Aaja aaja aaja sajan
Posted by: Atul on: November 1, 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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‘Raakhi Aur Hathhkadi’ (1972) ws produced by S. Noor and was directed by S M Sagar. The cast included Ashok Kumar, Asha Parekh, Vijay Arora, Raj Mehra. Anoop Kumar, Indira Bansal, Sudhir, Danny Denzongpa, Mumtaz Begum, Kundan, Reshma, Shivraj, Keshav Rana etc. Kabir Bedi, Nazima and Helen made their special appearances in the film. Asha Parekh had a double role – mother and daughter – in this film.
In an interview which appeared in ‘The Hindu’, December 19, 2013, Asha Parekh revealed that she backed and distributed the film thinking that it would be a big success but it could not last even 5 days. In another interview which appeared in ‘The Times of India’, May 29, 2008, she also revealed that she did, to a certain extent, choreography in the film.
The story of the film is as under:
The film starts with a temple priest performing the pooja where her minor daughter Janaki is giving him a company. A man (C S Dube) comes to the temple with a poisonous cobra which bites the priest killing him. The man kidnaps the daughter and sells to a brothel keeper Panna Bai (Indira Bansal). When Janaki (Asha Parekh) grows up, she is ready to perform dances but refuses to spend night with a wealthy man Vikram (Anoop Kumar). Panna forces her to spend the night with Vikram. Ramesh (Sudhir) who is a regular supplier of bangles to Panna Bai, saves Janaki from Vikram and they get married after taking into confidence, Munshi (Raj Mehra) who works for Thakur Virendra Singh (Ashok Kumar). Vikram is the brother-in-law of Virendra being the brother of his wife Ratna (Sulochana) and he stays with him.
After 14 years of their marriage, Ratna delivers a still-born baby. Janaki decides to help her by giving up her son, Sooraj to Virendra Singh. When Ratna finds a son born to her, she is overjoyed. Virendra assures Janaki that he will raise her son as his own. Since Vikram has threatened Janaki that he will make her life miserable, Janaki and Ramesh leave the town to start a new life. They have another child, Kiran. Ratna gets pregnanat again and she delivers a son, Prakash.
The story takes a leap forward. Sooraj (Kabir Bedi), Prakash (Vijay Arora) and Kiran (Asha Parekh in double role) grow up. Sooraj falls in love with Shobhana (Nazima), the daughter of Munshi who has no objection to their love affairs. But Sooraj is hesitant to talk to his father about his intention to marry Shobhana. Kiran is in the college where her collegemates are Prakash and Raja (Danny Dengongpa). Prakash and Kiran have fallen in love. Raja harasses Kiran and she complaints to the Principal. Raja gets rusticated from the college. Raja vows to take revenge against Kiran.
Janaki is now a widow who takes care of household by sewing cloths. Kiran feels guilty that she is not able to help her financially. During a college function, Mrs. Reen (Helen) a dance club owner in a hotel watches Kiran’s dance performance and offers her a job of a dancer in her club. She accepts it to support her mother despite her fear that her mother may not like this vocation. In the meantime, Sooraj reveals to his father that he intends to marry Shobhna but Ratna opposes the marriage on the ground of social and financial inequalities between the two families as propped up by Vikram.
Neither Janaki nor Prakash are aware that Kiran has joined a dance club. One day, Prakash notices that Kiran is seen in a car. Prakash follows her and finds her in the dance club giving her dance performance for which she gets her fees. After some misunderstanding, Prakash and Kiran make-up. Kiran sends money to her mother in the guise of doing some tuitions in her free time from the college.
One day, Raja visits the dance club with an offer of huge money to Kiran to spend a night with him in a hotel. She slaps him and before he retaliates, Prakash comes and trashes him forcing the hotel manager to expel Raja out of their premises. An insulted Raja meets Sooraj to expose Kiran by way of asking him to accompany him for a dance programme to see for himself that Prakash is in relationship with a dance girl. However, Prakash convinces Sooraj that he should meet both Kiran and her mother to decide about tha character of Kiran which Sooraj agrees.
Prakash brings Kiran and her mother Janaki to his house to introduce to his father. Vikram recognises Janaki and tells them that Kiran’s mother is a courtesan. Kiran gets upset and walks out of the house. Has she been aware that her mother was a courtesan, she would not have come to Virendra Singh’s house. Sooraj throws Janaki out. At this point, Virendra slaps Sooraj and reveals the whole truth about Janaki being his biological mother and the sacrifice she has done for the betterment of Ratna. Sooraj deeply regrets his action.
Prakash follows Kiran and on the way, both are kidnapped by Raja and his goons. Sooraj gets the information from Prakash’s friend (Brahmachari) that Raja has taken them to his bungalow. Sooraj with Prakash’s friend reach the bungalow where Raja is attempting to rape Kiran. Sooraj and Prakash fight Raja and his goons and save her. In this milieu, Sooraj kills Raja and he is put in jail. Janaki and Kiran visit him in jail and Kiran cries in saying to Sooraj that instead of raakhi he has got hathhkadi (handcuffs). In the court, the judge rules that Sooraj did not kill Raja intentionally but got killed while saving his sister from the rape. The judge releases Sooraj. The film ends with a double weddings in Virendra Singh’s household with Sooraj marrying Shobhana and Prakash marrying Kiran. It is a happy moment for Janaki.
The film had seven songs (with one song in dual version) written by Majrooh Sulatanpuri which were set to music by R D Burman. All seven songs have been rendered by Asha Bhosle, two of which are the duets with Kishore Kumar. Two songs have been covered on the Blog. I present the 3rd song, ‘aajaa aajaa aajaa sajan’ rendered by Asha Bhosle. It is a dual version dance song – one picturised on Helen and the other on Asha Parekh which is shorter version and not released in audio format.
The context of the first version of the song is that Mrs. Reen (Helen), who is the owner of a dance club watches the dance performance of Kiran (Asha Parekh) in her college function. She selects her to be a cabaret dancer for her club. Mrs. Reen reveals that she is not able to perform her dance due to an accident when she slipped while concluding her performance of a cabaret dance. The scene is cut to a flashback of that cabaret dance which resulted in her accident. The second version of the dance song comes when Kiran performs the same dance song after she gets the job of a club dancer.
A special feature of this song is that the vocables like ‘pa pa pa…’ in the first version of the song gives an impression that in addition to Asha Bhosle, there is one more female singer. But in reality, instead of having a second singer, R D Burman recorded Asha Bhosle’s voice for vocables and hook lines twice on two audio tracks and he overlapped separate audio tracks on top of each other to sync right next to her especially when Helen appears in multiple frames. R D. Burman has used, more or less, the similar technique albeit with delayed overlapping of Asha Bhosle’s voice in the song, katra katra milti hai.
Video Clip–Version-1:
Video Clip-Version 2
Audio Clip-Version 1:
Song-Aaja aaja aaja sajan (Raakhi aur Hathkadi)(1972) Singer-Asha Bhonsle, Lyricist-Majrooh Sultanpuri, MD-R D Burman
Lyrics (Based on Video Clip):
Version-1(picturised on Helen):
pa pa paapa pa pa pa pa paa pa
pa pa paa
pa pa pa pa pa paa pa pa
aajaa aajaa aajaa sajan
piyaa meree ye raat bhee
mere labon kee baat bhee
tere hee
kaam kee hai
pa pa paa
pa pa pa
pa pa paa
pa pa paa
pa pa pa
pa pa paa pa pa pa pa
aajaa aajaa aajaa sajan
piyaa meree ye raat bhee
mere labon kee baat bhee
tere hee kaam kee hai
pa pa paa
pa pa pa pa
pa paa
pa pa paa
pa pa pa pa pa paa
pa papa pa papa
aa phir main kahaan
phir tu kahaan
hogaa re sanam
pa pa pa pa
ye do chaar pal
kuchh bhee naheen
phir bhee kyaa kam hain
aa phir main kahaan
phir tu kahaan
hogaa re sanam
ye do chaar pal
kuchh bhee naheen
phir bhee kyaa kam hain
pareshaan meraa pyaar
mujhe bhee intzaar
mere paas bhee mere paas bhee
yahee shaam to hai
pa pa paa
pa pa pa paa
pa paa pa pa
pa pa pa pa
pa pa paa
pa pa pa pa pa paa
aajaa aajaa aajaa sajan
pa pa
piyaa meree ye raat bhee
pa pa
mere labon kee baat bhee
tere hee kaam kee hai
pa pa paa
pa pa pa
pa pa pa pa pa pa pa
pa pa paa pa
pa pa pa pa pa pa pa
pa pa pa
tu mujhko naheen pehchaantaa
lo aur suno
pa pa pa
ye kal raat ko jis jaam se pi thhee donon ne
tu mujhko naheen pehchaantaa
lo aur suno
ye kal raat ko jis jaam se pi thhee donon ne
abhee tak hai meree jaan
mere labon ke nishaan
arre dekhnaa tere haathh mein
wahee jaam to hai
pa pa paa pa pa
pa pa pa pa pa paa
pa pa paa pa pa
pa pa pa pa pa pa paa
aajaa aajaa aajaa sajan
pa pa
piyaa mereee ye raat bhee
pa pa
mere labon kee baat bhee
tere hee kaam kee hai
pa pa paa
Version-2 (picturised on Asha Parekh):
papa pa pa pa pala la laa
la la la la laa la la
aajaa aajaa aajaa sajan
piyaa meree ye raat hee
mere labon kee baat hee
tere hee kaam kee hai
ye tum to bade buzdil ho jee
kaise na kahoon
haaye dekho mujhe
dil hai lahoo
phir bhee hanstee hoon
aey tum to bade buzdil ho jee
kaise na kahoon
haaye dekho mujhe dil hai lahoo
phir bhee hanstee hoon
ho aaj dilbar
kahe kuchh bhee magar
mere saathh hai tera pyaar
ye khabar
aam to hai
la la la la la
la la la laa la laa
la la laa
la la la laa la laaaa
aajaa aajaa aajaa sajan
piyaa meree ye raat hee
mere labon kee baat hee
tere hee kaam kee hai
la la laa
la la la laa laa
la la laa
la la la la
lala laa
la la la la la la
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