सुख पाकर जो दुख पाये

A philosophical song from the eight-song score of Meri Khwahish (1941), composed by Vasant and Shanti Kumar to lyrics by Baalam Pardesi and A. K. Sindhu. The theme — that worldly pleasure carries sorrow within it — reaches toward the bhajan and the moral-social song that early Hindi cinema wove into its melodramas. Singer attribution for the film's songs has not survived in available references.

'Sukh Pakar Jo Dukh Paaye' — 'He who, having grasped happiness, finds sorrow' — is in the aphoristic format of Hindi-Urdu moral verse: a conditional-descriptive proposition that states a paradox and invites the listener to verify it from their own experience. The paradox of sukh (happiness, ease) containing dukh (sorrow, suffering) is central to Sanskrit moral literature — particularly the Mahabharata's Shanti Parva, which contains extensive meditation on the transience of worldly joy — and is a cornerstone of Sufi discourse, where attachment to worldly happiness is identified as the root of suffering. In the bhajan tradition, this theme connects to the concept of maya (worldly illusion): the things that seem to bring happiness (wealth, love, family) are precisely the sources of greatest suffering when they are inevitably lost or withheld. Lyricist Baalam Pardesi — whose pen-name 'pardesi' (foreigner, one away from home) evokes the archetype of the wandering moralist-singer — brings a doha-poet's perspective to this theme: the short, aphoristic form states the paradox boldly in the mukhdha, and the antraas would have elaborated examples drawn from ordinary life, each one confirming the opening thesis. The slow tempo and philosophical mood suggest a composition in a meditative raga — perhaps Bhairavi or Yaman Kalyan — that allows the paradox to settle into the listener's consciousness rather than pass quickly by.

Meri Khwahish (1941) — 'My Desire' — was a social drama featuring Sharifa, with music jointly composed by Vasant and Shanti Kumar and lyrics by Baalam Pardesi and A.K. Sindhu. 'Sukh Pakar Jo Dukh Paaye' is the second of the film's eight songs represented in this archive alongside 'Kale Kale Badal Chaye,' and its theme is strikingly different: where the monsoon song draws on atmospheric virah imagery, this philosophical number proposes a moral paradox about the nature of happiness. 'He who, having grasped happiness, finds sorrow' states the song's thesis in its title — and then the song proper would unfold the evidence and implications of this observation across its antraas. This kind of wisdom-song (gyan-geet) was a distinct strand within the 1940s Hindi film score: it addresses the audience directly with a moral-philosophical proposition, functioning as the film's didactic interlude that gives the social drama its ethical dimension alongside the romantic or domestic drama. The dual-composer arrangement for Meri Khwahish again points to a modestly-budgeted production where costs were managed by sharing labor. Singer attribution for the film's songs has not survived in available references.