मीना

A 1944 social drama from Bharat Pictures, directed by the Bengali-trained Phani Majumdar and headlined by the formidable Marathi-Hindi actress Hansa Wadkar. Like much of the studio output of the period, the film married a domestic melodrama to a compact seven-song score by Hari Prasanna Das set to the verse of Pandit Phani.

The score by Hari Prasanna Das comprised seven songs (one of them recorded in multiple versions), all written by the studio's resident lyricist Pandit Phani. Of these only 'Kyun Jaane Apne Bante Hain Begaane' is reliably documented by title in surviving catalogues; the remaining titles have not been recovered.

Meena is principally remembered today as one of the earliest film appearances of Manna Dey as a Hindi playback voice — the documented duet 'Kyun Jaane Apne Bante Hain Begaane' places his recorded film singing at the very start of his long career, in the years before his Bombay breakthrough.