Rang rangeelee raat gaaye
Posted on: October 8, 2026
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, 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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‘Gardish’ (1993) was produced by R Mohan under the banner of Good Knight Films and was directed by Priyadarshan. The cast included Jackie Shroff, Aishwarya (debutant), Dimple Kapadia, Farida Jalal, Amrish Puri, Rakesh Bedi, Mukesh Rishi (debutant), Annu Kapoor, Anant Mahadevan, Tej Sapru, Shagufta Ali etc. The film was a remake of Priyadarshan’s hit Malayalam film, ‘Kireedam’ (1989). The Malayalam title derives from the Sanskrit word, ‘Kireetam’ which means crown. Probably, in Malayalam language, ‘t’ is phonetically pronounced as ‘d’ when it appears in-between a word.
R Mohan, the producer of the film was the owner of Transelektra Domestic Products which used to make Good Knight mosquito repellent. Hence, the display of ‘Good Knight’ appears at some places in the film. Incidentally, he sold his Good Knight brand to Godrej in 1994.
In the film, Shagufta Ali is presented as a dancer for one song whose face is familiar to me from her umpteen TV serials like ‘Parampara’ (1993), ‘Saans’ (1998), ‘Dishaayen’ (2001), ‘Sanjivani’ (2002), ‘Sasural Simar Kaa’ (2011) etc. I was not aware that she had acted in some Hindi films until I watched Tabassum’s Channel, ‘Tabassum Talkies’ in which she talked about Shagufta’s struggleful personal life. Later, I watched Shagufta Ali on Siddharth Kanan’s over 90 minutes of podcast which was uploaded about couple of months back on a video-sharing platform. In this podcast, she has talked in detail about her struggle, both financial and the health issue.
Shagufta Ali was the only child of mimicry artist and supporting actor, Shahid Bijnori. She was born on April 07, 1967, in Mumbai. When she was in her 10th standard, her father in his late 30s, fell seriously ill due to multiple blockages in his heart requiring bypass surgery. Since the family did not have wherewithal to finance the expenses, Dilip Kumar helped him getting bypass surgery done in a London hospital bearing not only the cost but also himself joining him in London to take care of him. After returning to India, her father was advised bed rest for a long period after which he was not to take heavy work. Dilip Kumar was taking care of his costly medicines after surgery as well as his family’s expenses.
Shagufta Ali felt that as the only child, she has to take care of her parents as she was feeling uncomfortable relying on outside financial support. One day, she visited Dilip Kumar’s house expressing her desire to work in any capacity so that she can contribute to the family expenses. At that time, she was talking in terms of working as a air hostess or receptionist in the office as she had no inclination to work in films. But Dilip Kumar assuming that she wanted to work in the films, put her in Madhumati’s dance and acting academy for getting trained as a dancer and an actor. She did not take any fees because her father Shahid Bijnori and Madhumati were part of Mohommed Rafi’s musical troupe. After completing her training, Dilip Kumar gave her a well-known Manager to get her assignments in the films.
Shagufta got her first role in a Telugu film, ‘Arun Kiranam’ (1986) in which she was the second lead actress to the lead actor, Rajasekhar. Her first Hindi film was ‘Geeta Ki Saugandh’ (1988) in which she had a supporting role. She got a small role as an adopted child of Dilip Kumar in ‘Kanoon Apna Apna’ (1989). She has worked in around 30 Hindi films which include ‘Inteha Pyaar Ki’ (1992), ‘Gardish’ (1993), ‘Divya Shakti’ (1993), ‘Hero No.1’ (1997), ‘Banarasi Babu’ (1998), ‘Sirf Tum’ (1999), ‘Gang’ (2000), ‘Laila Majnu’ (2018) etc. In addition, she has also worked in umpteen TV Serials since 1988 and currently, she continues to work in short films.
Despite working in films and TV serials since 1986, Shagufta Ali has been always struggling with her financial conditions. Much of her savings were utilized for her father’s illness requiring frequent hospitalisation after he develops stomach problems. Her grandmother who was staying with her also faced some health issues. Similarly, she herself has met with a couple of accidents. Sometime during 2002, Shagufta was diagnosed with stage -3 breast cancer. She kept it secret for two decades from the media in fear of losing acting assignments. It was only in 2021, she made known to the public of her breast cancer diagnose in an interview to E-Times TV. She could manage her expenses for the treatment until 2021. However, with the pandemic of Covid during 2020-22 her acting assignment got considerably reduced. She sold all her jewelry and car to take care of her medical expenses. She said that during this period, she got helped from those who were not known to her. After the end of the pandemic in 2022, she has started getting occasional acting assignments in short films.
‘Gardish’ (1993) belongs to the genre of crime drama in which Amrish Puri plays a principled and honest police constable as against his image of an antagonist in most of his films of that time. The condensed version of the film’s story is as under:
Shiva (Jackie Shroff) is the son of police constable, Purshottam (Amrish Puri) who dreams of his son becoming a police inspector. He is accordingly being groom for that career. He is engaged to Vidya (Aishwarya), the daughter of Prithviraj (Shammi Kapoor) as he has met one of her conditions for the marriage that he should be a fighter. The marriage will take place after Shiva becomes a police inspector. Purshottam is transferred to a notorious place in Mumbai for denying a politician’s son the illegal parking. The police station falls in the area controlled by a notorious criminal, Billa (Mukesh Rishi) who runs the illicit liquor dens and the extortion racket.
Purshotam reports at the police station of his new posting. He gets to know that almost entire police station is under the control of Billa. One day, while on a patrolling duty, Purshottam trashes Billa’s goons while collecting the extortion money. Billa arrives on the scene and brutally beats up Purshottam. Shiva, who is present at the spot, watches his father being badly trashed. In a fit of rage, Shiva fights with Billa and trashes him badly requiring his hospitalisation. Shiva runs away from the spot and hides in an unknown place when he comes to know that the person he trashed was Billa. Meanwhile, the crowd who have witnessed the brawl rejoice and sees Shiva as the emerging new don instead of seeing his action for the limited purpose of protecting his father. Shiva’s friends and other small-time criminals start extorting money in his name. His father Purshottam also sees him as a criminal shattering his dream of his son becoming a police inspector.
Police Inspector, Saini (Suresh Oberoi) who has a lot of respect for constable, Purshottam has been trying to shield Shiva from the charge of life-threatening assault on Billa who, after recovering in the hospital refuses to identify Shiva in his police statement because that will put Shiva in prison preventing Billa from taking revenge against him. Over a period of time, against his wish, Shiva gets dragged into confrontation with anti-social elements and on each occasion, he fights only to save himself from those elements. But the society as well as his father think that he has become a criminal. As a result, Shiva’s relation with his father goes down constantly at each incidence of his criminal activities which is forced upon him.
In this milieu, the only happy news for Purshottam is that Shiva has achieved the second rank in police recruitment examination and he has been selected for police training. He wants to convey this good news to Shiva personally who at the same time is being chased by the goons of Billa to eliminate him. Shiva fights with all of them injuring two of goons. He himself surrenders before the police and he is put in the lock-up. Shiva’s engagement with Vidya breaks as her father thinks that Shiva has now become a notorious criminal.
After fully recovering from his serious injuries, Billa is discharged from the hospital. Police Inspector, Saini advises Shiva after his bail to hide somewhere as Billa is after his life. Shiva takes refuse in Shanti’s (Dimple Kapadia) house whose husband (Raj Babbar) had got killed along with his minor son in the hands of Billa’s gang member while saving her from the attempted rape. Soon, Billa and his goons create rampage in the various localities to get the whereabout of Shiva. Even Purshottam and his family is not spared. Billa kidnaps Purshottam’s younger daughter to force him to bring Shiva to his door step.
After knowing his families condition, Shiva meets his father who tells him that this time he would himself recommend to tackle Billa. Shiva goes along with his father who hands over Shiva to Billa and gets his daughter released. After getting badly trashed by Billa, Shiva gets hold of an axe and kills him to his death. His father Purshottam tells him that he has now no regret that he is not going to become a police inspector because no police inspector would have done a job which he has done today to give a profound relief to the people from the atrocities of Billa and his goons.
The film ends with constable Purshottam submitting to Inspector Saini an adverse police verification report on Shiva for joining police training on the ground that he is a criminal in the eyes of law.
The film is an unusual crime drama as against the usual crime drama in Hindi films in which the protagonists become criminals to take revenge against criminal gangs who have killed the family members. In this film, it is the circumstances and the public’s perception which have destroyed the protagonist normal life by treating him as an emerging don while he fought with criminals only to protect his own and his father’s life. I regard the performance of Jackie Shroff in the film under discussion the best among his films which I have watched so far. Amrish Puri’s positive role in this film has given him the opportunity to display the various shades of emotions – as an ambitious father for his son’s career, outburst of anger and the conflicting emotions towards his son as a loving father as well as a strict disciplinarian.
The film had six songs written by Javed Akhtar which were set to music by R D Burman. All the songs have been rendered by S P Balasubramaniam and Asha Bhosle which sound good to my ears. Three songs have been covered on the Blog. I present the 4th song, ‘rang rangeelee raat gaayen aa jhoom le’. The song is rendered by Asha Bhosle and S P Balasubramaniam singing for Shagufta Ali and Jackie Shroff, respectively. The prelude music start with a gramophone playing a record signifying that it is a gramophone record dance song.
Shagufta Ali is the main dancer accompanied by professional dancers. The lead break dancer who first starts dancing with Shagufta Ali is Raju Sundaram, the younger brother of Prabhu Deva. The dance song may have been choreographed by Prabhu Deva, judging from the style of choreography displayed by the dancers. His name appears among the three choreographers in the credit titles of the film.
The context of the song is that after a fight with the notorious criminal Billa (Mukesh Rishi), Shiva (Jackie Shroff) goes missing after he comes to know that Billa is a notorious criminal in his area. After few days, Shiva returns home upon Billa giving a statement to the police that he is unable to identify the person who trashed him. His father, constable Purshottam (Amrish Puri) has put restrictions on Shiva not to go out of the house except along with a friend. So, he visits to meet his friends, Rakesh Bedi and others who drag him to a dance bar where Shagufta Ali is performing the dance along with other group dancers.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Rang rangeelee raat gaaye (Gardish)(1993) Singers-Asha Bhosle, S P Balasubramaniam, Male Voice, Lyricist-Javed Akhtar, MD-R D BurmanLyrics (Based on Video Clip) :
[Gibberish words] rang rangeelee raat gaayeaa jhoom le
phir ye pal aaye na aaye
aa jhoom le
seenon mein dhadhkan hai
aankhon mein rangeen duaa aa aa
aa deewaane dekh le
hotee hai kyaa deewaangee
wo bhee hai kyaa zindagee
jis mein naheen aawaargee
bru bru bru
hurra haa
hurra haa
hurra haa
hurra raka chika raka chika
raat kaa jaadoo naache
bottle mein daaru naache
jaan-e-jaan….
aankhon mein bas ke naache
main naachoon aur tu naache
jaan-e-jaan…
ho o
raat kaa jaadoo naache
bottle mein daaru naache
jaan-e-jaan…
aankhon mein bas ke naache
main naachoon aur tu naache
jaan-e-jaan…
ham se haseen naache
to ye zameen naache
ham se haseen naache
to ye zameen naache
naache ye aasmaan
la la la laa
la la la laa
la la la laa
parpaa parpaa
rang rangeeli raat gaaye
aa jhoom le
phir ye pal aaye na aaye
aa jhoom le
seenon mein dhadkan hai
aankhon mein rangeen duaa….
aa aa aa
aa deewaane dekh le
hotee hai kyaa deewaangee
wo bhee hai kyaa zindagee
jis mein naheen aawaargee
chaand sitaare jhoome
saare nazaare jhoome
jaan-e-jaan…aa
jhoome jo tum to ham bhee
ban ke tumhaaree jhoome
jaan-e-jaan…aa haa
ho o
chaand sitaare jhoome
saare nazaare jhoome
jaan-e-jaan…aa
para pa ra pa jhoome jo tum to ham bhee
banke tumhaaree jhoome
jaan-e-jaan…aa
pa pa ra pa pa ra ham jhoomen to dil jhoome
rastaa aur manzil jhoome
ham jhoomen to dil jhoome
rastaa aur manzil jhoome
jhoome ye karwaan a a aa
laa la
la lllaa
parapa
rang rangeelee raat gaaye
aa jhoom le
pa ra pa ra pa ra
phir ye pal aaye na aaye
aa jhoom le
aa aa aa aa aa aa
seenon mein dhadkan hai
aankhon mein rangeen duaa
aa deewaane dekh le
hotee hai kyaa deewaangee
wo bhee hai kyaa zindagee
jis mein naheen aawaargee
rang rangeelee raat gaaye
aa jhoom le
phir ye pal aaye na aaye
aa jhoom le hey
seenon mein dhadkan hai
aankhon mein rangeen duaa aa aa aa
hey hey hey
aa deewaane dekh le
hotee hai kyaa deewaangee
wo bhee hai kyaa zindagee
jis mein naheen aawaargee
October 8, 2026 at 10:09 pm
Aishwarya is Julie Lakshmi ‘s eldest daughter. From Lakshmi ‘s first marriage to Bhaskaran. She has acted in all the 4 South Indian languages and Hindi. In serials, too. Dubbing artiste as well. Had a very troubled personal life.
On Thu, Oct 8, 2026, 08:30 Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi
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