Noor Jehan

Noor Jehan (born Allah Wasai; 21 September 1926 – 23 December 2000; sometimes spelled Noorjehan),[1][2] also known by her honorific title Malika-e-Tarannum (the queen of melody), was a Pakistani playback singer and actress who worked first in British India and then in Pakistan. Her career spanned more than six decades (the 1930s–1990s). She was renowned as one of the greatest and most influential singers of all time especially throughout South Asia and was given the honorific title of Malika-e-Tarannum in Pakistan.[2] She had a command of Hindustani classical music as well as other music genres.

Malika-e-Tarannum

Noor Jehan

Noor Jehan in 1945 film Zeenat
Born
Allah Wasai
اللہ وسائی

(1926-09-21)21 September 1926
Kasur, Punjab, British India
(present-day Punjab, Pakistan)
Died23 December 2000 (aged 74)
Resting placeGizri Graveyard, Karachi
NationalityBritish Indian (1926–1947)
Pakistani (1947–2000)
Occupation
  • Playback Singer
  • Music Composer
  • Actress
  • Director
Years active19351997
Notable work
  • Zeenat (1945)
  • Anmol Ghadi (1946)
  • Jugnu (1947)
  • Chan Wey (1951)
  • Dupatta (1952)
  • Intezar (1956)
  • Anarkali (1958)
  • Koel (1959)
Style
Title"Malika-e-Tarannum" (Queen of Melody)
Spouse(s)
(m. 1942; div. 1953)

(m. 1959; div. 1970)
Relatives
Awards15 Nigar Awards
Honours

Along with Ahmed Rushdi, she holds the record for having given voice to the largest number of film songs in the history of Pakistani cinema. She is estimated to have made more than 40 films and sung around 20,000 numbers during a career which lasted more than half a century.[3] She is thought to be one of the most prolific singers of all time. She is also considered to be the first female Pakistani film director.

Early life

Noor Jehan was born as Allah Rakhi Wasai into a Punjabi Muslim family in Kasur, Punjab, British India[4] and was one of the eleven children of Imdad Ali and Fateh Bibi.[5][6]

Career

Poster of Yamla Jatt (1940) Noor Jehan, M. Ismail, Pran

Her career in British India

Noor Jehan in 1946 film Humjoli

Jehan began to sing at the age of five and showed a keen interest in a range of styles, including traditional folk and popular theatre. Realising her potential for singing, her mother sent her to receive early training in classical singing under Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. He instructed her in the traditions of the Patiala Gharana of Hindustani classical music and the classical forms of thumri, dhrupad, and khayal.

At the age of nine, Noor Jehan drew the attention of Punjabi musician Ghulam Ahmed Chishti, who would later introduce her to the stage in Lahore. He composed some ghazals, na`ats and folk songs for her to perform, although she was keener on breaking into acting or playback singing. Once her vocational training finished, Jehan pursued a career in singing alongside her sister in Lahore, and would usually take part in the live song and dance performances prior to screenings of films in cinemas.[4]

Theatre owner Diwan Sardari Lal took the small girl to Calcutta in the early 1930s and the entire family moved to Calcutta in hopes of developing the movie careers of Allah Wasai and her older sisters, Eiden Bai and Haider Bandi. Mukhtar Begum encouraged the sisters to join film companies and recommended them to various producers. She also recommended them to her husband, Agha Hashar Kashmiri, who owned a maidan theatre (a tented theatre to accommodate large audiences). It was here that Wasai received the stage name, Baby Noor Jehan. Her older sisters were offered jobs with one of the Seth Sukh Karnani companies, Indira Movietone and they went on to be known as the Punjab Mail.[5]

In 1935, K.D. Mehra directed the Punjabi movie Pind di Kuri in which Noor Jehan acted along with her sisters and sang the Punjabi song "Langh aja patan chanaan da o yaar", which became her earliest hit. She then acted in a film called Missar Ka Sitara (1936) by the same company and sang in it for music composer Damodar Sharma. Jehan also played the child role of Heer in the film Heer-Sayyal (1937). One of her popular songs from that period "Shala jawaniyan maney" is from Dalsukh Pancholi's Punjabi film Gul Bakawli (1939). All these Punjabi movies were made in Calcutta. After a few years in Calcutta, Jehan returned to Lahore in 1938. In 1939, renowned music director Ghulam Haider composed songs for Jehan which led to her early popularity, and he thus became her early mentor.

In 1942, she played the main lead opposite Pran in Khandaan (1942). It was her first role as an adult, and the film was a major success. The success of Khandaan saw her shifting to Bombay, with the director Syed Shaukat Hussain Rizvi. She shared melodies with Shanta Apte in Duhai (1943). It was in this film that Jehan lent her voice for the second time, to another actress named Husn Bano. She married Rizvi later the same year.[7] From 1945 to 1947 and her subsequent move to Pakistan, Noor Jehan was one of the biggest film actresses of the Indian Film Industry. Her films: Badi Maa (1945), Zeenat (1945 film), Gaon Ki Gori (1945), Anmol Ghadi (1946), and Jugnu (1947 film) were the top-grossing films of the years 1945 to 1947.[8]

Acting career in Pakistan

In 1947, Rizvi and Jehan decided to move to Pakistan. They left Bombay and settled in Karachi with their family.

Three years after settling in Pakistan, Jehan starred in her first Pakistani film Chan Wey (1951), opposite Santosh Kumar, which was also her first Pakistani film as a heroine and playback singer. Shaukat Hussain Rizvi and Noor Jehan directed this film together, making Jehan Pakistan's first female director. It became the highest-grossing film in Pakistan in 1951. Jehan's second film in Pakistan was Dopatta (1952) which was Produced by Aslam Lodhi, Directed by Sibtain Fazli and assisted by A. H. Rana as Production Manager. Dupatta turned out to be an even bigger success than Chan Wey (1951).

During 1953 and 1954, Jehan and Rizvi had problems and got divorced due to personal differences. She kept custody of the three children from their marriage. In 1959, she married another film actor, Ejaz Durrani, nine years her junior.[7] Durrani pressured her to give up acting,[7] and her last film as an actress/singer was Mirza Ghalib (1961). This contributed to the strengthening of her iconic stature. She gained another audience for herself. Her rendition of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's "Mujh se pehli si mohabbat mere mehboob na maang" is a unique example of tarranum, reciting poetry as a song with superb music of Rasheed Attre in the Pakistani film Qaidi (1962). Jehan last acted in Baaji in 1963, though not in a leading role.

Jehan bade farewell to film acting in 1963 after a career of 33 years (1930–1963). The pressure of being a mother of six children and the demands of being a wife to another fellow film actor, forced her to give up her career. Jehan made 14 films in Pakistan, ten in Urdu and four in Punjabi as a film actress.

As playback singer

After quitting acting she took up playback singing. She made her debut exclusively as a playback singer in 1960 with the film Salma. Her first initial playback singing for a Pakistani film was for the 1951 film Chann Wey, for which she was the film director herself. She received many awards, including the Pride of Performance in 1965 by the Pakistani Government. She sang a large number of duets with Ahmed Rushdi, Mehdi Hassan, Masood Rana, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Mujeeb Aalam.

She had an understanding and friendship with many singers of Asia, for example with Alam Lohar and many more. Jehan made great efforts to attend the "Mehfils" (live concerts) of Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Roshan Ara Begum. Lata Mangeshkar commented on Jehan's vocal range, that Jehan could sing as low and as high as she wanted, and that the quality of her voice always remained the same. Singing was, for Jehan, not effortless but an emotionally and physically draining exercise.[9] In the 1990s, Jehan also sang for then débutante actresses Neeli and Reema. For this very reason, Sabiha Khanum affectionately called her Sadabahar (evergreen). Her popularity was further boosted with her patriotic songs during the 1965 war between Pakistan and India.

In 1971 Madam Noor Jehan visited Tokyo for the World Song Festival as a representative from Pakistan.

Jehan visited India in 1982 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Indian talkie movies, where she met Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in New Delhi and was received by Dilip Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar in Bombay. She met all her erstwhile heroes and costars, including Surendra, Pran, Suraiya, composer Naushad and others. The website Women on Record stated: "Noor Jehan injected a degree of passion into her singing unmatched by anyone else. But she left for Pakistan".[9]

In 1991, When Jehan was alive, Vanessa Redgrave invited her to perform at a fundraising event to benefit the children of the Middle East held at Royal Albert Hall London. Lionel Richie, Bob Geldof, Madonna, Boy George, and Duran Duran were some of the performers at the star-studded event which was attended, amongst many others, by thespian John Gielgud, Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, and Oscar-winning actor Dame Peggy Ashcroft. She has also sung "Saiyan Saadey Naal", a song of well-known Pakistani folk singer, songwriter and composer Akram Rahi for the film Dam Mast Kalander/Aalmi Gunday.

Personal life

In 1944, Noor Jehan married Shaukat Hussain Rizvi of Azamgarh, UP, India. In 1948, Shaukat Rizvi decided to migrate to Pakistan, and Noor Jehan moved too, ending her career in India. She next visited India only in 1982. Her marriage to Rizvi ended in 1953 with divorce; the couple had three children, including their singer daughter Zil-e-Huma.

Noor Jehan was in a relationship with cricketer Nazar Mohammad also. According to Omar Noman, "as the famous story goes," Nazar sustained the injury jumping out from the house window of the film actress Noor Jehan when her film producer husband Shaukat Hussain Rizvi returned home unexpectedly and surprised them. There were persistent rumours in the local newspapers, at the time, of a romantic affair going on between Noor Jehan and Nazar Mohammad.[10]

She married Ejaz Durrani in 1959. The second marriage also produced three children but also ended in divorce in 1970. She was also married to actor Yousuf Khan .[11]

Last years and death

Jehan's gravesite at the Gizri Graveyard near the Saudi Consulate in Karachi

Jehan suffered from chest pains in 1986 on a tour of North America and was diagnosed with angina pectoris after which she underwent bypass surgery. According to her Daughter, Shazia Hassan, she was suffering from Chronic Kidney disease in her last years and was on dialysis. In 2000, Jehan was hospitalised in Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi and suffered a heart attack. On 23 December 2000 (night of 27 Ramadan), Jehan died as a result of heart failure. Her funeral took place at Jamia Masjid Sultan, Karachi and was attended by over 400,000 people. She was buried at the Gizri Graveyard in Karachi. When she died, then President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf said that "She deserves a state funeral". He ordered her funeral be taken to Lahore from Karachi but her daughters insisted on burying her in Karachi on the night she died. At her death, a famous Indian writer and poet Javed Akhtar in an interview at Mumbai said that "In the worst conditions of our relations with Pakistan in 53 years in a very hostile atmosphere our cultural heritage has been a common bridge. Noor Jehan was one such durable bridge, my fear is that her death may have shaken it".

Awards And Honours

Noor Jehan received more than 15 Nigar Awards for Best Female Playback Singer, eight for best Urdu Singer Female and the rest for Punjabi playback. She has also been given the award for the Singer Of Millennum.

  • In 1945, for the film Zeenat she was awarded by a gold medal by Z.A Bukhari.[12]
  • Noor Jehan was ranked at eighth position in a list of Most Influential Pakistanis after Mohammad Ali Jinnah.[13]
  • She was a melodious singer of the subcontinent. Mohammad Rafi always wished to make duets with her. Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle in an interview said that;­
Noor Jehan was one of my favourite singers and when I listened to her Ghazals, I realized how unusual compositions were those, so I decided to take them to a larger audience which they deserve.
She added that;
The world will never see a singer like her. Just as people have not seen another Mohammad Rafi and Kishore Kumar there would never be another Noor Jehan.[14]
  • Eastern Eye ranked Noor Jehan at 16th in a list of 20 Bollywood singers of all time although she had a very short career there before the Partition. The entertainment editor of Eastern Eye said that;
Noor Jehan was the first female singing star of the Indian cinema and helped to lay the foundation of playback singing as we know it. She inspired a generation of singers including Lata Mangeshkar before single-handedly kick-starting music In Pakistan and inspired subsequent generations there.[15]

Filmography

YearFilm
1935Sheela
1939Gul Bakawli
1939Imandaar
1939Pyam-e-Haq
1940Sajani
1940Yamla Jat
1941Chaudhry
1941Red Signal
1941Umeed
1941Susral
1942Chandani
1942Dheeraj
1942Faryad
1942Khandan - Second Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1942
1943Naadaan
1943Duhai
1943Naukar - Fifth Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1943
1944Lal Haveli
1944Dost
1945Zeenat - Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1945
1945Gaon Ki Gori - Second Highest Indian Grossing Film of 1945
1945Badi Maa - Third Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1945
1945Bhai Jaan
1946Anmol Ghadi - Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1946 (with Surendra (actor))
1946Dil
1946Humjoli
1946Sofia
1946Maharana Pratap
1947Mirza Sahibaan - Fourth Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1947
1947Jugnu - Highest Grossing Indian Film of 1947 (with Dilip Kumar)
1947Abida
1947Mirabai
1951Chan Wey - First Film in Pakistan, Biggest Hit of 1951
1952Dopatta - Biggest Hit of 1952 in Pakistan
1953Gulnar
1955Patey Khan
1956Lakt-e-Jigar (released 17 February 1956)
1956Intezar (released 12 May 1956)
1957Nooran (released 30 May 1957)
1958Choo mantar
1958Anarkali (released 6 June 1958)
1959Neend (released 16 October 1959)
1959Pardaisan
1959Koel (released 24 December 1959)
1961Mirza Ghalib (released 24 November 1961)
1994Danda Peer
1996Dam Mast Kalander/Aalmi Gunday (released 27 September 1996)

References

  1. Firoze Rangoonwalla, Indian Filmography, publisher: J. Udeshi, Bombay, August 1970, passim.
  2. Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, British Film Institute, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2002, pp. 166.
  3. Azad, Arif (5 January 2001). "Obituary: Noor Jehan". the Guardian. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
  4. "Noor Jehan's Biography". 4 June 2008. Archived from the original on 4 June 2008. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  5. "Noor Jahan Biography". Archived from the original on 4 June 2008. Retrieved 29 May 2008., Retrieved 7 July 2015
  6. "Noor Jehan : Marsiya Meer Anis". Hamaraforums.com. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  7. "Noor Jahan". Upper Stall. 21 September 2001. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  8. "The break in the script: How did Partition affect the film industry?". Hindustan Times. 13 August 2016. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
  9. Ally Adnan. "Madam Ji - Part I". The Friday Times. XXIV (88). Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  10. Omar Noman, Pride and Passion: An Exhilarating Half Century of Cricket in Pakistan, OUP, Karachi, 1998, p. 82.
  11. "Shaukat Hussain Rizvi".
  12. Panhwar, Jamal. "Noor Jehan - History of Music in Pakistan". Travel and Culture Services. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  13. Khan, Momina Manzoor (28 August 2017). "Most influential Pakistani after Jinnah". Herald Magazine. Retrieved 7 March 2018.
  14. "Hot New Topic ~NooR JeHaN~". FriendsKorner - Pakistani Media Forum. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
  15. "Noor Jehan is among 20 greatest Bollywood singers of all time". HIP. 26 June 2015. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  16. Top Earners 1945. Box Office India. Archived from the original on 16 October 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2011.
  17. Bali, Karan. "India's loss, Pakistan's gain: The journey of singing great Noor Jehan after 1947". Scroll.in. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  18. "The songstress". www.thefridaytimes.com. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  19. Inaam Nadeem (11 December 2008), Anniversary Special Noor Jehan In Award Ceremony, retrieved 9 April 2018
  20. A, Sheikh, M. (26 April 2012). Who's Who: Music in Pakistan. Xlibris Corporation. ISBN 9781469191591.
  21. Historical Archives (30 January 2016), Last Telephonic Interview of Noor Jahan with Zill-e-Huma, January 2000, retrieved 9 April 2018
  22. "Top 10 Pakistani Female Singers – Best Pakistani Singers". www.asian-women-magazine.com. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  23. "Noor Jehan's 91st Birthday". 21 September 2017.
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