Ten of my Favourite Bathroom Singers

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If ‘bathroom singer’ refers to ‘a mediocre or amateur singer’, then Hindi cinema belies that definition: because old Hindi films have plenty of instances of songs sung by people in bathrooms, while bathing, shaving, washing up, whatever—and all perfectly in tune. These bathroom singers are no bathroom singers at all.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s my list: ten songs that illustrate the point. Barring one song, all are from pre-1970s Hindi films that I’ve seen; the exception is a song from the cusp (1972), but I’ve included it because the film in question (Dil Daulat Duniya) always strikes me more—in tone, look, fashions, actors, etc—as a late 60s one.

The only other criterion I’ve kept in mind is that at least one verse is sung inside the bathroom.

Without further ado, then, and in no particular order:

1. Bhai battoor bhai battoor (Padosan, 1968): This extremely popular comedy is known more for the nutty songs that were sung for it by Kishore Kumar (who also put in an onscreen appearance as Bhola’s ustad), but there were also a couple of very good songs by Lata Mangeshkar, singing playback for Saira Banu. This one, which has our heroine singing to herself as she bathes and gets dressed, is a lovely little paean to feminine beauty, charm, and youthfulness. She talks about how burdensome her youthfulness is, how fragile and delicate; but anyone can see—and hear, as does a besotted Bhola, next door—that she actually is crowing about it all.

2. Unse mili nazar ke mere hosh ud gaye (Jhuk Gaya Aasmaan, 1968): In the same year that she pranced about in a cloud of soapsuds for Padosan, Saira Banu did so also in Jhuk Gaya Aasmaan. And here too, as in Bhai battoor bhai battoor, she is completely oblivious of the fact that the man in her life (even if she doesn’t know it yet) is eavesdropping on her song. This song is rather more concentrated within the bathroom, with her singing two full verses as she bathes, dries off, gazes at herself in the mirror and generally swoons, long-distance, over the man she’s fallen in love with.

Though I said that the songs in this list aren’t in any order, if I had to choose, this would be my favourite bathroom song: I love the music, the lyrics, and Lata’s singing; even Saira Banu looks pretty.

3. O ghata saanwari thodi-thodi baanwari (Abhinetri, 1970): Before we move on to slightly different styles of bathroom singing, one more song of the style where a young woman sings while bathing, and the man she’s going to be falling in love with turns up. Unlike in Padosan or Jhuk Gaya Aasmaan, he’s not already around; rather he (Shashi Kapoor) turns up on her (Hema Malini’s) doorstep just as her song finishes. A stranger, seeking shelter from the rain she’s been singing so happily about.

Here, a good bit of the song happens even before she goes into the bathroom: while she gets a little damp from standing in the veranda admiring the rain; and while she does her exercises (I must point out that really well-placed slowing down and repetition of syllables when she gets out of breath: very clever way of marrying the audio to the video). And how lovely Hema Malini looks!

4. Raaton ko jab neend ud jaaye (Mem-Didi, 1961): Another woman, like Saira Banu in Unse mili nazar, singing in the bathroom about having fallen in love. With one major difference: Tanuja’s very young, relatively fresh-faced and unglamorous girl is one of several in a hostel, and all her room-mates join in the chorus. And, because several of them have the same problem (of suffering from love-sickness), they each have their own woes to share, their photos to gaze at dreamily. Admittedly, this one is a bit of a stretch when it comes to ‘bathroom songs’, but I always think of it as one, because it begins dramatically enough while she’s bathing, what with the shower washing the soap off her face and revealing it.

5. Main kho gaya yaheen-kaheen (12 O’Clock, 1958): An unusual bathroom song: not a woman singing of her love, but a man. Also unusual in other ways, one being that the singer is in the bathroom for the entire duration of the song, and that there’s not one bathroom, but two. Guru Dutt’s and Waheeda Rehman’s characters are neighbours, so their bathrooms are within earshot of each other. When he, while shaving, brushing his teeth and bathing, sings of the way his heart has been lost, she—in her own bathtub (much more upmarket than his rather more pedestrian shower) —hears it all and is sweetly flattered about it. A frothy little love song with an off-beat setting.

6. Kaisa jadoo daala re (Footpath, 1953): Not all the bathroom singers have the luxury of well-appointed bathrooms; Meena Kumari’s lower middle-class heroine in Footpath, for instance, has to be content with a tap under which she sits to have her bath. The bathroom, too, has walls of uncemented brick, and the drain is an open one through which the soapy water swirls away. But her song, otherwise, is similar to that of other bathroom singers expressing such sentiments: her newfound love has turned her heart topsy-turvy, and who knows what’s going to happen next?

7. Aaj koi aayega (Chanda aur Bijli, 1969): A lot of bathroom songs tend to have people overhearing the song: either intentionally (Main kho gaya yaheen-kaheen) or not (Unse mili nazar, Bhai battoor bhai battoor). On those occasions where the person doing the overhearing is the person for whom the singer is expressing romantic feelings, there is also, always, the exercising of discretion, of being a gentleman and not giving in to the temptation to peek.

But if the bathroom happens to be in a large and derelict mansion, which is home to a gang of hoodlums and pick-pockets, headed by a villainous character, you should be careful. Especially if the door has shutters that allow a fairly wide-angle view of all that’s going on inside the bathroom.

Besides the fact that Jeevan’s Fagin-based character is seriously icky, I am always put off by the way Padmini rolls about on the floor here. Ugh.

8. Aaja panchhi akela hai (Nau Do Gyarah, 1957): Not everybody gets into a bathtub to have a bath! Here, finally, we have a bathroom song where (a) the singer in the bath is a man; and (b) he actually is in the bathtub, except that it’s empty, and he is using it only in place of a bed. But he’s in the bathroom, all right—even locked in—so this song definitely qualifies for this list. Dev Anand, with real life wife Kalpana Karthik, in my favourite film of theirs (and one of my favourite Vijay Anand films) pose as a married couple in order to be able to spy on a house where something criminal is afoot. Being ‘married’, they are given shared quarters, and realize that the only proper way to spend the night is to let her have the bed while he camps out in the bathroom. Of course, given that they’ve fallen in love, he’d much rather not be separated from her.

A fun song, romantic and playful.

9. Masti aur jawaani ho (Dil Daulat Duniya, 1972): A trio song, sung by two women (their characters played by Sadhana and Helen) and a man (played by Rajesh Khanna), who end up living in the same house, and a love triangle ensues. Sadhana and Rajesh Khanna’s characters are in love with each other, but Helen thinks he is as much in love with her as she is with him. She, all happy and frothy (literally) is singing in her bath, blowing bubbles and prancing about, while he and the woman he’s actually in love with are outside, crooning romantically to each other. Not a great song, as far as tune or rendition goes (and Sharda has a way of getting on my nerves), but Helen looks like she’s enjoying herself cavorting about in that bathtub.

10. Bada khushnaseeb hai jise tu naseeb hai (Pyaase Panchhi, 1961): To end this list, an unusual song. Like Guru Dutt in 12 O’Clock, Mehmood in Pyaase Panchhi tries to do the bathing beauty act, serenading his lady love (though in this case, instead of being next door and able to appreciate his song, the woman in question—played by Ameeta—is far away, in a distant village). But Mehmood’s character sings his heart out while shaving, slumping into the bathtub, and then actually having a shower. Looking at all of this, one realizes why most directors prefer to show women bathing: every single one of the ladies on this list, even when not looking too glamorous (Tanuja) or with her mascara running (Saira Banu) or rolling about on the floor (Padmini) looks far more pleasant than hairy, ungainly Mehmood.

Do you have any other songs to add to the list? I know there are more (one of the most iconic ones I left out because it’s from late into the 70s), so bring them on!

58 thoughts on “Ten of my Favourite Bathroom Singers”

  1. I know you are referring to Tande tande paani se… PATI PATNI AUR WOH.

    I will take you back to 1941. If Saira Banu, of PADOSAN is the bathroom singer, the Ustad’s brother sings the original Ek chatur naar kar kar singaar.. in JHOOLA.

    ( Ashok Kumar in the bathroom. )

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    • Yes, indeed it was Thande-thande paani se! And I am glad you mentioned Ik chatur naar, I was hoping someone would talk about it since I hadn’t included it in my list and it’s a good song.

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  3. Lovely saaf-sutra post you have here, dear Madhu!
    I think with your songs in it, you have covered nearly all good songs of the 50s and 60s. Particularly the kaisa jaadu dala re appeals to me very much. It reminds me of my own tap shower of my childhood. I hadn’t heard the bada khsush naseeb song of Mehmood song before. Quite unusual to hear Mukesh giving playback for him.

    Some of my favourite bathroom songs of the 50s and 60s have all been covered by you. Another favourite of mine has already been mentioned by Radha Dayal.
    Some others mostl from the 70s are:
    Saira Banu in koi to aaye re – Faisla [1988]
    The Pears soap in her hands, take me back to my childhood again.

    Zeenat Aman in chori chori solah singar karoongi – Manoranjan [1974]
    This is my particular favourite I should say.

    Mumtaz in husn iqraar kare ishq inkaar kare – Tarzan Comes To Delhi [1965]

    Tanuja in this lovely, reflective mood sort of song mera dil do mera hota – Anubhav [1971]

    Kiran Kumar in mujhe meri biwi se bachhao – Aaj ki Taza Khabbar [1973] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLoguu21pYs

    From the same year we have another bathroom song or “preparation for bathroom” – song with Dev Anand and Sheetal (I presume) ek paheli hai tu – Heera Panna [1973] https://youtu.be/elUR827C-W4?si=SW0GIeVTsYEJr7LC

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    • That’s quite a clutch of all the top bathroom songs, some of which were in my longlist, some which I hadn’t heard of before, and one (Mujhe meri biwi se bachaao) which I had completely forgotten about, though I should have remembered, given that I have seen the film and the song’s a well-known one!

      (BTW, re: Mukesh singing playback for Mehmood – Pyaase Panchhi is unusual in that at least three different singers – Mukesh, Manna Dey [who was Mehmood’s most common ‘singing voice] and Hemant – sang for Mehmood)

      Which song did Radha Dayal suggest?

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  4. Sorry for the mess in my previous comment. WordPress was suddenly not in the mood to let me edit my comment like inserting links and such things, or even delete lines. So out of desperation I clicked on the button “comment”. Now the original comment awaits moderation and the addendum here, since it has less links, might get posted earlier than the original comment.

    So here is the addendum.
    Srividya in bolo pritam kya boli thi mai – Arjun Pandit [1976]

    Then I remember of a Feroze Khan song in some film of his, but can’t remember the exact details. Rekha was his co-star in it, though not in the bathroom, I think.
    There are many more, but I wouldn’t like to hog more place than this.

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    • This Arjun Pandit song was new to me! Thank you for that, Harvey (and I didn’t know this actress was called Srividya – that reminded me of a classmate of mine back in school with that name, whom our Sanskrit teacher was quite intrigued by. He asked her why her parents named her that; did they hope she would grow up with both vidya and shree?)

      I have vague memories of a barechested Feroz Khan singing a song, but whether that was in a bathroom or not, I have no idea! If you remember which song, or which film, please leave a comment.

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      • Sorry, I meant Dr. Pradeep Shetty’s mention of ek chatur naar and not Ms. Radha Dayal. That must have been the fast scrolling.

        The Feroz Khan song, which I remembered, was from Kashmakash [1973] jitna zaroori man ka milan, but it has only 2 seconds of bathroom in it. So I don’t know if it will qualify for the list.
        While I searched for the above song, I realised that searching for songs sung in bathroom can lead to either kiddy stuff or to some very unsavoury videos. Anyway when I searched for the Feroz Khan in bathroom song this other song cropped up with Vinod Khanna and Madhuri Dixit soaping each other in aaj phir tumpe pyaar from Dayavan [1988]. One other song came up as well, which is from a relatively new film, but I will leave that for other readers to post. The other songs, which I mentioned above were from my list, which I had prepared some decade ago, while my blog was still active.

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        • Oh, okay. Yes, Ik chatur naar is a great addition to the list, and one I was hoping someone would mention!

          Thanks for telling me about the Feroz Khan song. I had heard about the Dayavaan song earlier (it’s not a film I’ve seen, but I think people talked about it being quite steamy…).

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  5. Madhu, I don’t see why anyone would find Padmini’s “rolling about on the floor” in the “Aaj Koi Aayega” to be “ugh.” :) Actually, in this scene, I saw a few direct references to her famous fountain dance for “Ho Maine Pyar Kiya” in Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai. For example, in “Aaj Koi Aayega,” if you go to 1:15, she is doing the same pose as she did in the “Ho Maine Pyar Kiya” scene when she was reclining on the rocks; she is even putting her hand on her head in the exact same way. I think this was an intentional parody of the earlier song.

    I knew “Aaj Koi Aayega” and “Kaisa Jadoo Daala Re” very well, having watched both scenes many times for my research purposes; the other songs were new to me.

    Thanks for another very interesting and original list!

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    • I have watched O maine pyaar kiya, and was in fact recalling that when I was thinking (just by the way) of songs by bathers who weren’t in bathrooms – but the penny never dropped about how Padmini’s dance is so much the same. I hadn’t realized it at all, so thank you for that! But I reserve the right to think it terribly icky – I wouldn’t roll on any bathroom floor, anywhere (but then that might be because I’m a little OCD about cleanliness).

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      • You’re welcome, and thank you for clarifying that your “ugh” reaction to the “rolling about” part had to do with imagining the dirtiness of the floor (rather than being related to something in the character of her performance). But she does finally manage to pick up the soap and wash with it after that. :)

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        • No, no – absolutely not her performance, just the germs!! I am one of those people who, when I see a female character in a K-drama (lots of them end up doing this) puking into a toilet bowl, the first thing I want to do is grab her hair and pull it out of the way of puke and toilet bowl rim, even when I know it’s a set, no-one ever actually uses that toilet. :-)

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  6. Thanks for an interesting category. I have three songs but just outside the cut off year

    Chori chori solah singer karungi – Zeenat in Manoranjan

    Sajna hai mujhe – Padma Khanna, Saudagar not bathroom but bathing in a pond

    My absolute favorite Tanuja in Anubhav – Mera dil jo mera hota.

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    • Thank you for those, Nishi! Someone else suggested Sajna hai mujhe on my Facebook post, and I had to tell them that I think that should qualify for a separate ‘bathing-but-not-in-a-bathroom’ list. I have a feeling there are sufficient songs out there (I think of quite a few, even off the cuff) to merit a list.

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  7. This is a very interesting topic. ‘Unse Mili Nazar…’ came to my mind when I started reading this post. I cannot think of any other song apart from ‘Thande thande paani se nahana chahiye…’ of course. :))

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  8. lovely post…… will check some of the songs listed here that I do not know of……

    some additions to the list from my end ignoring the timeline. And incidentally all are from 80’s.

    * ‘bheega badan jalne laga’…… Zeenat in Abdullah (1980). This isn’t shot inside the bathroom, but then jharne ke niche nahana is an Indian thing, so should qualify.

    * ‘tujhe bulayen yeh meri bahen’…… Mandakini in RTGM (1985)…… again zharne ke niche.

    * ‘aaja ek hoja’…… Jeetendra and Sridevi in Balidaan (1985). This one is a proper bath song in bathroom(s). You get to see showers hi showers. This starts with two bathrooms and ends the same way.

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  11. Heh heh heh… I have a list of Bathroom songs that was written after you had posted your Swimming Pool songs. (A list I had, too, but deleted once you’d posted yours.) And, you commented on my list saying you had an incomplete list of Bathroom songs!

    In any case, as is usual with us, we have a whopping 6 songs in common. :)

    So I’ll add the one song on my list that’s not on yours (or in the comments):

    Husn iqraar kare from Tarzan Comes To Delhi.

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    • I went and had a look at your bathroom songs list, Anu, and wasn’t surprised at all that we had so many songs overlapping. But in this case, I think the chances of overlaps were even greater because there aren’t umpteen bathroom songs – especially if (a) one is a little discerning, and (b) one doesn’t choose to go too deep into the 70s and 80s.

      The Mumtaz song is nice. Frankly, I can watch Mumtaz is pretty much anything!

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  12. Sri Vidya has acted in nearly 800 movies: Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi. Was a trained classical singer and a Bharatha Natyam dancer and an occasional playback singer, too. Daughter of legendary Carnatic Music singer M L Vasantha Kumari.

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  14. Oh!

    Very interesting list!

    All the songs that I could recollect are either on the list or in the comments.

    There was a song from the 70s, picturised on a young Kiran Kumar. But I neither remember the song nor the name of the movie.

    Will get back if I remember more!

    :-)

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    • Reshmi paajeb ki jhankaar ke sadke is a good addition to the list, thank you! Even though the ‘bathing’ bit is only for a verse, just the novelty of it – in a medieval bathroom – makes it worth including.

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  16. Madhuji,

    This is a really unique list. I wrote a post sometime ago called Solo Songs with an unobtrusive listener which obliquely referred to bathroom singing. Here’s the link.

    https://anitamultitasker.wordpress.com/2023/05/20/solo-songs-with-an-unobtrusive-listener/

    There is a song of the vintage era from the movie Panghat (1943) whose mukhda is Panghat ke ghaalayon ka panghat hi thikaana hai. The video link is not available. Only the audio is but I am not adding it because my comment will land in the spam bin. The full movie is on YouTube and the song can be watched there at 1:05 hrs.

    One of the antaras is

    ae nal
    kyun ro raha hai
    kis’se ladaa leen aankhen
    ya tu bhi chaahtaa hai
    panghat se dil lagaanaa

    Anita

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  17. Portion of song ‘All is well‘ from 3 Idiots is also picturized in bathroom.

    In Maharashtra, we have a tradition of applying ubtan on Diwali and bathe early morning. Typically mother will apply ubtan to children or first Diwali is celebrated with wife’s family where wife will apply ubtan. Aali Mazya Ghari Hi Diwali song captures that tradition. This one is reminiscent of childhood diwali for me.

    Here is a bonus track Yaad Lagale from Sairat which does not really fit indoor bathroom theme But some of us may not have the luxury of indoor/closed bathroom. They bathe in backyard.

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  18. Not sure, if someone already mentioned this but the screenshot of Helen at the beginning is from The Killers (or Hum Sab Qatil Hai).
    The song is nazrein milake aapne

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  21. Not being really familiar with western popular music/ songs I did not know which song it was exactly a copy of, but the music and rhythms were obviously western, so obviously plagiarised. But I still found the song ( and Jagdeep in it) delightful.

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    • Plagiarism – whether from Western tunes or Indian ones – has I think always been very common in Hindi cinema, but a lot of composers (SD Burman for one, Ravi for another) were invariably able to take the base tune and make it completely their own – their tunes are really more ‘inspired’ than copied, and end up being (at least to me) much better than the original.

      I agree about the song, a very good one, and Jagdeep is a joy to watch.

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