Aaja na chhoo le meree chunaree sanam
Posted on: March 28, 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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‘Monsoon Wedding’ (2001) was an English language film which was produced by Mira Nair and Caroline Baron and was directed by Mira Nair. The cast included Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shah, Vijay Raaz, Tilottama Shome, Parvin Dabas, Vasundara Das, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Rajat Kapoor, Neha Dubey, Kamini Khanna, Randeep Hooda (debutant), Roshan Seth, Soni Razdan, Sameer Arya, Ram Kapoor etc. It was Mira Nair’s wish to make a Bollywood type film in English with a lot of songs from her viewpoint.
The film was premiered on August 30, 2001, at the Venice International Film Festival and won the Golden Lion Award. It was released in India on November 30, 2001. The film’s dialogues were mainly in English though few dialogues were written in Hindi and Punjabi to reflect the way the educated upper middle class people speak in combination of words from English, Hindi and in their mother tongue in India.
The film does not have a story in a conventional sense. It is more of the comical presentation of events in an arranged marriage of the daughter. Aditi (Vasundhara Das) of Verma family (Naseeruddin Shah and Lillete Dube as parents), a Punjabi family of Delhi. The story gets developed from one event to another and so on. The groom, Hemant Rai (Parvin Dabas), the son of Mohan Rai (Roshan Seth) and Saroj Rai (Soni Razdan) is a NRI from the USA. There is some uneasiness in the minds of the parents as to what happens if the bride and bridegroom do not like each other as they are meeting for the first time before the marriage. The bride was in love with a married TV host but she has agreed for an arranged marriage with a man she has not met, more out of frustration with her lover who has been undecided about the timeframe of divorcing his wife.
There is a large gatherings of family and friends of bride and groom, some of whom have come from the USA and Australia. So, there is a mix of diverse culture – from conservatism to modern, and from diverse professional background. In this milieu, the bride’s father (Naseeruddin Shah) is the most worried man – from taking care of the guests, ensuring control on the cost, managing with a difficult wedding planner and even about the weather which may play spoilsport during the wedding events.
During the pre-wedding events, some incipient romances are taking place. The wedding planner (Vijay Raaz) has developed a liking for Verma family’s maid (Tilotama Shome). The bride’s cousin, Ayesha (Neha Dubey) is attracted towards a young guest, Rahul (Randeep Hooda) from Australia. There is another guest, Tej Puri (Rajat Kapoor) who had molested Ria Verma (Shefali Shah), a close Verma family member, during her childhood who remains unmarried and has lost both her parents. Eventually, Ria exposes him as such and the Verma family stands by her despite the fact that this may create problems especially when the wedding celebrations are in full swing. However, the wedding of Aditi with Hemant Rai is solemnised without any hiccup.
There are three songs in the film, two in Punjabi and one in Hindi. All the three songs have been picturised during the pre-wedding ceremony. I present the Hindi song, ‘chunaree chunaree…..aaja na chhoo le meree chunaree sanam’, a complete ‘take-off’ of the song from the film, ‘Biwi No.1’ (1999). The song is written by Sameer which is set to music by Anu Malik. The song is presented as a part of pre-wedding festivities in which the family relatives and the guests at the wedding, dance on the song. For the host’s family, the dance give them some relief of stresses from the wedding preparations, while younger ones in the festivity find the good opportunity to develop romantic liaison like of Neha Dube and Randeep Hooda.
The song is picturised on Neha Dubey when Ram Kapoor, in the role of a relative of the extended Verma family, joins her giving the company in dancing. It is not liked by Randeep Hooda who pushes him away from Neha Dubey and starts dancing with her. The bride (Vasundhara Das) and the groom (Parvin Dabas) move away from the dance to have some private moment. Other prominent actors seen during the pre-wedding celebrations are Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shah, Soni Razdan, Roshan Seth, Rajat Kapoor, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Kamini Khanna, Ram Kapoor etc.
I like the spontaneity of the dance song with the background of chattering by the guests to give a feel of a real pre-wedding festivities.
Editor’s Note: With this song, Sameer completes 100 songs in the blog as a lyricist.
Video Clip:
Song-Aaja na chho le meree chunaree sanam (Monsoon Wedding)(2001) Singers-Anuradha Sriram, Abhijeet, Lyricist-Sameer, MD-Anu Malik
Chorus
Lyrics:
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
laal ganj ke laal baagh se laal chunariya laaye
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
laal rang mein daal daal ke laal laal rangwaaye
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
aaja na chhoo le meree chunaree sanam
kuchh na main boloon tujhe meree kasam
aayee jawaanee sar pe mere
tere bin kyaa karoon jawaanee pe raham
aajaa na chhoo le meree chunaree sanam
kuchh na main boloon tujhe meree kasam
aayee jawaanee sar pe mere
tere bin kyaa karoon jawaanee pe raham
aajaa na chhoo le meree chunaree sanam
kuchh na main boloon tujhe meree kasam
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
chikne chikne badan se tere sar sar chunaree sarke
aisa laage ke bin baadal ambar pe bijlee khadke
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
jee karta hai ke bijlee main tujhpe aaj giraaun
tujhko bhar loon baahon mein
ye chunaree tujhe udaaun
badhta hi jaaye dard ho na kam
kuchh na main boloon tujhe meri kasam
o aayee jawaanee sar pe mere
tere bin kya karoon jawaanee pe raham
aaja na chhoo le meree chunaree sanam
kuchh na main boloon tujhe meri kasam
aayee jawaanee sar pe mere
tere bin kya karoon jawaanee pe raham
haaye
aaja na chhoo le meri chunaree sanam
kuchh na main boloon tujhe meree kasam
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
teri chunaree lipat lipat ke paagal mujhe banaaye
pahle se hi tadap raha thhaa aur mujhe tadpaaye
jaane tamanna kar na aise sitam
kuchh na main boloon tujhe meri kasam
aayee jawaanee sar pe mere
tere bin kya karoon jawaanee pe raham
aaja na chhoo le meree chunaree sanam
kuchh na main boloon tujhe meri kasam
chunaree chunaree
chunaree chunaree
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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