Matwaale pal ye kar gaye paagal se
Posted on: September 25, 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.
Today’s song is the last and final song from a ‘ Middle of the road’ type of comedy film Safed Jhoot-1977.
The film, directed by one of my favourite directors- Basu Chaterjee, had music by a less known M.D.- Shyamal Mitra. The cast of the film included Ashok Kumar, Vinod Mehra, Mithu Mukherjee, Deven Verma, Vidya Sinha, Manik Dutt, Aroop Ganguly (son 0f Ashok Kumar), Pradeep Kumar as a Guest artist and Amol Palekar in a ” Friendly appearance”- whatever it means ! There were many Bengali actors in supporting roles. The producer (Ashim Kumar), Director and the Music Director too were Bengalis.
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In the year 1977, two directors were very active. One – Manmohan Desai, who made highly commercial and entertainment oriented films, while the other Shyam Benegal was into combining the ” Middle of the road” films with a commercial angle.
Manmohan Desai’s 4 films came this year – Amar Akbar Anthony, Dharam Veer, Parvarish and Chacha Bhatija. All were very successful and had famous and popular stars in his films.
I feel Manmohan Desai, Nasir Hussain and Master Bhagwan (of the 40s and the 50s) were of the same clan. All 3 used only One story, by making minor changes like names, background and stars in their films. One common factor among them was that almost all their films were Hits. Was it due to their skills or luck ? I guess it was a solid mix of both !
This year the ‘Parallel’ or ‘middle of the road’ films did an excellent business. There was Bhimsen’s Gharonda, Basu Chaterjee’s Swami, Safed Jhoot and Khatta Meetha, Rajashree’s Dulhan wohi jo Piya man bhaye and Benegal’s Bhumika. All films made their mark. Like manmohan desai, Nasir Hussain also came with Hum kisi se kam nahin. In this race Gulzar fell flat with his film Kinara. Despite having Jeetendra and Hema Malini, the film was not popular at all.
The first Hindifilm of Satyajit ray Shatranj ke khiladi and Krishna Shah’s Shalimar did not gain much approval from the audience.
Bhumika was the first ever film made on the real life of a film actress -Hansa Wadkar. Her Marathi autobiography -” Sangtye Aika” (listen to me) was the basis of this film. Next such biographical film on an actress was “Zubeida” made on the life of actress Zubeida Jr, (not the Alam Ara fame wali) in the year 2000. Benegal’s film Bhumika was preceded by his other films like Ankur-74, Nishant-75, and Manthan-76. However his second film in 1977 – Kondura failed miserably.
1977 held an International Film Festival in Delhi. Amrit Nahata remade his burnt down film Kissa Kursi ka and released it again. There was a strike by Dancers and Musicians of the industry for an increase in wages.
The film Safed Jhoot-1977 was a remake of a Bengali film “Chhutir Phandey”-1975, directed by Salil Sen. The meaning of Chhutir Phandey is Trapped in a Holiday or Chhutti ke Phande mein or Holiday Trap. The original film was also popular. But the difference was in the Golden touch of Basu Chaterjee to the Hindi film. Let us now see what the story of the film was……
A newly married couple, Vinod Thakur (Vinod Mehra) and his wife Anita Prakash (Mithu Mukherjee) plan for their honeymoon in Kashmir. His boss, Baldev Gulati (Ashok Kumar), MD of a TV manufacturing company, promotes him as CEO. The boss also informs him that he would be on tour and in his absence he remains in the office. He gives him the new responsibility of the advertising campaign for the marketing of their new Television. Because of the urgency of the campaign, he has cancelled leaves of all staff for the next two months. Vinod is in a dilemma as on the one hand, he has got promotion and on the other side, Anita will be very much disappointed as he has promised her to take leave for their honeymoon In Kashmir on the very next day of their marriage.
Vinod gets an idea from his secretary and decides to take sick leave for a week with a doctor’s certificate at least to go for the honeymoon in Panchgani. Next day, Vinod and Anita leave for their honeymoon by car for Panchgani. Since all the hotels are fully booked, they take shelter in Government Circuit House where the Caretaker, Suleman (Deven Verma) tells them that only one room is available for a night. In the evening, Suleman brings the register to enter the details of the guests when Vinod gets a shock to read that the room in which he is staying is booked for Gulati, his boss for the next day. Suleman assures him that he will shift them in the adjoining room for the next day’s stay.
Next day, Vinod shifts to the adjoining room which has a smaller bathroom than the one they had occupied earlier. Suleman has informed that there is some uncertainty about Gulati’s visit and he has not yet turned up. Anita decides to take a bath in their earlier room which has a much bigger attached bathroom, by entering that room through a common door between the two rooms. Vinod has gone out to do some shopping while Anita takes bath. When she has just completed her bath covering herself with a towel, Gulati enters the room with his baggage. Anita is caught in a piquant situation as she cannot come out of the bathroom and go to her room to change the dress.
Suleman meets Vinod as he arrives from the market and informs him that Gulati has arrived and his job is at stake if he comes to know about his mismanagement of the room’s unauthorised allotment. Vinod assures him that he would manage the situation. He talks to Anita through the bathroom window and tells her to go to her room, passing through the room in which Gulati is sitting. Since he has not seen her, he will not come to know about his presence. If asked by Gulati, explain to him that she used his bathroom as there was no hot water in the bathroom of her adjoining room.
With no alternative, Anita presents herself in front of Gulati who is shocked by her presence in his room. She explains as tutored by Vinod. But Gulati’s many counter-questions put her in discomfort. She introduces herself as Vinodini and is unmarried. She has come from Mumbai to Panchgani alone. However, a glance through her room gives him a suspicion that she has come with someone else, probably her boyfriend and without the knowledge of her parents. He puts her in his surveillance until he leaves for Mumbai during which he will drop her to her Mumbai residence.
Vinod is now homeless. Suleman has temporarily given him his kitchen to stay. Anita is almost as good as under house arrest. During daytime, Vinod roams in his car when he accidentally meets his friend, Amol (Amol Palekar) who is going with his troop in a bus for staging a drama in the night. He requests him to act as a cousin of Anita and visit the Circuit House in the pretext of taking Vinodini back to his house in Panchgani. He also keeps Suleman informed so as to avoid confusion.
In the Circuit House, Gulati and Vinodini (earlier Anita) exchange their backgrounds. Vinodini is a graduate and she was under training for Hindustani classical singing. Gulati is happy because he is also a trained Hindustani classical singer as a hobby. He tells her that he has a meeting in the afternoon and he wants her to accompany him for the meeting to help him in writing the minutes of the meeting. He also asks her to carry with her tanpura so that after the meeting, they can indulge in some classical singing near the lake. Vinod and Amol follow Gulati while going to their meetings.
Next day, Amol gatecrashes Gulati’s room when he is having tea with Vinodini and introduces himself as Amol known by his pet name, Ramu. He has come to take Vinodini to his house in Panchgani. As usual, Gulati asks many counter questions and goes out to check the veracity of his claims. Amol feels uncomfortable and runs away before Gulati returns to his room. With this, Gulati’s suspicion about Vinodini is confirmed. Having failed in his attempt, Amol introduces Vinod to a local goon (Manik Dutt) who with his henchmen will get Anita released from the clutches of Gulati by threatening him. However, this plan also fails as his henchmen find both Gulati and Anita gone out for a stroll.
During their stroll, Gulati reveals to Vinodini as to why he is so protective about her. Her face reminds him of his younger sister, Kamla (Vidya Sinha) to whom he was not only an elder brother, but tended her also as mother and father as he had passed away when Kamla was a child. He remained unmarried to take care of Kamla. When she grew up, she ran away with a boyfriend to get married to him. After a few days, she was killed by her boyfriend as he did not want to marry her.
With the failed mission of the goon, Vinod does not want to go ahead with goon’s plan to harm Gulati to free Anita/Vinodini. But the goon is adamant as, for him, Anita is like Seeta who needs to be freed from the clutches of Ravan. They go ahead with their plan but this time, in the night. Anita gets an opportunity to run away from her room and is united with Vinod. They stay in a different hotel. The goon’s henchmen knock at Gulati’s door who opens the door with a revolver in his hand. Seeing his revolver, the henchmen run away. Gulati also finds that Anita is missing from her room. He suspects the handiwork of Amol and lodges a FIR with the police station about Amol’s men who may have abducted Vinodini. He also publishes the photograph of Vinodini in the newspapers.
Next morning, police pick up Anita/Vinodini and Vinod from their hotel room and take them to the police station to record their statement assuming them to be Vinodini and Amol. While Vinod is freed as he has his driving license to prove that he is not Amol, Anita is held up in the police station assuming her to be Vinodini.
Gulati returns to Mumbai and attends his office. After some time, Vinod also resumes office. Anita’s father (Pradeep Kumar) after seeing his daughter’s photograph in the newspaper visits Gulati’s office. Vinod meets Gulati and hands over his resignation letter for misleading him. At that time, Anita’s father (Pradeep Kumar) enters Gulati’s cabin. The police also present Anita before Gulati. With all present in the cabin, things get cleared as Anita’s father introduces Anita and his son-in-law Vinod who were planning for the honeymoon. With misunderstanding cleared, Gulati tears off Vinod’s resignation letter and grants them a week’s leave for their honeymoon.( Thanks to Sadanand Kamath ji, for this story.)
Films directed by Basu Chaterjee always made you laugh, entertain and teach you some truths of Life which you have overlooked. Personally, my most favourite film of Basu Chaterjee was ” Chameli ki Shadi”-1986, followed by a list of at least 20 other films by him . Now let us know more about the less known Music Director- Shyamal Mitra….
SHYAMAL MITRA (14 January 1929 – 15 November 1987), Bengali Singer, Composer and Producer. Along with Hemanta Mukherjee and Manna Dey, he was the most notable musician of the golden era of Bengali music industry. His baritone voice reflected a range of emotions. Besides recording a huge number of popular Bengali basic songs, he also worked as a playback singer in more than a hundred Bengali movies and directed music in more than fifty Bengali films. He also sang in various other Indian languages, like Hindi, Assamese and Oriya.
Shyamal Mitra went to Mumbai in the early fifties with Salil Chowdhury. He worked in three films: Musafir, Biraj Bahu, and Naukri. In 1973, he again went to Mumbai. He worked in Shakti Samanta’s films, like Amanush, Anand Ashram, F.C.Mehra’s film Bandi, Basu Chatterjee’s films like Safed Jhoot, and Mamta. He came back to Kolkata again and created many hit tracks in both Bengali basic and film songs.
Shyamal Mitra gave music to 5 films composing 25 songs. The films were- Amanush-75, Safed Jhoot-77, Mamta-77, Anand Ashram-77 and Bandie-78. He sang 8 songs in 8 films like Naukari-54, Biraj Bahu-54, Musafir-57, Anjane Mehmaan-75, Amanush-75, Safed Jhoot-77, Mamta-77 and Anand Ashram-77. Shyamal Mitra died on 15 November 1987, leaving behind his wife Protima Mitra, son Saibal Mitra and Saikat Mitra, daughter Monobina.
Here is the last and final song from today’s film, sung by Asha Bhosle. This makes the film YIPPEED !
Audio
Video
Song-Matwaale pal ye kar gaye paagal se (Safed Jhhoothh)(1977) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyricist-Yogesh, MD-Shyamal Mitra
Lyrics:
hmm hmm hmm hmmhmm hmm
la la la la
la la
matwaale pal ye
kar gaye paagal se
kya jaane
mausam ne
likh diya kaajal se
matwaale pal ye
o mere saathhee
o mere apne
teree in baahon mein
sach honge sapne
wo sapne
chun kar main
baandhoongee aanchal se
matwaale pal ye
apnee mastee mein
main hoon khoyee see
kuchh main jaagee see
kuchh hoon soyee see
apnee mastee mein
main hoon khoyee see
kuchh main jaagee see
geet naye
goonj rahe
ab meree paayal se
matwaale pal ye
ye mehkee mehkee
har pal raat dhaley
aa ab mil jaayen
hum tum aaj galey
ambar mein
jaise milen
baadal baadal se
matwaale pal ye
kar gaye paagal se
kya jaane
mausam ne
likh diya kaajal se
matwaale pal ye
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