Hi all,

Here is the article I promised. It appears in a book called 'Stars from another sky - The Bombay film world of the 1940's' by Saadat Hasan Manto (Translated into English by Khalid Hasan). The book is a collection of articles written by Manto between 1948 and 1954 and appeared in a book titled ' Ganjay Farishtey' and has articles on Ashok Kumar, Shyam, Nargis, Naseem and others from that era.

(I have attached the scanned images as 50% of their original size - if too small I can put the original size up)

Ummer - would you be able to use OCR on these and send me the text? (or suggest some good software that I could get!)

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Thank you very much for the article, Jamal. This is the complete English translation of Manto’s famous book ‘Noor Jehan Surror Jehan’. I think it was included in his book ‘Ganjey Farishtey’ and also published as a separate book. I have the original Urdu version of this book. BTW do you have Shukat Hussain Rizvi’s notorious book “Noor Jehan Ki Kahaan Meri Zubaani” compiled by Munir Hussain?

Million thanks, Jamal!!!!!!
Will take a while to read this.

No probs guys - it is always a pleasure.

Thanks for the Info Inaam bhai - I had started searching for the 'Noor Jehan Suroor Jehan' book and I had it all along !! As for the Rizvi one, my grandfather has it but he needs to find it. He gets quite tired these days so does not venture upstairs much. As I can't read Urdu it is an almost impossible task for me to try to look for it - but just had a thought, my wife can read Urdu so I could get her to help me !

Yeah, I will do it tonight and send u the text.
Ummer.

What is OCR?

What is OCR?

Optical Character Recognition.
That is when U scan a page of a magazine for eg and save it as a jpg, U then run this OCR software and it will read the letters in the pic and create a text or word file for U. These sw are not very reliable and make lots of errors esp if the font is fancy. Often in may be read as m and many such errors. Still much easier to correct those than type the whole script!

Wow!!! This is first time I am listening about this software!!! Priya, is it available free on net?

Hello Inaam,
It comes free with most scanners. Mine is an expensive scanner, it can also scan negatives and 35mm slides and convert them into pictures (positives).

Ummer.

Wow!!! Kya cheez hoga tumhaara scanner, Ummer

jamal sahab,
thanks a ton.i have a hindi version of ''meena bazar'' but the article on noorjehan is missing.
regards,
mahesh

Jamal,
These jpgs are blurry and small and OCR isn't working fine on them. Please send me the orginal big sized jpgs.

Ummer.

Wowow, if I send U a -tive, can U make it a +tive for me, please?

Yeah, you have to send it by mail though (not email)

Hi guys,

Any comments on this article? What did you think of it?

Jamal

Not read it jet bussy with rendering the text for the co-members Jamal
will post the compleate text soon in .doc format or what you all like.

MUKESHFAN

Akbar saheb
Manto ke article ka bahut shukriya.A comment by Nur Jehan about him (Whether it was reflective of his personality or not) came to mind when reading this narrative. "He was a great writer but a difficult(?) person'(not a direct quote). He did write of filmy duniya as he saw it which often offended people he wrote about. I have read quite a few of his stories and writings in 50's and 60's (translated in Punjabi(Gurmukhi) and transliterated in Hindi and later also in Urdu). I think it was Krishan Chander who said of his writings (something like) 'Khuda teri kalam mein aur zeher bhar dey'. When we look in the mirror we may not like what we see but what we see is a reflection of reality. Manto saheb ki writings ki bhi kuchh aisee he baat hai.He has written well or ill of Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims. But what he wrote had a ring of truth to it. Court cases mein jaana pada lekin jo usne describe kiya hai, theek hai ya naheen? Ek aala darze ke writer ki likhat parhne ko mil gayee achhe translation mein, aur kya chahiye. Bahut bahut shukriya. Harjinder
P.S. Ek baat jis par mujhe fakhar hai woh to main bhool hi gaya. Zila Ludhiana yahan sey Manto saheb ( Un ki tehsil Samrala thi) or Sahir saheb thay,main bhi wahan sey hee hoon.Un key barabar to koi koi pahunchega. Merey jaissey log itni si hi baat mein ki ham un ke padossion jaisse thay,sey hi khush hain.

Well said, Harindar Ji. Manto was a great writer. He is my most favourite short story writer too

I remember Noor Jehan said in one of her interview ‘Who aik badey adeeb lekin chhotey insaan thay’.

Thanks for your comments Harjinderji. I have only read a few of Manto's works (any that I can find in English) as I can't read Urdu, but I have enjoyed what I have read so far.

BTW, Jamal, Do you have Shoukat Hussain Rizvi's controversial book 'Noor Jehan Ki Kahan Meri Zubani', compiled by Munir Hussain?

Hi Inaam Bhai,

My grandfather has the book in his study which is upstairs in his house. Because of illness he does not venture upstairs and as the book is in Urdu I am having difficulty finding it (I can't read Urdu). One weekend I will have to go and search through all his books to see what I can find. I remember seeing the book when I was younger but can't remember what it looks like now. I will try and get hold of it next week.

Jamal

Its Ok Jamal.

I sent a letter to the publisher at lahore, but they says it is out of stock.

Shaadi ko itney din hogey aur Bhabi se Urdu padhna likhna nahin seekha? :

Akbar saheb
I don't know how or where these comments fit but I have learned to read Urdu mostly to read works of ficton by writers like Manto and Rajinder Singh Bedi and to enjoy the poetry of poets like Ghalib, Iqbal, Faiz,Josh Malihabadi and many others. Problem with Urdu poetry is that Urdu poets like Ghalib and Iqbal use a language which is full of words from Farsi, Arabi, and Turki. I can enjoy some of their 'Kalam' and for the rest I have to read what I call prose tarjma of their nazms. Anyway while Urdu is a very hard language to learn it does offer poetry of the standard that is peerless. Afsane written by Manto and Bedi use lot less obscure vocabulary and are thus easier to read and thus to me, more enjoyable.Harjinder

Have you ever heard of Balwant Singh ? No vulgarities. He just
wrote simple realistic stories about Punjab and its people. One
of his books was ' raat chaand chor'. IIRC, this collection had
his classic ' Jagga', ... Sardar Jagjit Singh Virk. Balwant was from
Lahore and then mograted to India.
Jagga used to be online somewhere, I will check if it is still there.

urzung khan

Janab Khan Saheb
I am somewhat familiar with Balwant Singh's writings. He often contributed stories to 'Shama' (or was it' Beeswin Sadi'?) I say somewhat familiar because I cannot recall any story written by him that I have read. If you can post 'Jagga' I would be greatly interested in reading it. Does it have anything thing to do with the legendary 'JAGGA DAAKU'? By the way all the Urdu that I know I have learned all by myself.Political and social conditions of the times had given Urdu the status of a paraiah language in Indian Punjab. But as I was I was growing up in the 50's I was fascinated by the language and its sophistication. My father like a typical Punjabi educated person of that time was traumatized and somewhat radicalized by the events of 1947 and often was puzzled by my fascination with the language. But my interest in Urdu has persisted to this day, inspite of the antagonism towards it in our society and among some of my own family members in the older ( than my) generation. University of Chicago has some college level classes in Urdu and Farsi which I may decide to take up after my retirement in June. It is good forty plus miles from where I live. But if things work out the way I want them to I will try to further my knowledge of literary Urdu and maybe of Farsi too.Please do post the Jagga story if you come across it. Harjinder

It is more likely to be Beeswin Sadi. We will get this topic out of thos forum.
At the moment I can't recall the URL where it used to be online. But be sure
that I shell get it and revert.

urzung khan

Hi all,

I managed to find the Urdu version of this article - as Inaam Bhai mentioned it's title is Noor Jehan Suroor-e-jaan. I flicked through it and found some pictures that I hadn't seen before so I am scanning them in and fixing them. Unfortunately these books were printed on cheap paper so when you scan one page you can see the reflection of the page underneath. I'm trying to remove these marks as much as possible but it takes a long time.

We'll start with the easy one - front cover -

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In the next picture I just fixed the important bits i.e. Noor Jehan and not the man in the background. Not sure what the caption says.

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I think this one is either from Dupetta or Chanwey -

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No idea about this one - Best wishes - but not sure to who

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This one is from Ghaalib -

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I think this one says Film: Chanwey

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This one is from Neend -

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I guess this is sometime in the 1940's -

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Another one from Ghaalib -

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One from Nooran -

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Wow!!! Many thanks for these wonderful pictures, Jamal. You are rock!!!! I guess this is the first issue of the book. I also have this book with me, but it has no pictures at all. Most of the picture are truly rare, especially the Ghalib ones.


Caption says: Noor Jehan, at the time of recording of ‘Intizar’.
Who was in the background, Jamal? If Khurshid Anwar, Please re post the picture in full.

Again thanks for pics. Hoping one day you could be able find the Shaukat Rizi book ‘Noor Jehan Ki Kahaani, Meri Zubaani’.

I'll add more pictures soon - as for the Noor Jehan Intezar picture, that is the whole picture, unfortunately the gentleman is cut out of the photo.

Also - I have found the 'Noor Jehan Ki Kahaani, Meri Zubaani' book and will be scanning and uploading that soon too.

Great News!!!! Eagerly waiting.
BTW Jamal, I have a suggestion, It would be nice if you could post the scan of the Urdu text of Manto book too for the benefit of other Noor Jehan fans, as this is most important book about Noor Jehan and not commonly available even in Pakistan.

... some more pictures .. (I will upload the book soon - there are over 30 pages so it will take some time to scan)

I think this is either from Neend or Choomantar -

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Another one from Nooran -

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.. and another -

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Not sure what this one says - Inaam bhai?

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Same goes for this - looks like a family photo with Shaukat Hussain and Akbar and Asghar -

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Last one -

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Saadat Hassan Manto wrote a series of articles on a number of famous
personalities, most of them from the film world. Originally these articles
were published in some newspaper. After some time, during his lifetime
these were published in two books - Ganjay Farishtey and Loudspeaker.
Noor Jehan - Saroor-e-Jaan was included in the book Loudspeaker.
However, it was also published seperately in form of a booklet.
in 1992-93 Sang-e-Meel, a publishing house in Lahore published complete
works of Manto in probably four or five volume ( @ Rs. 700 each).
Now these two books of Manto are included in one if these volume -
' Mantonuma'.

Irfan

Thanks for the more pics, Jamal.

Pic is missing, Jamal. Can you re-post it?

Amazing pix, Jamal!!!!!!
U are the best!!!!!!!!
I love the last one. WP material!!!

Inaam, saare pix hai. Theek se dekho.

Glad you liked them Priya - there are more in the Shaukat Hussain Rizvi book but again the paper quality is so bad that you can see the page underneath so those ones may take some time to fix. You should have seen some of these ones before I fixed them. Very time consuming.

Hi Jamal

thanks a ton for these magnificant pictures. truly rare and madam looks so elegant in them... there are excerpts from that book on net but not whole book

ashish

Hi Ashish,

Glad you liked the pics. If you look at the beginning of this post you have the full English translation of the book. I will hopefully scan in the original Urdu version I have as well.

Excellent