When I started the series covering female dance duets, I hadn’t thought of so many parts. But right from the first part itself, readers started pouring songs and suggestions. Some of the songs suggested, were not fitting to that particular part, though I could have accommodated those songs in further parts. And the journey continued.
Today I’m going to present the last part of the series. The part has ten female dance duets that I was unable to place in any of the parts. There are many such dances that don’t have an exact situation or a particular scenario. Or some of the songs were unique, with rare situations.
It’s interesting to note that six songs out of ten are duets between Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar. And in the remaining songs, one of the Mangeshkar sisters is there. Usha Mangeshkar has joined one of her sisters for a couple of songs, making the part, full of Mangeshkars. I’m keen to see duets by other singers from the readers.
So here we go, in no particular order. All the songs belong to pre-1970s films.
1. Nigahon Ka Ishara Hai – Night Club (1958) Asha Bhosle & Shamshad Begum / Madan Mohan – Majrooh
A dance near a seashore. It doesn’t seem to be a public performance. There is hardly any crowd there. It seems they are dancing for themselves. The song appears to portray the emothions of the lead pair, Ashok Kumar and Kamini Kaushal. The latter plays a tomboyish character or so it seems. All the songs of the movie have a touch of O P Nayyar and Asha Bhosle is the main singer for the movie. I couldn’t recognize the dancer disguised as a male, though I’ve seen the other dancer occasionally. It’s a good song, catchy tune and enjoyable dance.
2. Tumko Piya Dil Diya – Shikari (1963) Lata Mangeshkar & Usha Mangeshkar / G S Kohli – Farooq Kaiser
This song was mentioned by Dustedoff in the comments section of the post covering stage performances. But though it looks like one, it’s actually a dream sequence. Ragini feels insecure as she thinks Ajit is in love with Helen. That’s actually not the case. But Ragini lets her imagination wonder about, and dreams of the song. So it’s a situation not covered in the previous parts of the series.
The dance performance by Helen and Ragini is very good, good steps and graceful movements. The colour combination of their costumes is interesting, though the set designing is very primitive and not at all attractive.
3. Aaj Aaye Baanke Mere Saiyan – Pyar Mohabbat (1966) Asha Bhosle & Usha Mangeshkar / Shankar Jaikishan – Shailendra
This song was mentioned by Anitaji in the comments section of the post covering Mujra songs. It’s not a public performance, it seems like a private party. Not even a party, only Prem Nath and Dev Anand . But what a beautiful semi classical song. Wonderfully rendered by Mangeshkar sisters. Equally beautiful is the performance by the dancers, Saira Banu and Shashikala.
4. Mere Mehboob Mein Kya Nahi – Mere Mehboob (1965) Asha Bhosle & Lata Mangeshkar / Naushad – Shakeel Badayuni
The song hasn’t been on the list, despite being very popular. It of course didn’t suit any of the posts so far. We can’t call it a performance, two friends are teasing each other, dancing. Excellent choreography, equally well executed. But both are unaware they are talking about the same man. Though the last verse does mention about such a (unfortunate) coincidence, it’s obviously not seriously thought of. The clapping sounds make it sound like a qawwali. And I think to some extent it has been structured like one. Sadhna looks beautiful of course, Amita also does her job well.
5. Kar Gaya Re Mujhpe Jaadu – Basant Bahar (1956) Asha Bhosle & Lata Mangeshkar / Shankar Jaikishan – Shailendra
This is an interesting subset where one of the girls is only singing, while the other does singing and dancing both. Nimmi, soulfully singing about her heartless beloved, gets Lata’s playback. Kumkum, dancing and singing playfully, receives Asha’s playback. I think they are apparently talking about the same man.
The link shared also has an excellent dance performance by both the actresses, which is not a part of the song.
6. O Babu Kaise Dil Karoon Qaboo – Sagai (1951) Amirbai Karnataki & Lata Mangeshkar / C Ramchandra – Rajendra Krishan
This can be called a private mehfil, where a dinner (शाही दावत) is arranged for the guests. The dance performance is a part of it. A wonderful song, one of the dancers is cross dressed as a man. I couldn’t recognize her. Cuckoo dances very well. It’s so impressive that Amirbai Karnataki, who sang a large majority of sad songs, sings this peppy energetic number with equal ease. In all it’s a delight to watch and listen to.
7. Jabse Lagi Tose Najariya – Shikaar (1968) Asha Bhosle & Lata Mangeshkar / Shankar Jaikishan – Hasrat Jaipuri
While I was expecting this song to fit into one of the earlier posts, it wasn’t so. The song just starts and Bela Bose takes Asha Parekh with her. Both of them emerge in a typical tribal attire to dance. I’m not much fond of the song, but the song is appropriate for today’s list.
8. Hamare Gaon Koi Aayegi – Professor (1962) Asha Bhosle & Lata Mangeshkar / Shankar Jaikishan – Hasrat Jaipuri
A song picturised on the beautiful landscapes in Darjiling. At least the film tells the place to be Darjiling. A group of ladies are dancing to a folk tune, and Kalpana and Parveen Choudhary just join. The former manages to dance satisfactorily and her facial expressions are good. But I think the latter is not a good dancer.
9. Sajan Salona Maang Lo – Dooj Ka Chand (1964) Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar & Chorus / Roshan – Sahir
I’m not aware of the tradition of praying to the moon for a desired husband. The ladies have gathered around a lake under the baton of B Sarojadevi with Madhumati singing and dancing with her. There is a lot of teasing going on. A good song to listen to.
10. Naach Re Man Badakamma – Rajkumar (1964) Asha Bhosle & Lata Mangeshkar / Shankar Jaikishan – Shailendra
I had thought of the song even for the first post of the series. But a careful look at the situation in the song made me drop it. Sadhna is going to be announced as heiress and worshiping of a goddess is planned. Hence the dance. If you watch and listen carefully, the verses sung by Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar both are lip synced by Sadhna, while the other dancer (who’s she?) joins only when both the singers sing together. I found it quite strange. What would have happened if the other dancer would have had her separate lines?
Would you like to add a song?
Disclaimer –
Mehfil Mein Meri, claims no credit for any image, screenshots or songs posted on this site. Images on this blog are posted to make the text interesting. The images and screenshots are the copyright of their original owners. The song links are shared from YouTube and Dailymotion, only for the listening convenience of music lovers. The copyright of these songs rests with the respective owners, producers and music companies.
Mehfil Mein Meri 
Nice! And so many songs which I’m very familiar with. Offhand, I can’t think of anything to add to the list, but if I do, I’ll come back here. 🙂
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Thanks for the appreciation Madhuji!
🙂
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Anupji, thanks for acknowledging my contribution at # 3! Will see if there are more songs for this grand finale.
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🙂
Oh yes, add any befitting song.
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Most of songs in this series were known as individual flowers. You have compiled them as a nice bouquet of flowers 💐
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Thank you Ravindraji for appreciation
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Anupji, how about this song from Ghar Basakar To Dekho(1963) Jidhar Jee Mein Aaya
This is a fun song with Shyama and her friends enjoying themselves.
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Thanks for introducing me to the song. There is very less of dance by the main Actress, but it’s a female female duet with a dance, so let’s have it. The last part is mainly for such additions. Some exceptions can be accommodated.
🙂
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Dear Anup ji,
How could you miss to identify the dancer cross-dressed in that song from SAGAI (Item 6)? She was only one out of 3(three) Indian Actresses ever featured on the cover of LIFE Magazine – the other two being MADHUBALA and BEGUM PARA.
The Lady in question is from where I now live. She is Amchi Goen, MOHANA CABRAL (real name MONA). As you would be knowing, she flew the coop with her French fiance and settled first in Dubai and later in Paris, where she passed away not too long ago.
Here she is another Dance Duet, which you might already have featured in one of the earlier Parts. If not, pl consider it my addition. The duet is from PATANGA (1949) where Mohana plays the love interest of GOPE (which she was also in NAGINA), with Lata singing for her :
One wishes that the Series continues for some more time, but all good things must come to an end, as will evil things such as the Corona.
With warm regards
PARTHA CHANDA
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Oh!
I couldn’t recognize her.
Thank you adding information about Mohana. I wasn’t aware of it.
And, yes, the Patanga song fits state performances post, and was added by Pramod Godbole.
Thanks for mentioning it, it’s one of my favourites though I missed it while compiling the stage performances list.
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Anup,
This has been an excellent series. The interest never flagged. And the last part, though not fitting in any particular category is as good as the earlier ones, with so many excellent songs. Congratulations.
AK
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Thank you so much AKji for your appreciation. It was really a good experience for me. Entertaining and interesting, though the initial couple of posts needed research. The later posts already had songs as the songs kept on collecting while I was busy with other parts of the series.
But I’m satisfied with the series.
🙂
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Dr. Anup,
A fitting finale to an enjoyable series!!
Really impressive the way you kept the interest alive with various categories and subsets.
As you had mentioned, four songs posted by me in the comments section of part 4 of the series are present in this list. Nice to see that.
I must say you are prolific writer, the way you have been posting a new article every week. I still have to read the last one. Really Impressed that you are able to take time out for the posts despite your practice.
If I may ask, which city do you practice?
Here’s one song from Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai 1960
Kya hua ye mujhe kya hua – Lata, Asha
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Dr Rajesh,
Thanks for the appreciation and your kind words.
I had thought of the song posted by you, but I dropped it later as the dancing was comparatively less. And it would feature on one of the later posts, that would be based on female female duets. I’ve not designed the layout of the series, but it’s going on.
I’ll contact you on your e-mail address.
🙂
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Thanks, Dr. Anup. Shall await your message.
I am now already looking forward to your FF duets series. I am sure, it will be equally interesting.
Here’s one 70s song for this post:
Dharam Veer 1977
Bandh ho mutthi to lakh ki – Lata, Asha
And from recent times, Pinga ga pori pinga – Shreya Ghoshal, Vaishali Made
Film- Bajirao Mastani 2015
I wanted to post Dola Re Dola from Devdas (2002), one of the best recent dance numbers featuring two top actresses. But I realized, that there is a male voice at the beginning and the end of the song.
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I’ve sent you email yesterday.
Thanks for adding the songs. I like the Pinga song, though I didn’t like the picturisation and the loud costumes. I prefer to listen to it.
Yes, Devdas song has a third voice. Otherwise I like it a lot.
And,
The female duet post is still in budding stage. I would be able to start it next year most probably.
🙂
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What a wonderful this series has been !
I do not think O Chand Jahan Woh Jaaye Tu Bhi Saath Chale Jaana (Sharda, 1957 ) is covered til now.
This is my one of the most favorite compositions, based on Raag Hansdhwani.
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Oh! I didn’t think of it as besides being female female duet, the song has to have dance too. This is a wonderful duet, but has no dance.
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Another exquisite post on the subject. I can also call this Lincoln Post. The great Abraham Lincoln, American President, was a humorist par excellence and used to have a box where he will throw papers that cannot be classified and called it Lincoln Box. I had adopted it in my house as a stop gap arrangement to store papers, items and then sort them leisurely. I had kept in reserve song nos. 4 and 5 for upload, but find it is there in the post. Will hunt for songs that do not fit in earlier four posts and upload from my memory of course.
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Thanks a lot Ranganji for your appreciation. Oh! I wasn’t aware of Lincoln box. Thanks for adding it to my knowledge. You always add something that I don’t know.
And, yes this post had majority of the well known songs that I couldn’t fit in the earlier parts.
I’ll wait for you to add songs.
🙂
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Dear Anupji,
Napoleon had something similar to the Lincoln Box, only bigger – it was a large room, next to his Office. He had instructed his Secretary, Bourrienne, to dump all incoming Mail, unopened, in the room and not attend to them for 3 weeks.
At the end of three weeks, most of the matters referred to in the letters had sorted themselves out, thus not requiring his attention, nor an answer.
In today’s world, we tend to open every E-mail / SMS the moment they land up in the Inbox and 75% of them are unimportant or worse, not even relevant for us.
Napoleon knew his time was important, so he didn’t want to waste it on unimportant matters. If an issue was still relevant after the three weeks, then it required his attention. Then it mattered.
There’s a lot to learn from this. Namely, how much time we waste on non-essential matters.
Sorry for wasting your precious time with such trivia 🙂
With warm regards
PARTHA CHANDA
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Oh! that’s interesting piece of information Parthaji.
Thanks for sharing the trivia.
No need to apologize, reading your comment is NEVER a waste of time.
🙂
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Dear Anup ji,
There were so many songs and dances, one tends to lose track. I wonder if this Track was covered
With warm regards
PARTHA CHANDA
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Yes,
this one was covered in the stage performances (part 3)
I’m sharing the link again
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Anup, my opinion of this series pretty much echoes Madhu’s – but also concurs with AK’s. This has been an impressive series, which includes a lot of songs that I actually was familiar with too. 🙂 (Well, I have been fond of female dance duets, myself, for some time.)
But I vacillated a bit before I decided to point out this wonderful semi-classical dance scene below – which I probably should have submitted in response to Part 4 – because it’s not a Hindi-Indian film scene but, rather, a scene from the Pakistani Urdu film Baaji (1963).
Now, I know that Madhu has tolerated 🙂 my across-the-border suggestions at her Dustedoff blog in the past, but I am not sure how you would feel about including a scene from a Pakistani film.
On the other hand, this does include Noor Jehan – a singer who, of course, is also legendary from old HIndi/Hundustani pre-partition films (and the main reason I started watching Pakistani films to begin with 🙂 ) – doing a duet here with Farida Khanum, who I think is well appreciated all over the world too… And Noor Jehan is also featured on the screen here – in her last on-screen appearance – as someone watching from the audience! Meanwhile, the dancers, Amy Minwalla and Panna, also do a great performance that would have fit well in many Hindi films.
So, I decided that I would share this after all… But please accept my apologies if it does not belong. 🙂
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Oh!
You can of course share any befitting song from any language / country. So no problem.
The dance is good, but I felt Noorjahan’s shot is reused several times, I mean the same pose, same expressions. Single shot repeated many times.
But it fits the theme of course, so that’s just my observation.
And, thanks for the appreciation. I too enjoyed the series very much. I’m soon planning to start a series on female female duets. Now that dance numbers have been covered already, those songs will be excluded. Let’s see how things work up!
🙂
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It’s good to know that you will welcome a song from any country, in any language. I will keep that in mind! 🙂
Regarding Noor Jehan’s on-screen presence here… It did not really occur to me that this was the same shot used many times. Maybe I was just not inclined to analyze it that way. I suppose you are right, though. I wonder why that is. Was she charging them exorbitantly for every minute that she had to spend on the set? LOL In any event, it is still significant for being her last appearance on screen. But, of course, the dancers are much more important to the visual part of this sequence. As for the audio part… Well Noor Jehan’s voice certainly is nice here, as is Farida Khanum’s.
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“I wonder why that is”
Yes, I also asked the same question to myself. Perhaps she wasn’t available for a long time.
The song is good and singers have done a good job.
🙂
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