Nur Jahan spotted me in the middle of the recording and touching her forehead, greeted me spontaneously, ‘Shah Jee Salaam’. ‘Cut’, yelled her husband angrily and the recording had to begin afresh
After my tryst with Bollywood (The way it was: Tryst with Bollywood, Daily Times, June 16, 2003), I returned to Lahore in early September 1947. Within a year many leading Muslim film personalities of Bombay and Calcutta started migrating to Pakistan.
Most newcomers settled down in Lahore. The city was home to the Pancholi Arts Studio, where a number of successful Urdu and Punjabi films had been produced. These included the blockbuster Khandan with which Shaukat Hussain Rizvi made his debut as a director. The film also introduced a very young Nur Jahan, the heroine with a golden voice, to the world. Many box office hits had been produced here earlier, such as Yamla Jat, Khazanchi and Chaudhry. Roop K Shorey’s Tarzan Ki Beti was another. This film starred Meena who later married Shorey and as Meena Shorie made a name for herself both in Bombay and Lahore.
The land on which Pancholi Studio was built belonged to a distant relative and lifelong friend, Farrukh Hussain Shah. His nephew and my first cousin, Syed Sultan Mahmud joined him in the venture and they appointed Sheikh Adnan, a close friend of mine, the studio manager.
Hence I continued my tryst with the film world. Being a regular visitor to the studio, I became acquainted with many film personalities: music directors Hasan Lateef and Rashid Attre, artists Sabiha, Darpan, Santosh, Sudhir, M Ismail, Ajmal, A Shah etc. Across the road from the studio was a small teahouse located in a thatched hut. Adnan dubbed it ‘Cafe de Phoons’. It became the popular haunt of the film crowd.
Shaukat Hussain Rizvi started building his own studio off Multan Road and named it ‘Shahnoor’. When the first phase of building was complete he began filmmaking. On my first visit to the studio with a few friends I was told that ‘Madam’ was about to record a song. As we seated ourselves in the recording room, Nur Jahan came in. She spotted me in the middle of the recording and touching her forehead, greeted me spontaneously, ‘Shah Jee Salaam’. ‘Cut’, yelled her husband angrily and the recording had to begin afresh.
I had known Nur Jahan since the late 1930s when she used to recite nohas at our Kucha Faqir Khana Imambargah. She was in her early teens then and I was a very young boy who stood gaping, overawed by her melodious voice. After that we met quite a few times in Bombay and later in Lahore. In fact, I remember sitting through almost the entire shooting of Zia Sarhady’s Nadaan which starred her in the leading role against newcomer Masud.
After his return to Lahore, my uncle Tanvir Naqvi married Nur Jahan’s elder sister Eidan Begum who also had a melodious voice. However, her parents did not allow her to sing professionally as they did not want any professional rivalry between the two sisters.
I recall an occasion when my wife and I dropped in at Tanvir Naqvi’s. Madam was already there. She insisted that her sister join her to sing Tanvir’s immortal lyrics ‘Dil ka diya jalaya mein nay’. As they wound up with the last line, ‘Dil ka diya bujhaya’, Nur Jahan said that their parents had done an injustice to ‘Api’. Probably the younger sister’s good looks influenced the parents’ decision.
In the winter of 1975, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto organised a grand reception for the Shah of Iran at Al Murtaza in Larkana. Punjab Chief Minister Haneef Ramay was asked to arrange the entertainment for the evening. As DGPR I was in charge of the Punjab Arts Council where Roshan Bokhari had trained a troupe of dancers. The chief minister told me to bring the ensemble to Larkana.
The prime minister had expressed his desire to have Nur Jahan perform on the occasion. Mindful of her aversion to public performances, Ramay entrusted me with the task of persuading her. I finally succeeded in convincing her and took her to Larkana in a Wapda aircraft, accompanied by maestro Hassan Lateef and her own musicians. What a grand performance she gave and Mr Bhutto and the rest of the audience showered praise on her!
In the summer of 1985 I went to the USA. While in San Francisco, I received a call from Dr Riaz Ahmed, an old friend, who invited me to a performance by Madam Nur Jahan the same evening at Detroit. I took the next available flight out and went straight to the venue after a seven-hour journey. The first people that I met were Ambassador Jamshed Marker and his charming wife Arnaz, both dear friends of long standing. Suddenly, I found someone else embracing me, exclaiming “Shah Ji, Hum bhi tau parrey hein raahon mein”.
I hugged Madam warmly and we had a long chat. It transpired that she was in the States primarily for a medical check up and had been advised to have a coronary by-pass. Despite that, she gave a memorable performance. Having being carried away by some cherished personal memories of ‘malika-e-tarranum’ let me get back on track. I had known Riaz Shahid from the late 1940s, as he was also a regular at the Coffee House. His talents came to the fore when he wrote, produced and directed Yeh Amn. The film portrayed the atrocities perpetrated on the Muslim populace of Kashmir by the forces of occupation. Initially banned and subsequently subjected to ruthless censorship, the movie became an instant hit despite all the unkind cuts and mutilations. What a pity that Riaz Shahid was struck down by a fatal blood disorder and died in the prime of his life.
Khwaja Sultan Ahmed, now a leading Supreme Court lawyer, was my classmate and a very close friend. The younger brother of Khwaja Khurshid Anwar, he was deeply interested in music. I still remember his spontaneous comment on hearing about the death of K L Saigol that God could have taken away Nehru instead and given the great singer a few more years!
I was a frequent visitor to his house and this gave me the opportunity of meeting Khwaja Khurshid Anwar occasionally and listening to his views on the classical and folk music traditions of the subcontinent. He rightfully became the doyen of Pakistan’s music directors and made a lasting contribution with his research on the musical traditions of the Kirana gharana and the Ahang-e-Khusravi. This work was done in association with Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
Another friend that I made at the Coffee House was Aslam Pervez who acted as a hero and then as a popular villain in scores of Pakistani films. He introduced me to his brother, Moin Najmi, an outstanding but self-effacing painter. What a pity that Aslam Pervez also passed away at the zenith of his career.
In early 1948, my uncle Munawar H Kasim, a film producer/director, also came back from Bombay and set up a film distribution office before venturing into filmmaking. His first movie was Aaj Kal which starred Rehana and newcomer Kamal. It was released shortly after Raj Kapoor’s Awara which had been very successful at the box office. Due to an uncanny similarity in themes, Aaj Kal was dubbed a copy of Awara and did not do well. Kasim made two more serious movies which also flopped. Disgusted, he migrated to England where he made a name for himself in the field of film documentaries. However, I acquired a good friend in Syed Kamal and remember him fondly, although we have not met in a long time.
This is the first of a two part series by Syed Abid Ali, former Director General Public Relations, Punjab and Secretary General, PNCA
Source: Daily Times