Noorjehan began singing at the age of four or five. This amounts to losing your innocence and curiosity at an age when you are supposed to be playing with dolls or singing nursery rhymes. The family was living hand-to-mouth and Noorjehan had to feed them. She started singing at cheap road shows in Qasoor. The next stop was Lahore where she sang on stage and in cinemas (during intermissions) and theatres. Next was a long train trip to Kolkata where she began singing and acting in films as Baby Noorjehan. This ended by late 1930s.

Noorjehan now was neither a child star nor an adult. She came back to Lahore and started with “Gul Bakavali”, which led to more Punjabi films. After “Khandaan”, she left for Mumbai and stayed there till September 1947. She made it big in Mumbai. Her notable films include “Anmol Ghari”, “Dost”, “Zeenat”, “Bari Maa”’ and “Jugno”. She was deeply attached to her maternal family and after Independence, she, her editor-director-producer husband Shaukat Hussain Rizvi and two sons Akbar and Asghar, left for Pakistan, first at Karachi and later at Lahore.

Again she had to shift because of her husband. In that respect were not all major decisions taken for Noorjehan?

Noorjehan was closely attached to her mother, brothers and sisters. This led to a conflict with her husband who held them in contempt. Her paternal family had to leave Mumbai. After Independence, her shift to Pakistan was because of her love for her mother, sisters and brothers. I suppose Shaukat wanted to save the marriage and accompanied her. Dilip Kumar asked her to stay in Mumbai but her reply was “I have to go where I have come from” (Mai wahan jaoongi jahan sey aai hoon).

Noorjehan’s life was full of ups and downs, more of the latter. Was it a deliberate decision on your part to focus on the good times, giving only a passing mention of the tragedies?

All of us want to laugh, some want to cry and very few want to cry in public but Noorjehan did cry in public a few times. Tears and sorrow were very much a part of Noorjehan’s life and career.

I have tried to include those dreams and nightmares, which were part of Noorjehan, her love, romance, marriage, professional rivalries and jealousy, divorces, motherhood, awards, decline, foreign trips, fame, child custody battle, prolonged illness and finally sad demise. All this was Noorjehan.

Like most artistes of her generation, Noorjehan shifted to TV. Wasn’t the move more about professional sustenance than merely giving in to fans?

Colour came into TV in the mid-1970s. Noorjehan had never worked in the colour films because her last film “Ghalib” came in 1960. According to Noorjehan, her fans wanted to see her on screen and that made her opt for two long serials on Pakistan Television in the 1980s and 1990s.

But the hard fact is that two singers, Mehnaz and Naheed Akhtar, were now big playback singers. Noorjehan was almost being shifted to second place. TV was an instrument to win. After all, she had the glamour, gloss, expensive saris and jewellery and, above all, a good voice still. All this had to be exhibited on the small colour screen. “Tarannum” was seen in every Pakistani home.

Was she the last of the genuine artistes, who did not go to a music school but only honed the natural talent?

Singing was the order of the day in her family. She began singing at a very early age (may be four or five). Ustad Ghulam Mohammad was her first and last teacher from adolescence to when she was in her seventies. She did take lessons in classical music and rendered many songs and ghazals.

Noorjehan did not belong to any musical gharana; she did not have a gharana background. She did become a disciple of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan but that was just a formality, a photo session (and they both knew it).

Noorjehan’s voice had a typical Punjabi style. She later developed an excellent grasp for alaap and used it remarkably well in films like “Anarkali” (Saada hoon apney pyar ki and Hum teri gali mei aa nikley) and “Neend” (Chun chun chun chun bajey pyal bajey).

Is India guilty of forgetting Mallika-a-tarannum at the altar of political convenience?

India never forgot Noorjehan and Noorjehan never forgot India or her Indian friends from Dilip Kumar to Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle to Naushad to Mehboob Khan. During her trip to Mumbai in the 1980s and 1990s, she declared that part of her was India and part of it was Pakistan. She also said that she had come back to pay her debts to the land that gave her name, fame and recognition.

However I wish that Noorjehan had kept her contacts with the Indian film industry more active. It would have been pure magic if she had sung for Madan Mohan, Shanker-Jaikishan, S.D. Burman... I suppose the turbulent political relations between the two countries restricted her to singing just for Pakistani films. Noorjehan always retained the best of her memories and past from India.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

---

---

Magazine