जीना या मर जाना है

'Jeena Ya Mar Jana Hai' — 'it is to live or to die' — is a determined, do-or-die declaration from the 1944 film Mujrim, with lyrics by Kailash Matwala. The song was recorded in two versions, a common 1940s practice that paired a male and female or happy-and-sad rendition of the same tune to mark turning points in the narrative. The music is by Gyan Prakash Ghosh.

Gyan Prakash Ghosh, the Calcutta-trained tabla maestro and composer, gives this resolute lyric a firm, forward-moving setting; that the film carried two versions of the tune points to its use as a recurring dramatic motif, a structural device his score deploys to underline the film's theme of fate and decision.