D N Madhok (22 October 1902 – 9 July 1982) was a prominent lyricist of Bollywood in the 1930s to 1960s. He started his career with the 1932 film Radhey Sham. Apart from writing lyrics, he wrote screenplays and directed films. He directed almost 17 films.
Filmmaker and songwriter Gulzar considers two lyricists as tops in the old days. Shailendra in the 50's and D N Madhok in the 40's.The immortal song "Diya Jalao" sung by K. L. Saigal was written by him, He was instrumental in introducing the famous composer Naushad to Bollywood He appointed Naushad as an assistant music director in his directorial venture, a Punjabi film Mirza Sahiban (1939). The first film which Naushad composed as an independent music director was Prem Nagar' (1940). This time also it was Madhok who penned the lyrics for the songs of that film.
He joined Ranjit Movietone in 1939. His career as a lyricist took off with several major successes. He wrote lyrics for popular songs in the 1940s and 1950s for films such as Nadi Kinare (1939), Musafir (1940), Pagal (1940), Ummeed (1941), Bansari (1943), Nurse (1943), Bela (1947), Bhakt Surdas (1942), and Tansen (1943).
He worked with almost every prominent music director of the 40s and 50s such as Gyan Dutt, Khemchand Prakash, S. N. Tripathi, Bulo C Rani, Khurshid Anwar, Pandit
Amarnath, Sardul Kwatra, Anil Biswas, R. C. Boral, Robin Chatterjee, C. Ramchandra, Sajjad Hussain, Ghulam Haider, Vinod, Gobind Ram, Husnlal Bhagatram, A. R. Qureshi, Roshan, Sardar Malik, Ghulam Mohammad, and Hansraj Behl.
He wrote over 800 songs in his career, some of his notable songs are-
Diya Japao Jagmag Jagmag(Tansen)
Ghata Ghan Ghor Ghor...(Tansen)
Too Kaun Si Badli Mein Mere Chand Hai...(Khandaan)
