O moree raanee o morey raaja
Posted on: April 15, 2026
- In: "Raani" song | "Raja" song | Actor-Singer song | Duet | Feelings of heart | Guest posts | Kishore Sahu - Protima Dasgupra Duet | Kishore Sahu songs | Post by Arunkumar Deshmukh | Protima Dasgupta songs | Rare song | Songs of 1940s (1941 to 1950) | Songs of 1942 | Yearwise breakup of songs
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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 the film Kunwara Baap-1942.
This was the first film from the banner Acharya Art productions, Bombay. It was owned by N.R.Acharya, a director who left Sagar Movietone to start his own company. The film was also the debut film for its director Kishore Sahu as a director. He acted in 30 films and directed 32 movies. From 1947 to 1972 he directed 30 films in a row. He also produced today’s film, besides being the film’s Hero.
The Music Director was Ramchandra Pal, who was actually a Medical Doctor. The story, dialogues, Screenplay and few songs were by the well known writer and novelist Amritlal Nagar. He also acted in this film.The cast of the film was Kishore Sahu, Pratima Dasgupta, Anjali Devi (real name Durgesh), Master Dhulia, Moni Chaterjee, Nana Palshikar and others.
Hindi film industry is a funny place. Great stories of the world fail when made into films and some ‘made to order’ stories become so successful films that the subsequent film makers copy the films, with slight alterations. Sometimes identical titles have nothing in common and sometimes remakes are made with different titles – not matching the original one in any way.
There was a film ‘Kunwaara Baap’ in 1974 also, made by the comedian Mehmood. There was absolutely no similarity in the story of these films. Mehmood’s film was essentially based on Polio Protection, while the 1942 film was a total comedy. In this case only the title is the same, everything else is different. There is interesting information on ‘Kunwara Baap’ of 1942.
‘Bachelor Mother’ (1939) was a popular Hollywood film directed by Garson Kanim, with Ginger Rogers and David Niven in the lead. It was a story of a single girl, who finds an abandoned child and raises it. She is stamped as an unwed mother and many hilarious situations are created with her lover.
This film was copied by Kishore Sahu, who produced and directed it under the banner of Acharya Art Prodns. He was the hero and the heroine was Pratima Dasgupta. The film was ‘Kunwara Baap’ (1942). The theme was reversed here and the rich bachelor boy finds a child left in his car. Not finding its parents he decides to keep the child, which causes misunderstandings with his lady friend etc.
The noted Hindi novelist Amritlal Nagar (famous for his novels – ‘Boond aur Sagar’ and ‘Shatranj ke Mohre’ etc.) wrote the dialogues and lyrics of this film. He also acted in the film. Nagar had earlier written for the films ‘Sangam’ (1941) and ‘Kisi Se Na Kehna’ (1942). Later he also wrote for ‘Raja’ (1943).
This film became very popular. Later on many films in many languages were made on this theme. Even Hollywood made a remake called ‘Bundle of Joy’ in 1956 with Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Murphy in the lead.
The story of today’s film was….
Prannath finds an infant abandoned in his car on his engagement day. The finding leads to several comedic situations in the film. The film was inspired by the Hollywood film ‘Bachelor Mother’ (1939), directed by Garson Kanin and starring Ginger Rogers. The story was reversed in Kunwara Baap, with the hero getting landed with the child.
Prannath (Kishore Sahu) goes to the jewelry shop to buy a ring for his to-be fiancee. While he is in the store, an unwed mother leaves her infant in the back of Prannath’s car. When he comes out he realizes that he is stuck with the baby much to his discomfiture as his betrothed refuses to believe his story. The situation gives rise to several funny sequences till the villainous father of the child admits to being the real father and agrees to marry the mother of the abandoned child.
One of the actors in this film was Nana Palshikar. Those who have seen his acting in the famous film Kanoon-1960, can never forget him. Nana Palshikar aka Narayan Balwant Palshikar (20-5-1908 – 1 June 1984) was a film actor who appeared in over 125 Hindi films. He made his film debut in 1935 with Dhuandhar, and went on to play character roles in both Hindi mainstream and New wave films. He was also cast in small parts in a few international productions such as Maya (1966), The Guru (1969) and Gandhi (1982). Palshikar was awarded the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, in 1962 and 1965. He was recognised with an award in the same category by the Bengal Film Journalists’ Association in 1965.
Palshikar made his first film appearance in 1935 along with Leela Chitnis in Sukumar Chatterjee’s Dhuandhar. He appeared in two more films in this decade, Kangan and Durga (1939), both of which were produced at the Bombay Talkies production house and were the two final films directed by German director Franz Osten.
After a long break of 14 years, during which he appeared only in two films Bahurani (1940) and Maali-44, he returned to the screen in Bimal Roy’s 1953 picture Do Bigha Zamin (Two Acres of Land), in which he played Dhangu Maheto, alongside actors such as Balraj Sahni and Nirupa Roy. The film was a major critical success and won several national and international honours. He followed it with supporting roles in other successful films of this decade, such as V. Shantaram’s Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje, Bimal Roy’s Devdas, Raj Kapoor’s Shree 420, Sombhu Mitra’s Jagte Raho and Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anari.
In 1960, Palshikar appeared in Kanoon, a courtroom drama involving a murder case. Directed by B. R. Chopra, the film saw Palshikar playing Kaalia, a petty thief who is caught and charged with murder for no fault of his own. Palshikar’s performance earned him his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. In a retrospective review in 2009, The Hindu noted: “the star of the second half is Nana Palshikar, who slips into the role of a petty thief with a commanding performance.”
In 1963, Palshikar appeared in Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s Shehar Aur Sapna (The City and The Dreams). It is a social film which portrays the struggle of pavement dwellers in the backdrop of rapid industrialisation. The film, a love story that takes place in a drain pipe, received the President’s Gold Medal Award and the National Film Award for Best Feature Film. Palshikar’s performance as Johnny earned him his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor, and he was acknowledged as Best Supporting Actor (Hindi) by the Bengal Film Journalists’ Association.
John Berry’s Maya (1966) saw Palshikar playing Sajid Khan’s father. In 1969, James Ivory cast him in the foreign co-production The Guru. Ivory said: “I didn’t know a great deal about him when we cast him… He was said to be a very good actor, which I took on faith.” Judith Crist from the New York Magazine described his small part of “The Guru’s Guru” in the film as “an unforgettable cameo”.
In the 1970s, Palshikar continued to portray father figures or authoritative characters such as judges. For instance, he played a father in many films such as B. R. Chopra’s Dhund, based on Agatha Christie’s play The Unexpected Guest in 1973 and Yaaron Ka Yaar in 1977. However, these roles were generally relatively minor and he was often uncredited for his performances, such as his role as a judge in Jwar Bhata in 1972.
He continued playing a father into the 1980s, appearing in Aakrosh (1980), playing Om Puri’s dad. His last major film was in the epic film Gandhi in 1982, a Richard Attenborough directed biographical film based on the life of Mohandas Gandhi, who led the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century. However, his role was very minor, playing a villager. His last appearance was in the film Kanoon Kya Karega, again playing a parent.
Nana Palshikar acted in 126 films in all. Not many people know that he had written a song in the film Maali-1944.
He died on 1 June 1984 in Bombay, aged 77. ( Thanks to Cinerang by Isak Mujawar for this post along with muVyz, wiki and my notes.)
In the Hindi film industry, there have been many literary giants who dabbled with film making in various capacities like acting, story writing etc. Most of such giants were soon disillusioned and left the films with a vow never to try it again. One such glaring example is that of Mushi Premchand ji. But there were also some who succeeded in films. One such name is AMRITLAL NAGAR.
He was one of the exceptional literary giants who excelled in literature and also was successful in Hindi film industry. After reading what he had achieved in the Hindi literary world, I am sure, you will be amazed. He wrote
13 Short story books
14 Novels
6 Satires
7 Plays
21 Children’s books
6 Translations from different languages and also edited
7 Periodicals.
Amritlal Nagar won 18 awards for his works from different organisations and states in India. When he entered the Hindi film world, he wrote stories, screenplays, dialogues and lyrics. He also did acting in some films. Some of the films in which he was involved in different capacities were ‘Bahurani’ (1941), ‘Sangam’ (1941), ‘Kunwara Baap’ (1942), ‘Uljhan’ (1942), ‘Kisi Se Na Kahna’ (1942), ‘Raja’ (1943), ‘Paraya Dhan’ (1943), ‘Kalpana’ (1946), ‘Gunjan’ (1947) and ‘Chor’ (1950).
Amritlal Nagar (17 August 1916 – 23 February 1990) was one of the prominent Hindi writers of the twentieth century. He started off as an author and journalist, but moved on to be an active writer in the Indian film industry for 7 years. He worked as a drama producer in All India Radio between December 1953 and May 1956. At this point he realized that a regular job would always be a hindrance to his literary life, so he devoted himself to freelance writing.
Often cited as the true literary heir of Premchand, Amritlal Nagar created his own independent and unique identity as a litterateur and is counted as one of the most important and multi-faceted creative writers of Indian literature. In the words of famous critic, Dr. Ram Bilas Sharma,”Undoubtedly, Amritlal Nagar will be remembered as an important novelist. For me, he is a very major sculptor of fiction.”
Amritlal Nagar’s real genius lay in the art of developing a range of characters in his stories and novels. Commenting on his distinctive ability to operationalize a story at many levels in complex and multi-dimensional ways, another prominent writer and critic of Hindi, Shreelal Shukla notes, “Rather than imposing his own personality on his character, Nagar ji dissolves himself in the character and in the process, he absorbs at the experiential level, all of those complexities that even the simplest characters nurture in the forms of anxieties and knotted puzzles. This work can only be done by a major creative writer.”
Nagar was born on 17 August 1916 in Chaurahe Wali Gali, Gokulpura, in a Gujarati Nagar Brahmin family in Agra, India. He died on 23 February 1990 in Chowk, Lucknow, India. His parents were Rajaram and Vidyawati Nagar. He first published a poem in the fortnightly Anand in December 1928. The poem was inspired by a protest against the Simon Commission in which Amritlal suffered injury during lathi charge.
He married Pratibha (original name Savitri Devi alias Bitto) on 31 January 1932. They had four children (Late Kumud Nagar, Late Sharad Nagar, Dr. Achala Nagar and Smt. Aarti Pandya).
Nagar worked as a dispatch clerk in the Lucknow office of All India United Insurance Company for 18 days. He provided voluntary services to the publication division of the Nawal Kishore Press and the editorial office of Madhuri in 1939. From December 1953 to May 1956 he worked as a drama producer in Akashvani (All India Radio), Lucknow, but resigned from this position so that he could focus all of his time and attention to his literary pursuits.
From 1940 to 1947, Nagar wrote screen plays and dialogues for the film industry in Bombay (now Mumbai), Kolhapur, and Madras (now Chennai). He was one of the early pioneers specializing in cinematic dubbing that involved the art of translating films of one language into another. He dubbed the films ‘Naseeruddin in Bukhara’ and ‘Zoya’ from Russian and MS Subbulakshmi’s ‘Meera’ from Tamil into Hindi. [Adapted from Encyclopedia of India Cinema, Hindi Sahitykar.com, wiki, IMDB, CITSF and my notes].
Here is today’s song, a duet by Kishore Sahu and Pratima Dasgupta. Enjoy….
Song- O moree Raanee O morey Raaja (Kunwaara Baap)(1942) Singers- Kishore Sahu, Protima Dasgupta, Lyricist- Not known, MD- Ramchandra Pal
Lyrics
O moree Raanee
O morey Raaja
O moree Raanee
O morey Raaja
prem ?? rehne waale
?? hai begaanee
prem ?? rehne waale
?? hai begaanee
man mein reh kar bhee meree raanee
man kee baat na jaanee
man mein reh kar bhee meree raanee
man kee baat na jaanee
O moree Raanee
O morey Raaja
O moree Raanee
O morey Raaja
man kee baat man hee jaane
prem ??
man kee baat man hee jaane
prem ??
??
?? aaja
?? aaja
diya jalaaye ??
lage na rain suhaanee
diya jalaaye ??
lage na rain suhaanee
tum bin(?) sajnee kise sunaaoon
tum bin(?) sajnee kise sunaaoon
apnee prem kahaanee
apnee prem kahaanee
O moree Raanee
O morey Raaja
O moree Raanee
O morey Raaja
sang sahelee chhod ke aayee
sang sahelee chhod ke aayee
?? raaja
hamre man kee ??
hamre man kee ??
sun le aur sunaa jaa
sun le aur sunaa jaa
O moree Raanee
O morey Raaja
O moree Raanee
O morey Raaja
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
April 15, 2026 at 3:32 pm
Good Afternoon Sir ji.
Thanks for sharing a good old duet.
Blessings
Uma🙏
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