Zaraa dhholkee bajaao goriyon
Posted on: October 16, 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.
| Blog Day : | 6664 | Post No. : | 20630 | Movie Count : | 5287 |
‘Salma Pe Dil Aa Gayaa’ (1987) was produced and directed by Saawan Kumar. The cast included Ayub Khan, Saadhika Randhawa, Milind Gunaji, Kiran Kumar, Mohan Joshi, Mukesh Khanna, Shashikala, Pran, Tiku Talsania, Sonu Sagar, Shiva etc.
This was the last film Pran signed after which he refrained for signing the new films due to health issue after he suffered a heart attack in 1998. Even for this film, he was persuaded by Saawan Kumar to take the role of a holy man who became instrumental in bringing the peace after the decades of bloody rivalry between two Pathan tribes.
It is a well-known fact that whenever Pran takes an unusual character’s role, it becomes a common efforts of himself with his make-up man (mostly Pandhari Juker) and his wig maker, Kabir. First, Pran will study his character in detail. Some time, he would take the help of the artist to make a sketch of his character. Thereafter he would discuss with his make-up man and wing maker how he wants to look in his character. The whole exercise would take many sessions to finalise his make-up. In the film under discussion, Pran has done the role of a Pir of a dargah. His make-up with wig and beards and the costumes gives a real feel of a holy man rather than the actor, Pran.
Shashikala, who has acted in this film in the role of Dai Maa has described her experience when she faced Pran for the first time in this film on the set for a scene. She said that Pran’s presence on the set in the role of a Pir gave the vibration of the holiness due to his perfect make-up, costumes and the way he walked on the set. In this film, it was the first time, I watched Pran’s long monologue (around 5 minutes) in a very measured tone in the midst of two warring Pathan tribes ready for the bloodshed. Even if it was to be in the real life, his monologue would have taken the warring tribes towards reconciliation which they eventually did in the film.
The story of the film is as under:
Salma (Saadhika Randhawa), the daughter of Aatish Khan (Kiran Kumar), has been brought up by Dai Maa (Shashikala) when her mother passed away soon after her birth. Aatish Khan is very fond of Salma and for this reason, he has not remarried. Dilawar Khan (Milind Gunaji) is Aatish Khan’s nephew and his muscleman who takes care of protecting the tribal rules under which there can be no marriage between enemy tribes. Dilawar Khan has a soft corner for Salma but he is hesitant to express his feelings for her. Salma is very closed to her cousin, Shabana (Sonu Sagar) who is the sister of Dilawar Singh.
There is a decade old enmity between Aatish Khan and Sardar Gul Khan (Mukesh Khanna) as the former believes that it was Gul Khan who had killed his brother-in-law and Dilawar Khan’s father. Both belongs to different tribes and as such the enmity has spread between the two tribes.
One day, Salma, accompanied by Shabana attends the marriage of thier close friend, Shahnaz (Kannu Gill) where, as a playful matchmaking game, Salma is paired with Salim (Ayub Khan). Although it is only a game, both Salma and Salim get attracted to each other. During the wedding rituals, Salma and Salim meet each other at Mehndi ceremony and thereafter during the pre-wedding dance. With these meetings, both have fallen in love with each other without expressing it and without knowing each other’s family background. Dilawar Singh continues to have unrequited love for Salma.
One day, both Salim and Salma meet at Shah Sahab (Pran), a highly revered Pir (holy man) where they get introduced by Shah Sahab as Salim, the son of Sardar Gul Khan and Salma as the daughter of Aatish Khan. After introduction, Salim leaves in a huff. Apparently, Salim and Salma belong to two different tribal Pathan families who have a deep-routed enmity. Furthermore, romance before the marriage is forbidden as it is considered a sin. And Salim knows the repercussion of their love affairs on both sides of the tribes. Despite this, both decide to go ahead with their union assuming that their marriage may bring the reconciliation between the two warring tribes. In any case they also decide that the tribal hostilities can not separate them.
Salim reveals his love for Salma to his father who initially becomes very furious as for decades the enmity between the two tribal heads has resulted in many deaths. Salim feels that his Nikah with Salma will heel the wound of enmity. Sardar Gul Khan takes the permission from Sardar Angara Khan (Mohan Joshi), the leader of tribal council to meet Aatish Khan. In reality Sardar Angara Khan wants the enmity between the two tribes to continue to keep his dominance over both the tribes and he feels that Sardar Gul Khan’s meeting with Aatish Khan will add more sparks to their enmity.
In between, Dilawar Singh’s mother visits Aatish Khan asking for the hand of Salma for Dilawar Singh which he is happy to agree. Aatish Khan visits Sardar Angara Khan to take his permission for the Nikah of Salma with Dilawar Khan for which he readily give permission. Sardar Gul Khan meets Aatish Khan with a Nikah of his son, Salim with Salma, which Aatish Khan outrightly rejects on two counts. First, Salma’s Nikah with Dilawar Khan is fixed and second, even if it was not fixed, he can never think of sending Salma to be the daughter-in-law of a sardar of the enemy tribe.
On the day of Salma’s Nikah with Dilawar Khan, both Salim and Salma elope from their houses and move to a different tribal locality with the help of Salim’s trusted friend, Jabbar (??). Aatish Khan thinks that it is the handiwork of Sardar Gul Khan. Dilawar Khan proceeds in search of Salma accompanied by his gunmen. Jabbar has hidden Salim And Salma in a forest, away from his house. He advises the couple that it is not safe for them as he has seen Dilawar Khan with his gunmen searching for them. The only safe place for them to get shelter is Shah Sahab who is revered by all the Pathan tribes.
Dilawar Khan knows that Salim and Salma have taken shelter in Shah Sahab’s house but out of respect, he does not search the house but reports to Aatish Khan. Next day, Aatish Khan visits Shah Sahab and tells him firmly that both Salma and Salim have broken the tribal rules for which the punishment is death. Shah Sahab responds by saying that for that he has to kill him first. Aatish Singh leaves by saying that he will go to Sardar Angara Khan for getting justice from the tribal council.
In the tribal council meeting, Sardar Gul Khan and Aatish Khan attend the meeting. Shah Sahab also attends the meeting along with other members of the council. Sardar Angara Khan forcefully presents the case for punishing Salim and Salma for breaking the tribal rules. Other members of the council strongly support Angara Khan. Shah Shahab rise and gives a long sermon to tribal council members emphasising the need to bring peace in inter-tribal rivalries. He points out that when the two adult persons are passionately in love with each other why to talk about the punishment for the couple when they have potential to unite the two warring tribes. After tribal members consulting each other, they directs both Sardar Gul Khan and Aatish Khan to reconcile and convey their consent of the marriage personally to Salim and Salma.
The reconciliation between Sardar Gul Khan and Aatish Khan is not liked by Sardar Angara Khan as this would weaken his dominance over the tribes. He sends his son, Halaaku (Shiva Rindani) along with his armed Pathans to capture Salma. Dilawar Khan, now a changed man after the preaching of Shah Sahab runs toward the hiding place of Salma and Salim and forewarns them to run away.
With the arrival of Shah Sahab, Sardar Gul Khan and Aatish Khan, Salma and Salim’s Nikah ceremony is on course. However, during the pre-Nikah ceremony at Sardar Gul Khan’s residence, Sardar Angara Khan’s men throw bombs killing some guests. His idea is to create the rift between Gul Khan and Aatish Khan by blaming the bomb blast as the work of Aatish Khan to prevent their Nikah ceremony. However, when Halaaku kidnaps Salma and Dilawar Khan kills him to save Salma from kidnapping, it becomes apparent that it was Angara Khan’s strategy to foil the reconciliation.
Dilwar Khan is after Angara Khan when he comes to know that his father was killed by Angara Khan and he had put the blame on Gul Khan to create the tribal rift. At the end, a cornered Angara Khan concedes all his wrong doings in front of Shah Sahab and pleads with him for mercy. But Dilwar Khan kills Angara Khan as a retribution for killing his father. Salim and Salma’s are united and so are their two warring tribes.
The film had eight songs written by Saawan Kumar (3), Ravindra Jain (2), Shyam Raj (2) and Dev Kohli (1) which were set to music by Aadesh Shrivastva. The film makes its debut on the Blog with its first song, ‘zaraa dholkee bajaao goriyon’ rendered by Udit Narayan and Asha Bhosle who sing for Ayub Khan and Saadhika Randhawa, respectively. The song is written by Saawan Kumar. It is pre-wedding song for the bride, Shahnaz (Kannu Gill), who is a close friend of Salma (Saadhika Randhawa) during which she dances with her ‘matchmaking’ partner, Salim (Ayub Khan) along with others.
There is some background about the tune and lyrics of the pre-wedding song which was first composed and rendered by Adnan Sami along with Asha Bhosle for a Pakistani film, ‘Sargam’ (1995). This song became a runaway hit in Pakistan. Due to Pakistani Censor policies, in the soundtrack of the Pakistani film, the voice of Asha Bhosle was replaced by the voice of a Pakistani playback singer, Hadiqa Kiyani. The song is here. However, in the audio album of the film’s songs, the voice of Asha Bhosle was retained. In the lyrics, Saawan Kumar has retained a few lines of the original lyrics.
Sometime in 2000, Adnan Sami and Asha Bhosle collaborated for a non-film album titled, ‘Kabhi To Nazar Milaao’ in which the original song rendered by Adnan Sami and Asha Bhosle was included under the caption, ‘Dholki’. I have given the link of this NFS below for ready reference.
I do not know as to why Adesh Shrivastva has been credited as the music director for the song under discussion when the original tune composed by Adnan Sami for the Pakistani film has been used. There is no acknowledgement of Adnan Sami on the credit titles of the film for the song under discussion.
Audio Clip (NFS):
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Zara dhholkee bajaao goriyon (Salma Pe Dil Aa Gaya)(1997) Singers-Udit Narayan, Asha Bhosle, Lyricist-Sawan Kumar Tak, MD-Aadesh SrivastavaFemale Chorus
Male Chorus
All Chorus
Lyrics :
ta na na nata na na na
ta na na na
ta na na na
ha aa
haa aa
ha aa
haa aa
ae ae hey
zaraa dholkee bajaao goriyon
hamen naach ke dikhaao goriyon
haa aa
aaa
ha aa
aaa
ho zaraa dholkee bajaao goriyon
hamen naach ke dikhaao goriyon
naazuk kamariyaa se jhoom jhoom ke
zaraa thumkaa lagaao goriyon
ye ghadee hai milan kee
jaan se jaaneman kee
haa aa
haaa
ha aa
haaa
zaraa dholkee uthaao goriyon
inhen naachnaa sikhaao goriyon
haa aa
aaa
ha aa
aaa
zaraa dholkee uthaao goriyon
inhen naachnaa sikhaao goriyon
inhen naaz hai bahut khud par
inhen aainaa dikhaao goriyon
ye ghadee hai milan kee
ik sajan se sajan kee
ye ghadee hai milan kee
ik sajan se sajan kee
ta na na na
ta na na na
ta na na na
ta na na na
haay
kaajal bin ye kaalee aankhen
shaayad kaajal dhoondhh rahee hain
ha aa haa aa ha aa haa aa bin saawan ke barsegaa jo
aisaa baadal dhoondhh rahee hain
sadke teree chaal pe jaaun
teree adaaon pe mar jaaun
ha aa
haa aa
ha aa
haa aa
kisee vaid ko bulaao goriyon
inkee nabz to dikhaao goriyon
inkaa paara hai bahut chadhh gayaa
inkaa paara neeche laao goriyon
ye ghadee hai milan kee
ik sajan se sajan kee
ye ghadee hai milan kee
ik saajan se sajan kee
ta na na na
ta na na na
ta na na na
ta na na na
mehandee waale haathh pe tere
kis aashiq kaa naam likhaa hai
ha aa
haa aa
ha aa
haa aa
jisne dil ko pyaar sikhaayaa
us dilbar kaa naam likhaa hai
pakdee gayee hai ab teree choree
ab to sach sach kah de goree
ha aa
haa aa
ha aa
haa aa
inkee baaton mein na aao goriyon
inhen raastaa dikhaao goriyon
hamen nakhre na dikhaao goriyon
hamen apnaa banaao goriyon
ye ghadee hai milan kee
jaan se jaaneman kee
ye ghadee hai milan kee
jaan se jaaneman kee
ha aa
haa aa
ha aa
haa aa
zaraa dholkee uthaao goriyon
inhen naachnaa sikhaao goriyon
naazuk kamariyaa se jhoom jhoom ke
zaraa thumkaa lagaao goriyon
ye ghadee hai milan kee
jaan se jaaneman kee
ye ghadee hai milan kee
ik sajan se sajan kee
ye ghadee hai milan kee
ik sajan se sajan kee
ye ghadee hai milan kee
jaan se jaaneman kee
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