Hum kaise bataayen taqdeer ne humko
Posted on: April 23, 2026
This article is written by Peevesie’s mom, 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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Hullo Atuldom
With this post we wish Indian playback singer, and occasional music-composer, Sishtla Sreeramamurthy Janaki, (better known as S. Janaki) on her birthday on 23rd April. She turns 88 today.
She is one of the best-known playback singers in South India who has recorded nearly 48,000 songs in all the South Indian languages and Hindi, Sanskrit, Odia, Tulu, Urdu, Punjabi, Badaga, Bengali, Konkani etc. put together (I suppose) That is why I have called her INDIAN playback singer. She is also said to have sung in English, Japanese, German, and Sinhala. She is one of the most versatile singers in India. The language in which she sang the most songs in her career was Kannada, followed by Malayalam. She is widely acclaimed as the “Queen of Expression and Modulation”.
Janaki started her career in 1957, at the age of 19 with the Tamil film ‘Vidhiyin Vilayattu’ and recorded songs in six different languages in the same year. Her career has spanned over six decades, until 2016, when she announced her retirement from singing for films and stage appearances. She picked the Malayalam lullaby “Amma Poovinum” from ’10 Kalpanakal’ (a 2016 film) as the swansong of her 60-year singing career and retired on 28 October 2017 with a concert held at Mysuru. However, she returned in 2018, singing for the Tamil film ‘Pannaadi’.
She has won four National Film Awards for best playback singer (female); twice for Tamil films and one each in Telugu & Malayalam films. Plus she has numerous State Film Awards.
As I was going through the list of Janakiamma’s songs in Hindi, I found that many songs that she had sung for South Indian films in the earlier part of her career were dubbed in to Hindi and mostly recorded in own voice. The first time she sang an original Hindi song (meaning a song which was not dubbed from any other language) was for the Tamil film ‘Nandu’ {https://atulsongaday.me/2020/04/23/kaise-kahoon-kuchh-keh-na-sakoon/}. After this she sang for Bappi Lahiri in ‘Jeet Hamari’ (1983). Since then, till about 1996 we have had a regular dose of Janakiamma songs in Hindi (both original & dubbed from non-Hindi films).
I found it interesting that she has worked with the likes of Salil Chowdhury (in Malayalam which was dubbed into Hindi) as also O.P.Nayyar. That was in the Telugu film ‘Neerajanam’ (1989). That film was remade into Hindi as ‘Mangni’ in 1992 by the original producer R.V. Ramana Murthy with B.R. Ishara as the director. The songs in the Hindi film were written by Qamar Jalalabadi. The playback singers used were S. Janaki (addressed as Janakiamma by her followers/ admirers) & S.P. Balasubramaniam.
‘Mangni’ (1992) had Pallavi Joshi, Saahil Chadda, Raman Trikha, Raja Bundela, Satyen Kappoo, Tiku Talsania, Deepak Qazir, etc in the cast. IMDB.com also lists Mukesh Khanna & Shammi Kapoor in the list of actors of this film, could be that they were in guest or special appearances.
O.P. Nayyar had got the Nandi award (presented by the Andhra Pradesh state government) for the music of the film in Telugu as also Balusir & Janakiamma in the best singers categories. The film had a tragic love story and may be that is why it went unnoticed in its Hindi avatar.
Here is Wishing Janakiamma on her birthday.
Song-Hum kaise bataayen taqdeer ne humko (Mangni)(1992) Singer-S Janaki, Lyricist-Qamar Jalalabadi, MD-O P Nayyar
Lyrics
Hum kaise bataayen
taqdeer ne humko
aisa maara
qaatil nikla
preetam pyaara
preetam pyaara
kisse kahen haal apna
jab toot gaya har sapna
ab kisse kahen haal apna
jab toot gaya har sapna
hum haar gaye
din aaye bure
hum haar gaye
din aaye bure
kaise karen hum gila
hum kaise bataayen
taqdeer ne humko
aisa maara
qaatil nikla
preetam pyaara
preetam pyaara
kitne thhey khwaab sajaaye
aur kitne hee dhokhe khaaye
kitne thhey khwaab sajaaye
aur kitne hee dhokhe khaaye
lut kar bhee hum khaamosh hain
lut kar bhee hum khaamosh hain
yoon bhee koi na lute
hum kaise bataayen
taqdeer ne humko
aisa maara
qaatil nikla
preetam pyaara
preetam pyaara
hum kaise bataayen
taqdeer ne humko
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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