1974 - National Film Awards - Best Male Playback Singer - Mukesh
Trivia
Salil Chowdhury had used this tune earlier for the Bengali song "Ami Cholte Cholte Theme Gechhi" released in 1972. The Bengali original was sung by Pintoo Bhattacharya. The Bengali song was re-released in 1988 in Lata Mangeshkar's voice. Salil Chowdhury also used the same tune for the Telugu film song "Nayanaalu Kalise" ("Chairman Chalamayya", 1974), sung by S.P. Balasubramaniam and P. Susheela.[1][2][3]
Basu Chatterjee had initially planned to have this song sung by Lata Mangeshkar. Her fee at the time was Rs. 3000, which was a stretch for the director given his limited budget. He, therefore, had the song sung by Mukesh who agreed to sing the song for Rs. 1000.[MR10]
Pleased with his National Film Award for this song, Mukesh sang his next song for Basu Chatterjee, "Yeh Din Kya Aaye" ("Chhoti Si Baat", 1975), at no cost.[4][MR10]
The film had Mukesh singing a line of this song before the prelude. This line was not included in the film's audio release. This may have been done to accommodate the audio track in the limited space available on the 7-inch 45 rpm records on which the film's music was originally released.