The whole song is a plea wearing the clothes of a weather report. He never once says I will miss you. Everything is phrased as information you need before you go. Life's roads are strange, so do not walk them carelessly. And then the line that quietly changes everything: khair hai isi mein aapki, apna koi saathi dhundh lijiye. It is in your own interest, find yourself some companion. He is telling her to go find somebody else, and the sentence is the most generous in the song, and also the saddest, because the somebody else is not going to be him.
The second warning is the famous one. Those rose branches, they lean toward your feet to kiss them. That is a lovely image and the song means it as a threat. A rose reaching for your step is a rose that will catch your ankle, and chum le keeps both the kiss and the catching in the same verb. Even the garden cannot be trusted with her. And the bees, lost and wandering, khoye khoye bhanware, might decide that she is a flower. She is being warned against her own appeal.
The last warning turns inward, and it is the one people repeat. Behki behki nazron se khud ko bachaiye. Protect yourself from your own straying eyes. The danger has finally been named, and it is her. A gaze that wanders is the only thing in the poem that is entirely hers, and he asks her to guard even that from herself. It is the politest possible way of saying that she is the risk she is running.
Hemant Kumar sang it in his flat, un-showy voice, which is exactly right for a plea that refuses to raise its voice. The film is remembered for the mystery, and the song is remembered for being the one quiet thing in it. Saregama's reissue is the recording everyone knows.
