Mohe na bachcha kehna
Posted on: April 28, 2026
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 a child song from the social film Das Baje-1942.
Actually there were 2 films having this same title. The other film Das Baje or 10 O’ Clock was made in 1958. It was a Crime thriller. Then there was also a film titled 11 Baje or 11 O’Clock made in 1948. This was a Stunt film. Topping the clock another film called 12 O’Clock or Bara baje was made in 1958. This was also a Crime thriller.
When Silent film making was in full swing in the 20s and 30s, there were as many as 217 film making companies, spread over different centres like Bombay, Poona, Kolhapur, Nashik, Calcutta, Madras, Bangalore and Lahore mainly. Not all were very active, but few big companies like Madon, Prabhat, Maharashtra, British Dominion, Imperial,Kohinoor, krishna, Sagar, National, Sharda, Laxmi, Surya and United were some of the leading companies, based on their number of films produced. Not all the film makers had their own studios, they used to get the films made in others’ studios.
After the advent of the Talkie and the end of making silent films, most of these 217 film companies closed down. However big companies like Imperial, Prabhat, Maharashtra, Kohinoor, krishna, Ranjit etc had their own studios and they started making Talkie films regularly. As the film industry grew bigger some more studios like Bombay Talkies, New Theatres, Pancholi etc came up and flourished. newer studios kept on coming. Some outside filmmakers like Ramnik lal Shah and Haribhai Desai from Bangalore came to Bombay and started their studios for making Talkie films. All of them flourished in the growing market.
Each studio had its own culture, rules and a battery of actors, directors, MDs etc on monthly pay rolls. Some big studios like Ranjit had, at one time, more than 700 people on its rolls. The Indian Government had even opened a Ration shop, inside their compound for the benefit of employee families. New Theatres, Bombay Talkies and Prabhat too had a sizable number of staff on its rolls. The studios had their own shooting facilities, about 3 to 6 shooting floors, props etc. in all these studios, there always was a Father figure, who controlled all the matters of the studio. For example, Baburao painter for Maharashtra film co., V Shantaram for Prabhat, Chandulal Shah for Ranjit, Sohrab Modi for Minerva, Himanshu Rai for Bombay Talkies, Chimanlal Desai for Sagar, B N Sircar for new Theatres, Dalsukh Pancholi for Pancholi, Lahore etc etc.
As the years passed by, the studio system became weak. There were many reasons. Two of the main reasons were..1. During the war period a lot of Black money flowed into film production. producers, Financiers and the Distributors became dictators in star selection, story, music…everything. They lured big stars from other studios by offering much more money. Thus the studio system slowly became a freelance contract system. 2. a more important reason was that due to the short sightedness, autocratic behaviours, use and throw attitudes, bad decisions/habits of the owners, many well known studios were deserted by its stars. Due to gambling of the owners, Sagar and Ranjit studios crumbled and due to Ego clashes of Titans, New Theatres was destroyed. Some stars felt that Prabhat and Minerva took undue advantage of them and new actors did not want to get tied up with one studio.
Reportedly, some studio owners were infamous for cheating their stars while signing contracts. Names that are involved in this are that of Sohrab modi (Meena Shorey, Jyoti), W.Z.Ahmed of Shalimar studios (Sitara Kanpuri ), V.Shantaram (Shanta Apte, B.Nandrekar and S.Purushottam).
When the studios broke up, they gave way to new establishments. Sagar gave way to National and mehboob studios, Bombay Talkies fragmented into Filmistan, N R Achaya films and later filmalaya, New Theatre directors started their own companies like Bimal Roy, Barua, Nitin Bose etc., Prabhat made way for Rajkamal, Nene production, Alhad Chitra of Dharmadhikari etc.
The year 1942 was an eventful year for the Hindi cinema industry. The age old studio system had started crumbling and clever and ambitious directors started leaving studios to establish their own set up. Among these, the prominent were a group of disgruntled and dissatisfied artiates from Bombay Talkies, consisting of S. Mukherjee, Raibahadur Chunilal, Ashok Kumar, Sawak Wachha etc, who left and established a new entity named Filmistan. Then there were Mehboob Khan, A.R.kardar, V.Shantaram with their loyalists, Homi Wadia who left their parent studios and made new beginnings with their own studios. New Theatre, Calcutta lost Debki bose, P.C.barua, K.L.Saigal, K.N.Singh, Kidar Sharma etc.
C.Ramchandra, Minu mujumdar and Vasant desai became independent Music Directors. Kamal Dasgupta started his Hindi film with “Jawab”. Suraiya, hemant kumar, manna Dey, Jagmohan Su7rsagar, Nurjahan and madhubala sang their first hindi songs as Playback singers. Besides these, many new actors, singers and directors too made debuts. In all this activity, major studios like Prabhat, New Theatres, Bombay Talkies, Wadia and Sagar suffered irreparable losses, but the maximum damage was done by the exit of V.Shantaram from Prabhat Film co.
This was the beginning of the fall of the filmmaking Giant in India. When Shantaram left, a new film was about to start shooting. Shantaram’s assistant in Prabhat, Raja nene got the opportunity of independently directing the new film-“Das Baje’- a bilingual in Hindi and Marathi ( दहा वाजता in Marathi). Along with Raja nene, a child artiste Baby Shakentala also made her Debut. She was selected by Damle, one of the directors and to accommodate her in the film, an existing younger brother’s role was converted to younger sister’s role in the film. She not only became famous but even her songs , both in Marathi and Hindi also became popular.
The year 1942 was an eventful year for the Hindi cinema industry. The age old studio system had started crumbling and clever and ambitious directors started leaving studios to establish their own set up. Among these, the prominent were a group of disgruntled and dissatisfied artiates from Bombay Talkies, consisting of S. Mukherjee, Raibahadur Chunilal, Ashok Kumar, Sawak Wachha etc, who left and established a new entity named Filmistan. Then there were Mehboob Khan, A.R.kardar, V.Shantaram with their loyalists, Homi Wadia who left their parent studios and made new beginnings with their own studios. New Theatre, Calcutta lost Debki bose, P.C.barua, K.L.Saigal, K.N.Singh, Kidar Sharma etc.
C.Ramchandra, Minu mujumdar and Vasant Desai became independent Music Directors. Kamal Dasgupta started his Hindi film with “Jawab”. Suraiya, hemant kumar, manna Dey, Jagmohan Sursagar, Nurjahan and Madhubala sang their first hindi songs as Playback singers. Besides these, many new actors, singers and directors too made debuts. In all this activity, major studios like Prabhat, New Theatres, Bombay Talkies, Wadia and Sagar suffered irreparable losses, but the maximum damage was done by the exit of V.Shantaram from Prabhat Film co.
This was the beginning of the fall of the filmmaking Giant in India. When Shantaram left, a new film was about to start shooting. Shantaram’s assistant in Prabhat, Raja nene got the opportunity of independently directing the new film-“Das Baje’- a bilingual in Hindi and Marathi ( दहा वाजता in Marathi). Along with Raja nene, a child artiste Baby Shakentala also made her Debut. She was selected by Damle, one of the directors and to accommodate her in the film, an existing younger brother’s role was converted to younger sister’s role in the film. She not only became famous but even her songs , both in Marathi and Hindi also became popular.
Today’s film was made by Prabhat Film co.. It was directed by Raja Nene and the music was by Keshavrao Bhole. The cast of the film consisted of Urmila, Paresh Banerjee, Vasant Thengadi, Baby Shakuntala, Ganpat rao and many others. The film was written and the lyrics were by Pt. Mukhram Sharma ‘Ashant’. He used to write ” ashant ” (अशांत ) after his name. During the shooting of this film Sharmaji fell in love with a Marathi actress Prabhat-Shanta Mujumdar and they got married. After marriage, Sharmaji stopped using the name ” Ashant ” after his name. Possibly Shantabai, his new wife, gave him Shanti !
In today’s film, there were two artists who were part of ‘Same Name Confusion’. One was actress Urmila and the other was the Debutante child actress of that time Baby Shakuntala. We will talk about Shakuntala today.
Right from the beginning of the films,child artistes were required to do roles in the films. In the initial stages and also in later periods too, girls used to do Boys’ roles ( but rarely vice versa ! ). We have the famous examples of Honey and Daisy Irani sisters. Many child stars acted in films till they became older or were not suitable for child roles. It was quite natural that most of them wanted to continue acting in films as an adult too and many tried to become heroes/ heroines. Unfortunately, only some of them could shine as heroes or heroines, while most child stars failed as adult Hero/Heroines.
Successful child artistes are few like Meena Kumari, Madhubala,Nargis, Shashi kapoor, Sachin etc, but you can count them on fingers, whereas the list of unsuccessful child artistes who tried to become adult Hero/Heroines is quite long.
Unlike Baby Tabassum, who could not become a successful adult Heroine in good films, there was another ‘Baby’ Who became quite successful as an adult Heroine opposite well known actors under famous banners and left halfway due to her marriage. Her name is BABY SHAKUNTALA.
Baby Shakuntala was born in a middle class Maharashtrian family of Poona, on 17-11-1932. Those days Prabhat film company had moved to Poona. One of the Prabhat founder partners, Mr. V.G.Damle was their close relative. Along with other children, she too used to go to Prabhat premises to play there. She was 8 to 10 year old when V.Shantaram spotted her and offered a role in the film, ‘Das Baje’-42 ( Daha Vajta, in Marathi). The hero’s younger brother’s role was changed to Hero’s sister’s role to accommodate her in the film.
It was a routine matter at Prabhat that for child roles in all films, the children of the partners of Prabhat( Shantaram,Damle,Kulkarni,Fatehlal and Dhaiber) or near relatives were taken. In the film Sant Tukaram or other films of Prabhat, all child artistes were from within the Prabhat family only. Shakuntala was very good in studies.She used to get up at 4 am. do school studies, then do household chores, attend school and lastly attend shootings.
Das baje was a hit film. Then came ‘Ramshastri’-44 ( Bilingual-H/M ) meanwhile Shantaram and others left Prabhat and moved to Bombay. After that her work too shifted to Bombay. Due to these changes, she could study only upto Matriculation. But she was proficient in English, Marathi, Hindi/Urdu, Gujarati and Kannada. At the time of shooting for the film ‘Shikayat’-48, actor Shyam made her his “Mooh Boli” sister and till he died in an accident, he was very close to her.
In 1949, she was 17 year old and she became a heroine in the film “Maya bazaar”-49 opposite Balakram. Then came a string of films. She worked with well known actors like Kishore Kumar, Bharat Bhooshan,Karan Dewan, Amarnath, Anant Marathe, Master Bhagwan, Abhi Bhattacharya etc. She was also lucky to have worked under ace directors like V.Shantaram, Bimal Roy,Homi Wadia, Kishore Sahu, Raja Nene, Gajanan Jahagirdar,Shahid Lateef etc. This enriched the depth of her acting.
Kishore Kumar was her Hero in films like, Chham Chhama Chham- 52, Fareb-53 and Lehren-53. They had a good tuning like a naughty brother and sister. Once Kishore Kumar surprised her by visiting her in her Kolhapur house ( after her marriage) and spent one day with her family. The famous Kishore Kumar- Lata Mangeshkar song “aa muhabbat ki basti basayenge hum” from film Fareb-53 was filmed on Kishore and Shakuntala only.
Lot of marriage proposals started coming for her and she finally was married in 1954 to Sardar Nadgonde of Kolhapur, from a Royal family. After marriage she left films, though she had good demand and became Mrs. Umadevi Nadgonde. She had a son and a daughter. She lived a contented life of 82 years and died on 18-1-2015, at Kolhapur.
She acted in almost 40 Hindi films ( including bi-linguals) and 20 Marathi films from 1942 to 1954. She also acted in famous Marathi dramas on the commercial stage. 14 of her films celebrated silver Jubilees. Some of her films were- Das baje-42, Ramshastri-44,Piya Milan-45, Taramati-45, Bachpan-45, Bachhon ka khel-46 ( with Meena kumari), Phir bhi apna hai-46Moti-47, Tohfa-47, Shikayat-48, Seeta Swayamvar-4, maya bazaar-49,, kamal ke Phool-50, Pardes-50,Malti madhav-51 Nanhe Munne-52, Chham chhama chham-52, fareb-53, Lehren-53, Jhamela-53, bhagyawan-53, Biraj bahu-54, pooja-54, Bindiya-55 etc. ( Bio based on her interview in ” chanderi Aathavani ” by Sulabha Ternikar, obituary by TNN of 19-1-2015 and material provided by shri Harish Raghuvanshi ji, with Thanks.)
The story of this film was……
Asha (Urmila) and Dilip (Paresh Bannerji) study together in college and are in love with each other. While Urmila comes from a wealthy family, Dilip is poor but academically brilliant. His family consists of a young eight-year-old sister (Baby Shakuntala), whom he takes care of. Trouble arises when Urmila’s father wants her to marry Dr. Ramesh (Vasnt Thengdi), who comes from an equally wealthy family, and has just returned from abroad after completing his medical studies. Asha agrees to sacrifice her love at her father’s insistence and frail condition.
During the wedding ceremony, Asha faints and the marriage is postponed. Dr. Ramesh tends to her and she informs him of her love for Dilip. She then tells her father that she will only marry Dilip and he agrees. Dilip meets with an accident when he is struck by a car. He comes under Dr. Ramesh’s care who has to operate on him. For some moments, Dr. Ramesh is faced with either having the woman he loves or saving Dilip. In the end he goes with his conscience and operates successfully on Dilip.
Today’s song, though filmed on Baby Shakuntala, was sung by Manju (Jadhav) Dewan. Enjoy….
Song- Mohe na bachcha kehna (Das Baje)(1942) Singer- Manju (Jadhav) Dewan, Lyricist- Pt. Mukhram Sharma, MD- Keshav rao Bhole
Lyrics
Mohe na bachha kehna
mohe na bachha kehna
is dhokhe mein na rehna
mohe na bachha kehna
is dhokhe mein na rehna
main jaanoon baat tumhaaree
main jaanoon baat tumhaaree
daadee kee gupchup saaree
daadee kee gupchup saaree
gupchup
gupchup
gupchup
sachcha hai na kehna
sachcha hai na kehna
is dhokhe mein na rehna
mohe na bachha kehna
is dhokhe mein na rehna
main nanadee bholee bhaalee
main nanadee bholee bhaalee
tum bhaabhee nakhre waalee
tum bhaabhee nakhre waalee
ee
tum bhaabhee gusse waalee
bhaabhee bhaabhee bhaabhee
bhaabhee bhaabhee bhaabhee
bhaiyya ke kaan pakadna
bhaiyya ke kaan pakadna
mohe na bachha kehna
mohe na bachha kehna
is dhokhe mein na rehna
peechhe se god hamaaree
peechhe se god hamaaree
bachchon se bhare tumhaaree
bachchon se bhare tumhaaree
bachchon bachchon bachchon
(Child’s crying sound)
kam se kam darzan hona
kam se kam darzan hona
mohe na bachha kehna
mohe na bachha kehna
is dhokhe mein na rehna
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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