Main to baar baar naachee
Posted on: March 23, 2026
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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‘Shiv Bhakta’ (1955) was produced under the banner of AVM Productions and was directed by H L N Simha who also wrote the story. The cast included Shahu Modak, Pandari Bai, Padmini, Anant Kumar, Mishra, Kumaridevi, Rushyendramani, Ragini, H Ramachandra Shastri, Deshraj etc.
The film was a remake of the Kannada film, ‘Bedara Kannappa’ (1954) – [English translation: ‘Hunter Kannappa’] which was also directed by H L N Simha in which he introduced Kannada film’s superstar, Dr Rajkumar in a lead role. The Kannada film was adapted from the stage play ‘Kaalahasti Charitre’ written by T. N. Balakrishna for the Gubbi Veeranna Nataka Company. It was based on a folk tale of a hunter Kannappa who, to prove his extreme devotion to the Lord Shiva, offered his two eyes to Lord Shiva. ‘Bedara Kannappa’ (1954) was the first Kannada film to win the National Film Award for the Best Kannada Film (The Award was then called Certificate of Merit). After the unprecedented box office success of ‘Bedara Kannappa’ (1954), it was a collaborative decision by AVM and H L N Simha to remake the film in Hindi as ‘Shiv Bhakta’ (1955). Before that the Kannada film was dubbed in Tamil as ‘Vedan Kannappa’ (1954) and was remade in Telugu as ‘Kalahasti Mahatyam’ (1955).
The story of the film is as under:
The film start with tribal hunter, Deena (Shahu Modak) and Neela (Pandhari Bai) getting married with a dance performance about to start. Deena is a favourite of the tribal chieftain and he is being groomed as the next chief. This is resented by one of the tribals, Raja who aspires to become the chief one day. The conspiracy of Raja results in Deena and Neela being expelled from the tribe. With struggling to survive, Deena with his wife shift to Kaalahasti. They faces hard times as some days they have to remain without food. Deena loses faith in God while his wife’s faith in God remains intact.
In Kaalahasti, The chief priest of Sri Kaalahastishwar temple, Kailashnath (Mishra) has arranged the first dance of Devdasi, Rani (Padmini) in the temple who stays with her mother (Rushyendramani) in the vicinity of the temple. Kailashnath has developed a soft corner for Rani which is exploited by Rani and her mother to get gifts by way of cash and jewels from the chief priest.
One stormy day, Deena loses his way and takes shelter in the temple of Sri Kaalahastishwar. He meets Kashinath (Anant Kumar), the nephew of the chief priest Kailashnath. Their meeting becomes the turning point in Deena’s life. Kashinath teaches Deena to utter the mantra which subsequently brings to him a high success rate in his hunting expedition. In fact, one day, Deena offers to God a rabbit which he has successfully hunted. Kailashnath, after discovering the pieces of meat as offerings gets offended as he takes it as a insult to the God. He at once calls Deena and insults him in the same way once Deena had insulted him in front of Rani.
After the end of one more of dance performances by Rani, Kailashnath is very pleased and offers a special ‘Aarati’ to Maa Parvati for the wellbeing of Rani. At that time, Rani sees a necklace which is adorned by the idol of Maa Parvati and evinces her desire to Kailashnath as a gift to her. After he is left alone, Kailashnath removes the necklace from the idol when he sees Deena coming inside the temple. He asks Deena to visit Rani’s house and handover the necklace to her. Before Deena returns to the temple, Kailashnath accompanied by the head of village panchayat accuses Deena for having stolen the necklace.
A village panchayat meeting is held in which Deena is accused of desecrating the temple with the animal meat and of stealing the necklace. Neela desperately pleads to panchayat to pardon Deena but in vain. Deena is punished by putting him in chain and is tortured to plead guilty. But Deena’s newly found faith in his mantra does not affect him. With his constant utterance of mantra, his chain miraculously breaks. Deena runs to the temple and finds blood flowing from the eye of Shivalingam. He promptly gouge out his eyes and offers to Shivalingam. Soon, Lord Shiva with his consort, Maa Parvati appears and bless Deena. He gets his eyes back. Lord Shiva is pleased with his devotion and pronounces that from now onwards, he will be called ‘Bhakta Kannappa’. Villagers arrive in large numbers and embrace Deena.
I feel that the film available online is heavily edited. At many places I could not make sense out of jumps from one scene to another. The VCD of the film is of about 2 hours of duration. With 14 songs in the film taking nearly one hour of duration, I do not think that film’s story can be fitted in the remaining one hour. It is observed that any south made films will generally have a duration of not less than 2 hours 30 minutes. I have also noticed that the starting scene in Kannada version in which the couple of Gandharva Lok are reborn on earth as Deena and Neela due to a curse does not appear in VCD of Hindi version of the film.
The film had 14 songs written by Gopal Singh Nepali which were set to music by Chitragupt. Even though Chitragupt has been the independent music director since 1946, almost all his films were ‘B’ or ‘C’ grade comprising mainly in the genre of stunt, action, costume, fantasy and mythology. It was with ‘Shiv Bhakta’ (1955) he started his first film with a major film production company from the South, AVM Productions. With this film, Chitragupt started his long association with Lata Mangeshkar.
There is an interesting trivia as to how Chitragupt got this assignment from AVM as a music director. After the success of ‘Bahar’ (1951), AVM had approached S D Burman to be the music director for ‘Shiv Bhakta’ (1955). But despite offering higher fees than his regular fee, S D Burman politely refused the offer by saying that he does not compose music for more than 3-4 films in a year and the quota for the year was over. AVM said that he would wait for him. After few months when the film’s was to go on the floor, AVM again approached S D Burman. This time, he said that the mythological films were outside his comfort zone and he was not sure as to how far it would work out. But S D Burman assured him that he can suggest the name of a competent music director who can do full justice to the film. The name he suggested was Chitragupt and asked him to meet him. AVM had a high respect for S D Burman and he chose to go with his suggestion rather than scouting for some other music directors. In this way, Chitragupt got his first assignment from a well-known banner from the South and he did not disappoint either S D Burman or AVM as the film fared very well on the box office front and uts songs were well-recieved. The box office success of this film got him some more assignments from AVM Productions such as ‘Bhabhi’ (1957), ‘Barkha’ (1959), ‘Main Chup Rahungi’ (1962) and ‘Main Bhi Ladki Hoon’ (1964). (Source: TV interview of Anand, son of Chitragupt).
Eight out of 14 songs of the film have been covered on the Blog. I present the 9th song, ‘main to baar baar naachi’ rendered by Lata Mangeshkar on the words of Gopal Singh Nepali. The song is picturised on Padmini in the role of a temple devadasi, Rani. Mishra in the role of Kailashnath as the chief priest of the temple and Rushyendramani in the role of Rani’s mother are also seen among the devotees of the temple.
The context of the song is that devotees and other prominent persons of Kaalahasti village have gathered in a Shiva temple to witness the evening Aarati to be performed by the chief priest, Kailashnath (Mishra). Before that, he has arranged the maiden dance by newly initiated devadasi, Rani (Padmini) on a devotional song on front of Shivalingam representing Lord Shiva. She gets appreciation for her dance performance from the devotees. This is the beginning of the chief priest developing a soft corner for Rani who exploits the situation by getting gifts by way of cash and jewellery from the chief priest.
In this song, Padmini has given the dance performance with the musical support mainly of dholak which is played in Carnatic classical style to gel with Bharatanatyam dance style while shehnai has been played in Hindustani classical style in interludes. Another feature of the song is that towards the end, Taraana (in Carnatic music, it is called ‘Tillana’) has been rendered by an unidentified male singer which is a convention during the dance performances in the Carnatic classical music/dance concerts to judge as to how well the singer, the dancer and the percussion player coordinate to bring the best of them.
With this film, for the first time, Lata Mangeshkar rendered songs under the baton of Chitragupt.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Main to baar baar naachee (Shiv Bhakt)(1955) Singers-Lata Mangeshkar, Unidentified Male Singer, Lyricist-Gopal Singh Nepali, MD-Chitragupta
Lyrics:
baar baar naachee
rahe janam bhar door door door
main to karke pyaar naachee
main to baar baar naachee
chaand gagan mein main baithee aas mein
chaand gagan mein main baithee aas mein
chandramukut waale aayenge paas mein
chandramukut waale aayenge paas mein
teree aas mein saaree raat jagee
teree aas mein saaree raat jagee
kar singaar naachee…ee ee
main to baar baar naachee
main khadee dwaar pe deepak jalaaye
main khadee dwaar pe
o o o o
o o o o o
o o o o
aa aa aa aaa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aaa
main khadee dwaar pe deepak jalaaye
saaree umariya tum naheen aaye
saaree umariya tum naheen aaye
tum hee beech mein rahe sadaa prabhu
tum hee beech mein rahe sadaa
main to haar haar naachee ee ee
main to baar baar naachee
aise mein kab tak naachtee jaaoon
aise mein kab tak naachtee jaaoon
gaa ke akele prabhu kisko sunaaoon
gaa ke akele prabhu kisko sunaaoon
naachna mere saath kabhee tum
naachna mere saath kabhee tum
main hazaar naachee ee ee
main to baar baar naachee
(Taraana of syllables of percussion)
baar baar naachee
main to baar baar naachee
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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