Today, the song sung by Manna Dey and Kishore has become legendary. Mehmood reminded him of the incident during ‘Padosan’. Again, it was the demand of the story, so Dey went ahead and sang the song. At that time, he could not digest the fact that Bhimsen Joshi’s voice should lose out to his in the movie. Ironically, a decade earlier, in Basant Bahaar , Manna Dey’s character had defeated Bhimsen Joshi’s character in the song Ketki Gulab Juhi. He relented only after Mehmood convinced him that it was the demand of the character and the story. Dey could not fathom the fact that he, a classical maestro, acknowledged by even Mohd Rafi should lose to Kishore who was not classically trained. A challenging situation arose when Manna Dey objected to the character (Mehmood) losing to Kishore Kumar in a singing duel. In the movie, Kishore da the singer and actor is lip syncing for Sunil Dutt, while Manna Dey the singer sings for Mehmood the actor. His song Ek Chatur Naar, which was inspired by an Ashok Kumar song from the film Jhoola (1941) is one of the highlights of the movie. The song has a story behind it. Hindi film history would have lost out on one of the most legendary characters had Kishore da not agreed to do the role of the maverick Vidyapati. Kishore da gave in only after Mehmood spend an entire night standing outside his house with his request. However Mehmood prevailed upon him to act as it was his first production. It has Sunil Dutt, Mehmood, Kishore Kumar and Saira Banu in leading roles.Īccording to movie lore, Kishore Kumar was not interest in acting in the film, he only wanted to sing. The iconic movie was directed by Jyoti Swaroop. All these years and the thousands of movies produced in this period have not been able to obliterate the magic created by Mehmood and NC Sippy. It has been 50 years since ‘Padosan’ was made and it continues to be one of the finest entertainers till date and tickles the funny bone. Later, it was once again remade in Telugu in 1981 and Kannada in 2003. It was remade into Telugu in 1960 and Tamil in 1961 before ‘Padosan’ was made in 1968. Based on Arun Chowdhury’s Bengali story, Pasher Bari, a Bengali movie by same name was directed by Sudhir Mukherjee.