Barsaat Ki Raat

Amaan is a talented and struggling Urdu poet trying to making a mark in the world of music. Shabnam, who has not seen him yet, loves his songs and poetry. When they meet accidently in a stormy rainy night, Amaan and Shabnam fall in love with each other. Luck comes his way as he is appointed as a tutor for Shabnam's little sister Razia.

Amaan and Shabnam start romancing each other and plan to marry soon. However, Shabnam's father Khan Bahadur is not much impressed of Amaan due to Amaan's poverty. He insults and expels Amaan from their house and fixes a devastated Shabnam's marriage with Aftab Ahmed of Lucknow against her wish. Khan Bahadur sets off for Lucknow with his family. Amaan also arrives at Lucknow in search of his fortune. Coincidentally, Amaan discovers that Aftab, the friend in whose house he is staying is actually the future husband of his lady love Shabnam.

Amaan leaves Aftab's house without noticing him. Meanwhile Amaan's old friends Shabab and Shama arrive at Lucknow to participate in a qawwali competition, in which they keep losing. Shama is in love with Amaan, but he does not know this. Amaan begins to compose shayaris for the competition and very quickly he carves a niche for himself in the musical world. However, submerged in the painful memory of his lost love Shabnam, Amaan does not realise Shama's unconditional love for him. Anyway, he becomes the heart and soul of Shama's musical troup. With Amaan's beautiful voice and shayaris, Shama's group attains popularity and win in the competition. A shattered and imprisoned Shabnam overhears Amaan's voice on radio and comes to know that Aman is still in Lucknow. Shabnam somehow reaches one of Aman's poetic duels. Shama faints during the program when she learns that Amaan is in love with someone else. Her sickness gives a platform Shabnam and Amaan to meet each other. Khan Bhadur and Shekhar reach the spot searching for the missing Shabnam. At this point Shabnam's mother revolts against Khan Bahadur, for she wants her daughter to be happy. At the end, Khan Bhadur gives in and the lovers reunite on another rainy night.

• Madhubala as Shabnam
• Bharat Bhushan as Amaan Hyderabadi / Mirza Lakhnauwi
• Shyama as Shama
• Ratna Bhushan as Shabab, Shama's Sister
• K. N. Singh as Inspector Khan Bahadur (Shanam's Father)
• Mumtaz Begum as Begum Khan Bahadur (Shabnam's Mother)
• Chandrashekhar as Inspector Shekhar (Aman's Friend)
• Baby Shobha as Razia (Shabnam's Sister)
• Peace Kanwal as Barrister Aftab Ahmed

• Dialogue: Sarshar Sailani[5]
• Background music: Sonik
• Art Director: Ganesh Basak

The story features a number of innovative themes while maintaining the basic form of a love story. It has particularly strong female characters who are independent-minded and choose their own loves and destiny. Conflicts are not so much between the wishes of the parents and children about whom the children will marry, as is a common theme in Indian movies, but on the more complex level of conflicts among the main characters and the duplicitous signals men and women send each other. The movie glorifies the lives of "singing girls" not often regarded highly in Indian society. Although it is set with Muslim characters, the movie seamlessly shows the universality of sensual love.

The soundtrack of Barsaat Ki Raat was composed by Roshan, and lyrics were penned by Sahir Ludhianavi. It was the second best-selling soundtrack of 1960 after Mughal-e-Azam. The song Zindagi Bhar Nahin Bhoolegi was a chartbuster, and was on the top in the Binaca Geetmala's annual list of 1960.

Rediff.com, calling the film's music its lifeline, had placed "Na To Karavan Ki Talash Hai" at the second place in the "Bollywood's Top 10 qawwalis."[6]

Critics particularly praised the music composed by Roshan and the performance given by Madhubala (up).

Barsaat Ki Raat was released on 9th December 1960, and received a positive response from critics, mostly for its music.

Film critic Venkat Parsa applauded the innovative themes Barsaat Ki Raat uses and wrote that the film "stands apart [and] breaks away from the past trends". Parsa also took notice of the lyrics of Zindagi Bhar Nahi Bhoolegi, which begins with Amaan narrating his encounter with Shabnam and then singing the "graphic detail", that proves that lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi was "a progressive and revolutionary poet". In his review, the most talked aspect of the film was its music, in which Ludhianavi "proves to be a perfect foil for Shakeel in coming up with romantic poetry." In the conclusion, he described the film as the "greatest-ever musical of all times of the Indian cinema".[7] Writer Monica Kar, in a mixed review, found the story to be "a little predictable and not very exciting by modern standards" but its treatment to be "delightful". She praised the scenes in which Amaan and Shabnam meet: "[It] portrays confusion, a little fear, a little mystery, a little attraction. Madhubala is brilliant in this one scene."[8]

Apart from the well-received music, Barsaat Ki Raat brought Madhubala a fair amount of applause from critics. Filmfare, discussing her career's best roles had written that Madhubala’s beauty was made "unbearably sensual by the rains".[9] A review by Topyaps stated that her performance "leaved a lasting mark on the minds of the movie goers."[10] It is widely believed that her enactment of Shabnam was among her finest ones.[9]

In India, the film had a box office gross of ₹3.5 crore, with a nett of ₹1.75 crore, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 1960.[1] The Best of the Year gave its inflation-adjusted nett as ₹516.8 crore.[11] Box Office magazine calculated its inflation-adjusted gross by comparing the collection with the price of gold in 1960, which gave it an adjusted gross of ₹785.88 crore in 2011.[3]

The film was listed at number 22 by Box Office magazine in their list of "Top 50 Film of Last 50 Years" which feature all-time highest-grossing Bollywood films by using the relative price of gold in different years to arrive at a hypothetical current value of box-office collections of past films.[12]

Buffy Sainte-Marie, a Canadian singer covered the song "Maayus To Hoon Vade Se Tere" from the movie, which she called the track "Mayoo Sto Hoon". The song was released on her debut album, It’s My Way!, in 1964.

Barsaat Ki Raat is considered a milestone in the history of Indian cinema and is known for popularizing the romantic musical genre in films.[7]

• Bollywood
• 100 crore club
• 500 crore club
• Musical film
• Qawwali

• Barsaat Ki Raat at IMDb