film as M.D. in India.
Famous writer Saadat Hasan Manto, in his book “Stars from another sky “, had devoted a full chapter to Rafiq. Manto, in his inimitable style has described all his ‘extra‘ activities in detail,as he was an observer for most of them. Rafiq was tall and handsome and had the magical quality to attract women. Wine and women were his weaknesses. But there was much more to Rafiq than only running after lowly women. He was never a one woman man. He had married 2 sisters, one after another, but never remained faithful to any one of them. As far as his music was concerned, he was very strict and never mixed these two things. He always tried to give his best in every film. Here is an adapted, short Bio from a Pakistani source-pakfilms.net, some years ago.
Born to an enlightened family in 1907, in Rawalpindi, Rafiq Ghaznavi was full of life since his earliest days. He passed his childhood amidst scenic, natural beauty, surrounded by mountains, valleys and lakes. After receiving his matriculation examination degree, Rafiq Ghaznavi moved to Lahore. In Lahore, he completed his intermediate examination from Islamia College, Lahore. Then he graduated from the Punjab University.
During those days if a handsome, enthusiastic young man was endowed with acting talents, he was more inclined towards the glamorous movie business. Rafiq Ghaznavi was no exception. Let us go seventy-five years back in time and see how movies were made in that time period. Those were the days of silent movies. Though the vocal film ‘Alam Ara’ was released in 1931, still silent movies were in vogue for quite some time, just like black and white movies continued to flood the market after the advent of color movies.
Visionary movie director, Mian A.R. Kardar, is considered the discoverer or ‘Columbus’ of the Lahore film industry. Moved by Rafiq Ghaznavi’s powerful voice and good looks, Kardar signed him as hero for his silent movie, ‘Brave heart’, while the latter was studying in college.Thus, Rafiq Ghaznavi debuted in the film ‘Brave heart’ in 1931 at the age of twenty-four. Soon Rafiq Ghaznavi began to outlive his town and his time while his companions were thinking what to make of their lives.
Director A.R. Kardar, on the other hand, made his first talking film, ‘Hoor Punjab’ in 1932. Later, he changed its name to ‘Heer Ranjha’ and it was released under the banner of Play art photo tone. Handsome, as Rafiq Ghaznavi was, Kardar picked him up for the romantic lead role of ‘Ranjha.’ While actress Anwari played the lead romantic role of ‘Heer Seyaal’. Additionally, Rafiq Ghaznavi composed music and lent his impressive voice to all the songs. Hence, he was the hero-composer-singer in the film ‘Heer Ranjha.’ Since all the songs were pictured on him he was also the singing star.
After working in ‘Heer Ranjha’, Rafiq Ghaznavi migrated to Bombay and worked diligently for the Bombay film industry. Rafiq was a multi-talented man. He acted in 18 films. He directed 1 film-Prem pujari-35. He sang 30 songs in 15 films and he gave music to 22 films, composing 191 songs.
Dwelling on his personal life, Rafiq Ghaznavi married film actress Zohra and had a daughter, Shahina, from her. Shahina grew up and made her mark as an actress in movies like ‘Beli’, ‘Nigar’, ‘Aankh ka nasha’, ‘Bharosa’, and ‘Intiqaam.’
Rafiq Ghaznavi also had a son, Murad, from his first wife, Zohra. In due course of time, Rafiq Ghaznavi divorced Zohra. She married director A.M. Mirza and so was known as Zohra Mirza.
Actress Anwari was the second wife of Rafiq Ghaznavi with whom he had a daughter, Zarina Agha. Later, Zarina changed her name to Nasreen and worked in director A.R. Kardar’s movie, ‘Shah Jehan’ and Daud Chand’s movie, ‘Aik Roaz.’ After Rafiq left Anwaribai, she married Jugal Kishore Mehra ( Raj kapoor’s Mama), who converted to Islam and became Ahmed Salman. He was also the director of Radio Pakistan. He adopted Nasreen and got her married to Aga Liyaqat Gul Tajik. He settled in London doing Diamond business. Further, Nasreen Agha’s daughter, Salma Agha, achieved great fame as a singing star.
Actress Anuradha, whose real name was Khursheed Akhtar, was the third wife of Rafiq Ghaznavi, with whom he had a son, Ayaz Mehmood. Furthermore, one of Rafiq Ghaznavi’s daughters married popular writer-director, Zia Sarhadi. Zia Sarhadi’s two sons, Khayam Sarhadi and Bilal Sarhadi attained fame in show business. Interestingly enough, two wives of Rafiq Ghaznavi were real sisters and they hailed from Amritsar.
Rafiq Ghaznavi, who was such a charismatic figure, a talented composer of the highest grade and a visionary, passed away on 2-3-1974, in Karachi, at the age of sixty-seven.
Today’s song from this film is sung by Khursheed and Nazeer Ahmad. Enjoy the old style song….
Song- Main baagh kee sunder titlee (Kaun Kisi Ka)(1939) Singers- Khursheed, Nazeer Ahmad, Lyricist- Munshi Dil, MD- Rafiq Ghaznavi
Lyrics
main baagh kee sunder titlee
mera phool sa komal ang
har phool ka mujhmein rang
main phoolon kee deewaanee
main phoolon kee maaharaanee
main phoolon kee deewaanee
main phoolon kee mahaaraanee
tum baagh kee titlee bewafa
tum baagh kee titlee bewafa
is phool ka
us phool ka aa aa
is phool ka
us phool ka
ras lete hee chal detee
ras lete hee chal detee
main baagh kee sunder titlee
titlee titlee titlee
?? naheen pasand
achcha to
tum chaand bano
main rajnee
tum K??ho
main sajnee
tum saaz bano
main rajnee
aaa aaa jaao
phir samaa aao
aaa aaa jaao
phir samaa jaao
tum phool bano
main titlee
tum phool bano
main titlee
tum chaand bano
main rajnee ee ee
chaand bano
main rajnee
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
Leave a comment