Noor Jahan (singer)

Noor Jehan (Punjabi: ) (born () Allah Rakhi Wasai ; 23 September 1926 – 23 December 2000; sometimes spelled Noorjehan),Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, ''Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema,'' British Film Institute, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2002, pp. 166. also known by her honorific title Malika-e-Tarannum (Queen of Melody), was a Punjabi playback singer and actress who worked first in India and then in the cinema of Pakistan. Her career spanned more than six decades (the 1930s–1990s). Considered to be one of the greatest and most influential singers in Indian subcontinent, she was given the honorific title of ''Malika-e-Tarannum'' in Pakistan. She had a command of Hindustani classical music as well as other music genres.

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 recorded about 20,000 songs in various languages including Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and Sindhi. She sang a total of 2,422 songs in 1148 Pakistani films during a career that lasted more than half a century. 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 and was one of the eleven children of Imdad Ali and Fateh Bibi., Retrieved 7 July 2015

Career

Career in British India

Jehan began to sing at the age of six and showed a keen interest in a range of styles, including traditional folk and popular theatre. Realising her potential for singing, her father sent her to receive early training in classical singing under Ustad Ghulam Mohammad. He started her training at age of 11 at Calcutta and instructed her in the traditions of the Patiala Gharana of Hindustani classical music and the classical forms of '' thumri'', ''dhrupad'', and '' khyal''.

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.

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 (not to be confused with actress Sabiha Khanum) 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''.

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. 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, Zeenat, Gaon Ki Gori'' (all 1945), '' Anmol Ghadi'' (1946), Mirza Sahiban (1947) and '' Jugnu'' (1947) were the top-grossing films of the years 1945 to 1947.
Mirza Sahiban was her last film released in India in which she was paired opposite Trilok Kapoor, brother of Prithviraj Kapoor.

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 ''Dupatta'' (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. Durrani pressured her to give up acting, and her last film as an actress/singer was ''Ghalib'' (1961). This contributed to the strengthening of her iconic stature. She gained another audience for herself. Her rendition of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's ''" Mujhse Pehli Si Mohabbat Mere Mehboob Na Maang"'' is a unique example of ''tarranum'', reciting poetry as a song with music of Rasheed Attre

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