Mera dil dil dil meree jaan jaan jaan
Posted on: April 11, 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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Today, April 11, 2026, is the 86th birthday of Ameeta, who regaled the Hindi film audience through her films of 1950s and 1960s, both in leading as well as in side roles. She came into prominence with box office successful films, ‘Tumsa Naheen Dekha’ (1957) and ‘Goonj Uthi Shehnai’ (1959) in leading roles and in ‘Mere Mehboob’ (1963) in a side role. But luck was not in her favour and despite the initial success with her good acting prowess, she could not achieve stardom.
Ameeta (real name: Qamar Sultana) was born on April 11, 1940, in Kolkata to Choudhary Riaz Ahmed and the stage and film actress, Shakuntala Devi, probably her screen name. Shakuntala Devi belonged to a Lahore based family of Kashmiri origin whose brother, Aslam Pervez was one of the top actors of Pakistani film industry. When Ameeta was of about one year, her father passed away. Her mother shifted to Mumbai and completed her schooling in a boarding school.
From her childhood, Ameeta had become the fan of Madhubala. One day when she was replicating the sword fight of Madhubala in ‘Baadal’ (1951), director, Lekhraj Bhakri saw her and he promptly selected her in a side role in his film, ‘Thokar’(1953) in which she was given a screen name of Jaijaiwanti. In the same year, Vijay Bhatt of Prakash Pictures signed her in a lead role opposite Bharat Bhushan in ‘Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’ (1953) for which he gave her new screen name, ‘Ameeta’. It may be noted that her name as Ameeta appears in the cast of ‘Kaafila’ (1952) and ‘Anmol Sahaara’ (1952) which gives an indication that Ameeta may have signed the film after ‘Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’ (1953) but released early.
Ameeta’s first film as a lead actor failed at the box office forcing her to accept lead and side roles in a few ‘B’ grade films such as ‘Amar Kirtan’ (1954), ‘Baadal Aur Bijlee’ (1956), ‘Baaghi Sardaar’ (1956) etc. During this period, Naseem Bano introduced Ameeta to Sashadhar Mukherjee of Filmistan and she got a side role in ‘Ab-E-Hayat’ (1954), ‘Munimji’ (1955) and ‘Ham Sab Chor Hain’ (1956). She was promoted as lead actor in Filmistan’s three films – ‘Abhimaan’ (1957), ‘Zamaana’ (1957) and ‘Tumsa Naheen Dekha’ (1957), the last-named film becoming a box office hit. But it did not help much for Ameeta to achieve the stardom while Shammi Kapoor who was struggling to establish himself as a star suddenly got himself in the list of top Hindi film stars. Her other film ‘Saawan’ (1957), in which she was paired with Bharat Bhushan was an average success.
After the success of ‘Tumsa Naheen Dekha’ (1957) Ameeta continued to get the lead roles in Filmistan’s films, ‘Ham Bhi Kuchh Kam Naheen’ (1958), ‘Sanskaar’ (1958), ‘Aangan’ (1959), ‘Maine Jeena Seekh Liya’ (1959) and also some more films under other banners. But these films did not fare well at the box office. Once again, Prakash Pictures selected her as the lead actress opposite Rajendra Kumar in ‘Goonj Uthi Shehnai’ (1959). The film became a musical blockbuster. However, Ameeta’s excellent performance was ignored while after this film, Rajendra Kumar became the jubilee stars of Hindi films.
The tremendous success of ‘Mere Mehboob’ (1963) in which Ameeta had a prominent side role did not help her in getting work in big budget films. By mid 1960, Ameeta had shifted to lead roles in ‘B’ grade films like ‘Samson’ (1964), ‘Namaste ji’ (1965) etc. The box office success of ‘Samson’ (1964) seems to have tagged her as the heroine of ‘B’ grade action films and she got some more films with Dara Singh. Probably, these developments may have discouraged top film makers to cast her as the lead roles in their films. She was seen more as the leading lady for Dara Singh and Mehmood. She paired with Dara Singh, in ‘Samson’ (1964), ‘Saat Samandar Paar’ (1965), ‘Ham Sab Ustad Hai’ (1965), ‘Sangdil’ (1967), ‘Kabhi Dhoop Kabhi Chhaon’ (1971) and ‘Mera Shikaar’ (1973).
Towards the second half of 1960s, Ameeta had started accepting negatives roles in films like ‘Rishte Naate’ (1965), and ‘Aasra’ (1966) and working in side roles to new heroines, Rajshree in ‘Around The World’ (1967) and to Babita in ‘Haseena Maan Jaayegi (1968). After her marriage with Kamran, who was already married to Menaka Irani with two children, Farah Khan (1965) and Sajid Khan (1970), she virtually retired from the film industry after working in about 50 films. Sabeeha (1972), her daughter made her debut in ‘Anokha Rista’ (1986) in a supporting role with Rajesh Khanna and Smita Patil in lead roles. She worked in 10 films between 1986-95. The only film I saw of her was ‘Khiladi’ (1992) in which she has given a good performance as a friend of the heroine, Ayesha Jhulka. She bid her goodbye to Hindi films in 1995 and joined the Saudia Airlines as Air Hostess. (Note: The life profile of Ameeta is mainly sourced from the blog, ‘Beete Hue Din’ for which I thank Shishir Krishna Sharma).
On the occasion of Ameeta’s 86th Birthday, I have picked up a song from the film, ‘Sangdil’ (1967) in which she was paired with Dara Singh. The film was produced by Manohar Deepak and was directed by Dharam Kumar. The supporting cast included Madhumati, Manohar Deepak, Anwar Hussain, Surendra, Shammi, Shakuntala, Satish, Saudagar Singh, Paul Sharma, Rajnath, Dilip Dutt, Johny Whisky, Indira, Bhagwan etc. As of now, the film is not available on any video sharing platform though video clips of all the five songs are available.
The film had five songs written by Naqsh Lyallpuri which were set to music by G S Kohli. Three songs have been covered on the Blog. I present the 4th song, ‘meraa dil dil dil meree jaan jaan jaan’ rendered by Asha Bhosle who sings for Ameeta on whom the song is picturised along with Dara Singh. The song has been composed in a typical O P Nayyar style. And why not; G S Kohli had been assisting O P Nayyar for many years.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Mera dil dil dil meree jaan jaan jaan (Sangdil)(1967) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyricist-Naqsh Llayalpuri, MD-G S Kohli
Lyrics (Based on the Video Clip):
meraa dil dil dil
meree jaan jaan jaan
mere sapnon kaa sangeet ho tum
jo pyaas labon ko choom gayaa
wo pyaar kaa pehla geet ho tum
meraa dil dil dil
meree jaan jaan jaan
mere sapnon kaa sangeet ho tum
jo pyaas labon ko choom gayaa
wo pyaar kaa pehla geet ho tum
meraa dil dil dil
meree jaan jaan jaan
mere sapnon kaa sangeet ho tum
pyaar kee barsaaton mein do dil
phool bane muskaaye
armaanon kee dhoop mein dekho
ek huye do saaye
ek huye do saaye
ye dhulee dhulee see fizaaey ye hawaa
ye ghulee ghulee see ghataaon mein nashaa
mujhko pyaar kee beqaraar kee
baaghon mein kho jaane do
meraa dil dil dil
meree jaan jaan jaan
mere sapnon kaa sangeet ho tum
jo pyaas labon ko choom gayaa
wo pyaar kaa pehla geet ho tum
meraa dil dil dil
meree jaan jaan jaan
mere sapnon kaa sangeet ho tum
chhed chhed kar jaayen mujhko
mast hawaa ke jhonke
aaj meree zulfon ke baadal
uden deewaana ho ke
uden deewaana ho ke
kyaa tere nazar ke ishaaron ne kahaa
le chalee kahaan ye bahaaron kee adaa
raah mein haseen manzilen milin
jhoom gaye deewaane do
meraa dil dil dil
meree jaan jaan jaan
mere sapnon kaa sangeet ho tum
jo pyaas labon ko choom gayaa
wo pyaar ka pehla geet ho tum
meraa dil dil dil
meree jaan jaan jaan
mere sapnon kaa sangeet ho tum
aaa aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aa aa aa
aaa aa aa aa aa
ho o o o
ho o o o
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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