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 sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
SHANKAR-JAIKISHEN IN THE 50s…Song No. 9
——————————————
Today’s song is from the film Pooja-54. It was a social film made by Verma Films. The producer and director was Bhagwandas Verma and the music was by Shankar Jaikishan. The cast of the film was Bharat Bhushan, Poornima, Shakuntala, Omprakash, Ulhas, Badri Prasad,Heeralal etc etc. The lyricists were Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri. The film had 9 songs, 6 of them are already discussed in the Blog.
Right from beginning of films, child artistes were required to do roles in the films. In the initial stages and also in later periods too, girls used to do Boys’ roles ( but never heard of vice versa ! ). We have the famous examples of Honey and Daisy Irani sisters. Many child stars acted in films till they became older or were not suitable for child roles. It was quite natural that most of them wanted to continue acting in films as adults too and many tried to become hero/ heroines. Unfortunately, only some of them could shine as heros or heroines, while most child stars failed as adult Hero/Heroines.
Successful child artistes are a few like Meena Kumari, Madhubala, Nargis, Shashi Kapoor, Sachin etc. You can count such successful child artists on one’ fingers, whereas the list of unsuccessful child artistes who failed to make it big as adult Hero/Heroines is quite long.
Unlike Baby Tabassum, who could not become a successful adult Heroine in good films, there was another ‘Baby’ who became quite successful as an adult Heroine opposite well known actors under famous banners and left halfway due to her marriage. Her name is BABY SHAKUNTALA.
Baby Shakuntala was born in a middle class maharshtrian family of Poona, on 17-11-1932. Those days Prabhat film company had moved to Poona. One of the Prabhat founder partners, Mr. V.G.Damle was their close relative. Along with other children, she too used to go to prabhat preises for playing there She was 8 to 10 year old when V.Shantaram spotted her and offered her a role in the film, ‘Das Baje’-42 ( Daha Wajta, in marathi). The hero’s younger brother’s role was changed to Hero’s sister’s role for accommodating her in the film.
It was a routine matter at Prabhat that for child roles in all films, the children of the partners of Prabhat( Shantaram, Damle, Kulkarni, Fatehlal and Dhaiber) or near relatives were taken. In film Sant Tukaram or other films of prabhat, all child artistes were from within the Prabhat family only. Shakuntala was very good in studies.She used to get up at 4 am. do school studies, then do household chores, attend school and lastly attend shootings.
“Das baje” was a hit film. Then came “Ramshastri”-44 ( Bilingual-Hindi/Marathi ). Meanwhile Shantaram and others left Prabhat and moved to Bombay. After that her work too shifted to Bombay. Due to these changes, she could study only upto Matriculation. But she was proficient in English, Marathi, Hindi/Urdu, Gujarati and Kannada. At the time of shooting for film ‘Shikayat’-48, actor Shyam made her his “Munh Boli” sister and till he died in an accident he was very close to her.
In 1949, she was 17 year old and she became a heroine in the film “Maya bazaar”-49 opposite Balakram. Then came a string of films. She worked with well known actors like Kishore Kumar, Bharat Bhooshan, Karan Dewan, Amarnath, Anant Marathe, Master Bhagwan, Abhi Bhattachrya etc. She was also lucky to have worked under ace directors like V.Shantaram, Bimal Roy, Homi Wadia, Kishore Sahu, Raja Nene, Gajanan Jahagirdar, Shahid Lateef etc. This enriched the depth of her acting.
Kishore Kumar was her Hero in films like, Chham Chhama Chham- 52, Fareb-53 and Lehren-53. They had a good tuning like a naughty brother and sister. once Kishore Kumar surprised her by visiting her in her Kolhapur house ( after her marriage) and spent one day with her family. The famous Kishore Kumar- Lata Mangeshkar song “aa muhabbat ki basti basayenge hum” from film Fareb-53 was filmed on Kishore and Shakuntala only.
Lot of marriage proposals started coming for her and she finally was married in 1954 to Sardar Nadgonde of Kolhapur, belonging to a Royal family. After marriage she left films, though she had good demand and became Mrs, Umadevi Nadgonde. She had a son and a daughter. She lived a contented life of 82 years and died recently on 18-1-2015, at Kolhapur.
She had acted in almost 40 Hindi films ( including bi-linguals) and 20 Marathi films from 1942 to 1954. She also acted in famous Marathi dramas on commercial stage. 14 of her films celebrated silver Jubilees. Some of her films were- Das baje-42, Ramshastri-44,Piya Milan-45, Taramati-45, Bachpan-45, Bachhon ka khel-46 ( with Meena kumari), Phir bhi apna hai-46, Moti-47, Tohfa-47, Shikayat-48, Seeta Swayamvar-4, Maaya bazaar-49,, Kamal ke Phool-50, Pardes-50, Malti Madhav-51, Nanhe Munne-52, Chham chhama chham-52, Fareb-53, Lehren-53, Jhamela-53, Bhagyawaan-53, Biraj bahu-54, Pooja-54, Bindiya-55 etc.
( Biography based on her interview in ” Chanderi Aathavani ” by Sulabha Ternikar and material provided by shri Harish Raghuvanshi ji, with Thanks.)
Film Pooja-54 was an ordinary film, though some songs of this film became popular. The story was a flat one not evoking any interest at all. The story was-
A village temple singer, Keshava Das ( Badri pershad), has a young daughter, Kala ( Poornima). She is a widow since the age of eight. One day when Keshav falls ill, Kala goes to the temple to sing. After the song, Kala worships the sacred plant of “Tulsi” and the high priest of the temple ( Om Prakash) is pleased at this and invites her to visit the temple.
In a small village the high priest doesn’t know that his only temple musician’s daughter was a widow. He comes to know this only after her singing and violently forbids her from worshipping her holy plant. When Kala’s old father tries to pacify the priest saying that his daughter was innocent, the priest insults both the father and the daughter resulting in Keshav Dass’ decision to never again visit the temple.
Keshav’s decision creates a problem for the village since he was apparently the only singer in the place and a singer was badly wanted for some approaching festival in the temple. So the “Mukhia”(headman)( Ulhas) of this music-conscious village extends an invitation to a singer from another village for the festival. The invitee being long since dead, his son Deepak ( Bharat Bhushan)accepts the invitation and manages to reach the “Mukhias” house after the usual frivolous encoutner on the outskirts of the village with Mukhia’s frisky daughter Bimmo ( Shakuntala).
When Bimmo hides Deepaks sitar, Deepak borrows Keshav’s instrument and sings at the temple festival pleasing everybody including the bitter Keshav Das. Deepak and Keshav having found respect for each other’s talent and temperament, Deepak shifts to Keshav’s house to learn some more music from the old man.
Now the inevitable happens and Deepak soon learns to Love Kala without knowing that she is a widow and without realizing that Bimmo is already in love with him. Kala is kept well posted with Deepak’s new sentiments but refuses to respond in spite of a throb in her own heart. Now to prove that the course of true love never runs smooth the story treads the old path and gives the usual incidents of jealousy, rivalry, village panchayat, ostracism, orphanhood, social tyranny and what not.
Mukhiya calls a Panchayat. The panchayat ostracizes Keshav and Kala and warns Deepak to stay away from Kala as she is a child widow and hence has no right to remarry.
Keshav and Kala starve for a few days. Meanwhile Deepak also stops singing in the temple. His neighbour Ramlal(Janakidass), suggests to him that Deepak should move ,with Kala to the nearby big town, where they will be accepted. They can marry and Deepak can also get a job there.
With this idea in mind, one day Deepak gives a long speech to the villagers, condemning their regressive thinking and declaring that he and Kala are leaving the village.
Then they leave and go to town, where the film ends.
The film story was an outdated story. It tried to discuss child widow remarriage issue, which was no more an issue in India. True that even film “Patita”-53 had almost the same theme, but the major difference was Dev Anand and Usha Kiran carried the film on their shoulders. Plus the music of ‘Patita’ was outstanding. In case of Pooja-54, Bharat Bhooshan was not of the calibre who could carry any film on his shoulders for the obvious reasons of poor histrionic talent. Then the music of Pooja was also not up to the mark except one or two songs. In 1954 there were many musical films like Aar paar, Amar, Jagriti, Mirza Ghalib, Naagin, Naastik, Shabab, Shart etc. Pooja’s music could not compete with these musical films.
There were 9 songs in the film. Six songs (including a multi version song) from this movie are already discussed in the blog. This will be the 7th song from the movie to appear in the blog. The bhajan is sung by Lata and the Lyrics are by Shailendra.
Song-Mori bipda aan haro (Pooja)(1954) Singer-Lata, Lyrics-Shailendra, MD-Shankar Jaikishan
Lyrics
aa aaa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa aa
aa aa aa
mori bipda aan haro o o
mori bipda aan haro o
prabhu kaahe der karo
prabhu kaahe der karo
mori bipda aan haro o
mori bipda aan haro o o
prabhu kaahe der karo
prabhu kaahe der karo
main sapnon ke mahal banaaun
mahal banaaun
aashaon ke deep jalaaun
deep jalaaun
aankh khule to kuchh na paaun
aankh khule to kuchh na paaun
kuchh na paaun
mohse chhaliya chhal na karo o
mohse chhaliya chhal na karo o
mori bipda aan haro
mori bipda aan haro
man ke bichhde taar sajaaun
taar sajaaun
ji chaahe sangeet sunaaun
geet sunaaun
lekin jaane kyun ghabraaun
lekin jaane kyun ghabraaun
kyun ghabraaun
mera ye dar door karo
mera ye dar door karo
mori bipda aan haro
prabhu kaahe der karo
prabhu kaahe der karo
![]()
![]()
