Preet kee saanchee hai reet
Posted on: July 8, 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 special song from a Costume film of the first decade of the Talkie Films. The film is – Asiai Sitara-1937.
This song is a special song for two reasons. First, it is a song which is 89 year old and secondly, it is sung by a Non Indian. This film was produced by Harshad and Jagtap productions, Bombay. The film was distributed by Wadia Movietone. It was directed by Haribhai Desai. Music was by Master Mohammad for the songs written by Pt. Anuj. The cast of the film included Master Vithal, Jenabai Pawar, Ibrahim, Veena Devi, Minu the Mystic, Master Dhulia and others.
The year 1937 was a year of Revolution for the newly started Talkie Film. Initially the films were mainly based on Folk tales, Parsi dramas and Mythological stories. 1937 was a year in which the Film industry was trying to drop its old skin and don a New Avtar. From this year, a variety of subjects were used to make films. If we briefly look at some path breaking, landmark films using Novel themes, we will understand how the film industry was attempting to change itself.
The newly established Minerva Movietone made a film on the importance and benefits of Celibacy in the film ‘Atma Tarang’.
Some artistes made their Debuts in 1937, like Ghulam Mohd.,MD for film Banke Sipahi, Comedian V H Desai in film Captain Kirti Kumar, Kishore Sahu in fil Jeevan prabhat, the eternal Mausi of Hindi films, Leela Mishra debuted in film Gangavataran. This was also a Debut film for Dadasaheb Phalke in making a Talkie film. David made his Debut in ‘Zambo-the ape man’.
Prakash films tried their hand at Stunt films with ‘Challenge’ and ‘His Highness’, using Veterinary actors like Dogs, Horses and a Motorcycle. Prabhat’s iconic film ‘Duniya Maane na’ shook All India audiences with its story. Shanta Apte sang an English song in it. Bombay Talkies made its first and last Mythological film ‘ Savitri ‘ with Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani.
Gangavataran was a film made by Dadasaheb Phalke. It was his First, the only and his last Talkie film too.
Imperial made India’s first indigenously made First colour film-Kisan Kanya. With this film, however, Master Nissar ended his ‘Hero’ ship as an actor.
Wadia Movietone made India’s first songless talkie film,’Naujawan’, facing the ire of its audience for ‘cheating’ them !
‘Zambo – The Ape man ‘ became the first Tarzan type Indian talkie film, beginning a new Genre !
Maadan theatres Calcutta pulled its shutters down with their last Talkie film’ Zinda Bhoot ‘.
1937 was real path breaking for 2 solid reasons….
One, for the first time, Playback singing started in a Bombay film with ‘Mahageet’. The song was sung by Anil Biswas, its MD and it was filmed on Hiren Bose, in the role of a beggar, near a crematorium (Smashan Bhoomi), as per book ‘ Music without Boundaries’ by Dr. Ashok Ranade,pp183-186.
Secondly,for the first time, in an Indian film successful special effects were used in film ” Khwaab ki Duniya ” -a film by Prakash Pictures, based on the popular novel “The Invisible Man” by H G Wells. A Hollywood film by the same name was made in 1933. The trick scenes in this Indian film were as good as the Hollywood film. Credit goes to Babubhai Mistri for creating the actions of an Invisible man , on the screen. He was nicknamed ” Kala Dhaga ” after this film.
Here are some more films of 1937….
Atma Tarang…. Minerva movietone’s first film. A resounding flop. Only 20 people for the first show !, Anath Ashram….By New Theatres, Calcutta, Asiai Sitara….By Haribhai Desai. Remake of his own silent film of the same name. Jenabai Pawar, wife of actor Zunzar Rao Pawar, an Anglo Indian (Jena Lawson) was Heroine and she sang few Hindi songs also.
Banke Sipahi… Debut of Ghulam Mohd. as M.D., Bhishma….First remake of a Tamil film of 1936.Music was by Mukhtar Begum., Buldog….Indurani as heroine and singer., Captain Kirti Kumar….Debut of comedian V.H.Desai, Dharm veer and Prem Veer….Both films by Huns Pictures of Master Vinayak, Duniya Na Maane….Prabhat film on social evil., Gentleman Daku…Double role of Leela Chitnis., Guru Ghantal…. Debut of Om Prakash (Uncredited), Hurricane Hansa…. Nadia in Wadia’s stunt film., Insaaf…. First film of total 7 films with the same Title., Wahan….First film by Prabhat on a story from another planet.
Some other noteworthy films were….Izzat, Jeevan Prabhat, Khan Bahadur, Khudai Khidmadgar, Kisan Kanya, Mahageet, Moti ka Haar, Naujawan, Pratibha, President, Qazzaq ki Ladki, Shadi ka mamla, Toofani Tarzan, Vidyapati and Wahan.
After the initial surge of the films made on mythology, parsi fantasies and folk tales, the adventurous filmmakers moved on to make films on social issues, comedy, stunts, social reforms, history, love stories and religious personalities. From 1935, the rise of stunt films in talkie versions (thanks to Fearless Nadia) gave rise to a genre, which lasted till the 1960’s. After that, it faded into a natural death. Nowadays, all the heroes do the stunts themselves, but their films are not called stunt films.
However, the audience, which was accustomed to films of fantasy, costume and folk tales, still existed, so on and off such films too were made by older film makers. The film ‘Asiai Sitara’ was also one such costume film. This was a film originally made by Haribhai Desai of Surya Film Company, Bangalore, as a silent film in 1932. In those days, Bangalore was the main city in South Circuit, so many big film distributors (mostly Gujaratis) had their offices in Bangalore. After the demise of silent films, most of them closed their distribution offices and jumped into talkie film making in Bombay. Some prominent distributors were, Dr. Ambalal Patel and Chimanlal Desai (started Sagar Movietone), Ramniklal Shah (started Mohan Pictures, Ramnik Films etc.) and Haribhai Raghunath ji Desai (started Surya Film Company in Bangalore itself).
The story of Haribhai Desai is very interesting. He was born in a very wealthy family of a village near Kutch area of Gujarat. He was very intelligent and completed his graduation in Bombay. The silent film industry was developing very fast. Haribhai decided to jump into it. To get his fundamentals strong, he went to America and did his graduation from New York Institute of Cinematography. Coming back to India, he took up a job as a manager in Laxmi Pictures and later in Suvarna Pictures of Poona. With this experience and few distribution contracts, Haribhai landed in Bangalore and set up his shop as a distributor.
Very shortly, in 1929, he established his own film production company – Surya Film Company at Bangalore, which was his main aim in life. He went to Kolhapur, hunting for talent. Kolhapur was an important film making centre in those times. There, he found Ganapatrao Baakre (गणपतराव बाकरे) – a very handsome, well built wrestler and a daredevil stunt actor working in Baburao Painter’s Maharashtra Film Co. He also noticed another very good looking young man, with good physique, working in stunt films for free (he was from a rich family). He was Zunzar Rao Pawar झुंझार राव पवार). His real name was DK Pawar, but was called by this name after his role in a successful company. Haribhai needed good and well known actors. He lured them with higher salaries and brought them to Bangalore. Ganpat Rao was paid Rs.1000 pm in those days.
Production of silent films started rapidly. Their first film was ‘Raj Hriday’ (1929). It was released in four theatres in Bombay in October 1929. The publicity of this film was handled by Kikubhai Desai (father of Manmohan Desai). Film pamphlets were showered on Bombay city from an aeroplane, as an advertising gimmick! No doubt the film ran to houseful audiences in all theatres. In a very short time both actors from Kolhapur became very popular and famous. Surya Films made about 40 silent films.
Meanwhile Zunzar Rao Pawar fell in love with an Anglo-Indian girl – Jena Lawson, who was looking for an entry in films. They got married and she became Jenabai Pawar. Haribhai was not the one to lose such opportunities. He made two films with Jenabai Pawar as the heroine. The first was ‘The Hawk’ (aka ‘Baaz Bahadur’, 1931) and the other was ‘Asiai Sitara’ (1932). She did not work in more films. Soon Baakre and Pawar family returned to Kolhapur, after four years in Bangalore.
When the silent era ended and talkie films flourished, Haribhai closed Surya Films and went to Bombay. There, he remade his two successful silent films, made with Jenabai Pawar, as talkie films, with the same heroine. ‘Baaz Bahadur’ was made in 1936 and ‘Asiai Sitara’ was made in 1937. Now that these were talkie films, Jenabai also sang in the film. She sang four songs in each film. Considering she was not Indian, the songs were reasonably good. Earlier the silent films had Ganpat Rao Baakre as the hero, now in talkie films, Master Vithal was the hero.
Today’s generation has no idea what position Master Vithal held in the minds of the Indian audience in those days. Stunt films were very popular and Master Vithal, with his handsome looks, muscular physique and daredevil stunts was extremely popular. I am perhaps one of the very few remaining now, who has seen his film. I only remember one scene from that film, in which Master Vithal jumps from a tree onto an open car, fights with the goons and takes away the heroine, who promptly embraces him. I neither remember the name of the film nor of the heroine. She might be Zebunnisa.
Master Vithal (1906-1969) was the first superstar of silent films. He also has the credit of being the hero of the first talkie film of India ‘Aalam Ara’ (1931). He got this role only because of his unparalleled popularity in silent films. He was the first ‘Angry Young Man’ of Indian cinema in the 1920s and the 1930s. His films were full of stunts, fighting and daredevil acts. Master Vithal was very handsome with a very muscular physique. He was the ideal of many aspiring young actors like Bhagwan.
So, when Bhagwan became a stunt film hero and a director, his ardent wish was to act with Master Vithal or direct him. By 1940, Master Vithal was almost a gone actor, with very few Hindi films. So when Bhagwan got him to act in his film ‘Naghma e Sehra’ (1945), both Bhagwan and his close friend C Ramchandra were extremely excited. CR not only gave music to this film, but also did playback singing for Master Vithal and fulfilled his wish.
Master Vithal who was not very comfortable with Urdu dialogues, was no more interested in doing Hindi films anymore, so he did films very selectively. He acted in 8 silent films till 1934 and 16 talkie Hindi films till 1946. He even gave music to a film ‘Kashmir Ki Kali’ (1946), and also acted in it. All this after ‘Aalam Ara’.
Master Vithal is in history books as the first hero of the first Hindi talkie film and also has to his credit the introduction of a double role (by Shahu Modak) in a Bilingual film ‘Aawaara Shehzada’ (1933), which he directed (‘Autghatkecha Raja’ in Marathi). Master Vithal himself was the first to do a double role in the silent film,’Prisoner of Love’ (aka ‘Raj Tarang’, 1927), made by Sharada Films.
Master Vithal acted in a total of 92 films – Hindi, Marathi, talkie and silent. He also directed two talkie films – one each in Hindi and Marathi. In one of his interviews, he regretted his decision to shift to Kolhapur in 1946 permanently as, he felt, this reduced his Hindi film participation. He had constructed a big chawl in Kolhapur and in his retirement years, he lived on its rental income. He died in 1969.
Haribhai Desai did not do any more Hindi films. He was active in Gujarati films as a writer and director. He even made a Telugu film as a director. The film was ‘Bhaktimala’ (1941). It was made on the theme of Devadasi tradition of Maharashtra, where maidens are married to God. Actress P Bhanumathi did the main role. The film proved to be a great hit in the south and remakes in southern languages were also made. This is considered a milestone movie in Telugu films.
Here is today’s song, sung by Jenabai Pawar. Enjoy the old style charm….
Song- Preet kee saanchee hai reet (Asiai Sitaara)(1937) Singer- Jenabai Pawar, Lyricist- Pt. Anuj,MD- Master Mohammed
Lyrics:
Preet kee saanchee hai reet
Preet kee saanchee hai reet
yahee to pyaare
Preet kee saanchee hai reet
gul ??? saara apne chaman ko
gul ?? saara apne chaman ko
aayega ??gulzaar bechaara
aayega ??gulzaar bechaara
Preet kee saanchee hai reet
pyaaaare ae ae
?? gul ne ye kee fariyaad jo jaa ke ae
Nabi ??
aa aa aa aa aa
chand katre ?? bahaaoon oon
aa aa aa aa aa aa aa a a
?? tar ban ke
lage kahne ye baanee ee ee
ke hawa aa aa aa
dard e ka gul ka sada rahte hain ?? bedaad
ham bhee to hain birha ke maare
ham bhee to hain birha ke maare
soojhe na aadampaar (?) bechaara
soojhe na aadampaar (?) bechaara
Preet kee saanchee hai reet
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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