Bedardee arre bedardee
Posted on: July 9, 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.
| Blog Day : | 6565 | Post No. : | 20444 |
Today’s song is from the film Aandhi-1940.
The film was made by New Theatres, Calcutta. It was directed by Dinesh Ranjan Das. Music was by K.C.Dey and the Lyricists were, Aarzoo, P.Nautiyal and Rasheed Gorakhpuri. The cast consisted of Pankaj Mullick,Molina Devi, K.C.Dey, Khursheed, Nemo, Shyam Laha and others.
The year 1940 was the end of the first decade of Talkie films. From 1931 to 1939 most of the film music was made and sung by people who were experts in Classical Music. Classical music has never been the area of common people. It was born in Temples and nurtured in the Darbars of Kings and Nawabs. When film music relied heavily on classical mode, it became an imposition on the masses. Luckily, from the last 2 years of the 30’s, film music started changing and the emphasis shifted to traditional and Folk tunes over the classical.
1940 saw the emergence of Naushad with his first film ‘ Prem Nagar”, as an independent MD. He is the one who advocated the combination of classical with Folk music and this was accepted by other MDs. More people now turned to film songs.MDs like Naushad, Anil Biswas, C Ramchandra, Saraswati Devi, Gyan Dutt, Pankaj Mullick and their followers in the later part of the 40’s changed film music upside down.
National Studios emerged from the merger of Sagar Movietone and Mehboob gave his blockbuster milestone film ” Aurat”. Himanshu Rai died untimely and the reigns of Bombay Talkies came into the hands of Devika Rani. Ranjit brought more popular films from its factory. Though there were signs of slow death, New Theaters still continued with musical films. Prabhat brought its third successive Saint film ‘ Sant Gyaneshwar”. Wadias looked after their Stunt films with fearless Nadia and John Cavas.
In the south, SSVasan started his Gemini Studios. Master Vinayak and P K Atre started Navyug Films. In August 1940, there was a big fire in New Theatres leading to heavy losses. The use of Harmonium was banned on A.I.R. Due to War Times, Raw Film controls were given to the Film Advisory Board. It also gave rise to Black Marketing of Raw film, in addition to already existing Rationing, and a new class of rich investors emerged in the film industry shaking its established Studio Systems and Culture.
The year 1940 made only 86 Hindi films, less than 100 for the consecutive third year in a row. Let us take a look at some important films of 1940.
New Theatres film Aandhi had good music and songs, Bombay Talkies continued with Ashok Kumar and Leela Chitnis with the film Azaad, but it was not as popular as Jhoola, Kangan and Bandhan, A dubbed foreign film -“Azadi E Watan” was the only Hindi film for which Malika Pukhraj had sung 2 songs. Ranjit’s Achhut tackled a social evil, with good songs composed by Gyan Dutt. A Stunt film of Shankar Vazare ” Aflatoon Aurat” had an English song in it. Sagar’s last film ” Alibaba” by Mehboob was released. “Aurat” , a Landmark film by Mehboob for National Studios was the origin of its remake ” Mother India’57’. Film ‘ Bharosa’ by minerva was based on an Incest story. Sirco’s offering ‘ Geeta’ had a crime story, with double roles of Chandramohan and Durga Khote. Prakash Pictures film ‘Narsi Mehta’ had Sant Tukaram fame Vishnupant Pagnis and some good bhajans. Film Usha Haran saw the Debut of Sitara Devi. Film Zindagi from New Theatres had very good songs by Saigal.
There was a time, when in India, there were3 major filmmaking centres. One of them was New Theatres, which produced Hindi films- mostly as remakes or bilinguals in Hindi and Bangla. Though there were about 20 film makers in Calcutta, the most prominent was New Theatres. It was established by B. N.Sircar.
During the period from 1931 to 1955, New Theaters was one of the premiere film production companies of India. This was not only a commercial organization, but also a school for developing new talents in the fields of acting, direction, cinematography, editing, sound recording, costume designing and other departments of filmmaking. Almost all who learnt from here, became big names in their later careers. It was here that the artists were encouraged to become editors from cinematographers, and directors from editors. Names like Nitin Bose and Bimal Roy are enough to prove this point.
The company also invested a fortune in developing new techniques and new traditions in every field of film making. Because of these, this premiere Bengal studio became a veritable institution and a promoter of talents that largely influenced the whole course of Indian films. In addition to this, New Theaters gifted the style of film songs introducing the Prelude and the Interlude.
Its biggest contribution, however, was the ‘Playback System’ of songs in the films. Birendranath Sircar, founder proprietor of New Theaters sustained it for 35 years, holding a record of making 177 films under this banner. The nearest ever to come was Sardar Chandulal Shah’s Ranjit Movietone, Bombay with 175 films ! New Theaters was also making films in Hindi and other languages from the beginning.
In 1928-29 BN Sircar founded International Filmcraft and made two silent films. Then the company closed. He then established New Theaters in February 1931 as a family concern, holding all shares within the family and becoming its Managing Director. He employed artists and technicians on monthly salaries. His first success was ‘Chandidas’ (1932). In the same month he and IA Hafiz ji (who later married actress Ratan Bai) went on an all India tour to appoint distributors for his Hindi films to capture the Indian market. In this tour, he appointed distributors in Madras, Madurai, Trichinapally, Erode, Bangalore,Poona, Bombay, Cawnpore (now Kanpur), Lucknow, Kangra Valley and Lahore. The entire Eastern India and the North East was already in his pocket. Such was his vision !
The film business in Bengal was dominated by Marwadi and Gujarati communities. Some of them were – Lal ji Haridas had distribution rights of all major Bombay film companies, Bajranglal Khemka owned East India Film Co., Radha Kishen Chauria owned Radha Film co., Babulal Chowkhani had Bharat Laxmi pictures. All of them realized that making only Bangla films was not enough, making films in Hindi and other languages was necessary for survival and growth. However, BN Sircar had an upper hand here, being ahead in multi language films !
Films based on famous and popular novels and the film songs and music were the strengths of New Theaters. Ms Panna Raii ji, the first one to do Ph.D on Indian films wrote that “Though I did not know Bangla, I loved to listen to the film songs”. New Theatres popularised Rabindra Sangeet throughout India, which otherwise rotted within Shanti Niketan walls, till then. This was also a tough winner on Bombay’s stale stage and drama songs. Audience soon chose film songs from New Theaters films and discarded Bombay songs in preference.
Directors like Pramathesh Barua, Phani Mujumdar, Debaki Bose etc made films which became hits. New Theaters was on the top during 1932 to 1940, holding the uncontested No.1 position. The first blow came to New Theaters when the second World War broke out in 1939. Due to rationing, raw film was allowed only for 6 films a year. At that point of time expenses of only the salaries of New Theaters studio was in the range of 45000 to 50000 rupees per month. Imagine how much it would be today at the current inflation rate. It would be about 11 lakhs per month !
In 1940 there was another blow to New Theaters in the form of the exit of Pramathesh Barua from the studio. Then on there was a string of actors, directors and Music Directors leaving New Theaters to join Bombay. Prithviraj Kapoor, Kedar Sharma, Nitin Bose, Debaki Bose, Kanan Devi, Uma Shashi (she ran away while shooting on sets to elope with her future husband), KL Saigal and many more left New Theaters. Added to it was the communal riot in 1946 in Bengal and India’s Partition in 1947. Many stalwarts left the company due to disputes with BN Sircar. Only Pankaj Mullick stayed there with him.
In the 1950’s New Theaters started going downhill. In 1954 New Theaters, due to the financial crisis, was handed over to Aurora Film Company. In January 1956 the company closed down and in 1962 it went into liquidation. It was the End of a Giant, a legend ! ( Information used herein is from article ” The glory that was-New Theatres ” by Sharmishtha Gooptu and from book ” सुंदर ती दुसरी दुनिया ” – a Marathi book by Ambarish Mishra, with Thanks, along with my old writings and notes, for this post ).
The heroine of today’s film was Molina Devi.
Molina being an uncommon name there was no other actress of this name. Molina Devi was born on 3-6- 1917. She received training in acting from Aparesh Mukherjee, and made her debut, at the age of 8, in a silent movie. She was acknowledged as one of the leading actresses of the Bengali stage, with her professional career spanning more than three decades.
In 1924, she debuted in a silent film while at the age of 8 and thereafter worked as dancer mainly in the mythological and historical plays. She performed some memorable roles in Bengali as well as Hindi films. She got a breakthrough in Puran Bhagat and Molina played the title role in the movie, Rani Rasmani. She took various roles, even vamps in her early career such as in Pramathesh Barua’s Rajat Jayanti in 1939. She also directed a Kolkata based theatre troupe, M. G. Enterprises.
Molina worked in Rangana theatre as chief artist. She performed as a singer on radio and contributed to the formation of Mahila Silpi Mahal, a welfare association for female artists of Bengal. Molina Devi’s high creative excellence had found expression in such diverse media as the stage, the film and the radio. As a founder of the M. G. Enterprise, now in its twenty-third year, has been responsible for the success of such well-known plays as ‘Thakur Sri Sri’, ‘Rani Rasmoni’, ‘Jagatbandhu’ and ‘Bholagiri’.
She had been honoured and decorated by many eminent organisations and learned bodies. For her eminence in the field of Drama and her contribution to its enrichment , Molina Devi received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Acting.
Her first husband was Jolu Boral and the second husband was actor Gurudas Banerjee.
Molina died on 13 August 1977 in Kolkata. She acted in 22 Hindi films. Her first Hindi film was Raaj Rani Meera-33 and last film was Babla-53. She also sang 11 songs in 4 Hindi films. some of her films were Karvaan e hayat-35,Millionaire aka karodpati-36, Manzil-36, Abhagin-38, Badi Didi-39, Aandhi-39, Arabian Nights-46, Swayam Siddha-49, Ratnadeep-51, Yatrik-52 etc etc.
Here is today’s song. HFGK mentions this song as sung by Pankaj Mullick and Radharani Calcutte waali, but the audio of the song is a solo song, sung only by Pankaj Mullick. Enjoy the song….
Song- Bedardi arre bedardi tu kya dekh na paaya (Aandhi)(1940) Singer Pankaj Mullick, Lyricist-P.Nautiyal, MD- K.C.Dey
Lyrics:
Bedardee
Arre bedardee
tu kya dekh na paaya
duniya thhee aabaad jo meree
ujad gayee
kuchh haathh na aaya
duniya thhee aabaad jo meree
luta chuka hoon
ganwa chuka hoon
tan man kee sudhh bhula chuka hoon
luta chuka hoon
ganwa chuka hoon
tan man kee sudhh bhula chuka hoon
prem ke badle dil kee laaj ko
prem ke badle dil kee laaj ko
bedardee
arre bedardee
tu kya dekh na paaya
duniya thhee aabaad jo meree
man kee ??bagiya
chhipe khazaane chale gaye ae ae
chale gaye ye kehke
na jaane
preetam
??
ban kee chidiya
suna aa aa de
taan
dil ka andhera
nainon mein aaya
andhkaar hai chhaaya
dil ka andhera
nainon mein aaya
andhkaar hai chhaaya
bedardee
arre bedardee
tu kya dekh na paaya
duniya thhee aabaad jo meree
ujad gayee
kuchh haathh na aaya
bedardee
Arre bedardee
tu kya dekh na paaya
tu kya dekh na paaya
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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