The queen of song lives on

Published February 23, 2015
LAHORE: Jugnu Mohsin (centre) and Noor Jahan’s daughters Mina Hasan and Nazia Ijaz at a session held to pay tribute to the melody queen. — White Star
LAHORE: Jugnu Mohsin (centre) and Noor Jahan’s daughters Mina Hasan and Nazia Ijaz at a session held to pay tribute to the melody queen. — White Star

“This love for music is never ending,” says Noor Jahan in a video. “I do not know when I will learn how to sing, but I do know that I will always sing till my last day on earth.”

“She was an extraordinary person, and as a mother she used to cook for us and I remember she sat on the floor and fed us with her own hands,” said her daughter Mina Hasan, who was one of the panelists at an LLF session where her mother was paid tribute. The session was moderated by Hameed Haroon.

“It was so lovely to wake up and hear Mummy doing riaz with her ustad,” said her youngest daughter Nazia Ejaz also a panelist. “He would hit a note on one side and then she would counter it in her own voice,” added Mina. “But of course at that time we did not understand the importance of recording those sessions; today we regret that.”

There are collectors in Lahore and Karachi who own original recording but have yet to let them be distributed. But some rare singles have been remastered by EMI without the use of any extra sounds, especially jhankaars, which sometimes mar original pieces of classic music.

For example there is the only song of Noor Jahan where she is singing using the Khayal in the film ‘Koyal’. That was when Madam’s career was at its peak. She had served the subcontinent through films and music from the age of seven or eight.

She would produce a profusion of songs that would haunt the nation. The song ‘Lakht-e-Jigar’, a piece of music by Baba Chishti, immortalised the love between the mother and the child.

“I would be jealous of her when she would leave me for her studio and I would feel like hiding her from everyone,” says Nazia. “But I was really choked up when she was in ICU and a man came all the way from Nawabshah to see if she needed any blood. It was then that I understood how much she meant to people.”

Speaking on the living relationship with Noor Jahan, Jugnu Mohsin said, “She addressed the deepest recesses within the nation, and I lived my life through her songs and her Herculean stature. Even today I only delve into Urdu poetry because of having heard it through her voice.”

Where Urdu poetry was concerned, Noor Jahan’s rendition of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poem Mujh Se Pehli Si Mohabbat could never be forgotten. Panelist Yasser Hashmi, also the grandson of Faiz, gave a background to the rendition.

“When Faiz was in jail, he would listen to the radio because there was not much else to do there. Meanwhile, Madam had fought her way with producers to have her sing the song of a banned poet. She finally got her way, as always, and sang it. In jail, others inmates came running to tell Faiz that his poem was being sung on air.”

Nazia took on from this point, saying when Faiz was released one of the first things he did was visiting her mother – who ran out to greet him at the gate. Spontaneously, she hugged him and the two became friends till the end. In fact once, in Noor Jahan’s own words, Faiz made her sing his poem ‘Aa Kay Wabasta Hain’ extempore so she could compose it herself.

About the 1965 recording, it was said there was no orchestra and Noor Jahan had to work extra hours and then go live. When she knew that soldiers would be listening to her live, she uddenly felt nervous.

But in fact, her both famous songs -- Aye Watan Kay Sajeelay Jawanon and Aye Puttar Hatan Tay Nai Wikde -- were not really ‘war songs’, said Jugnu Mohsin. “They are actually anti-war songs. She does not embody the nation’s spirit of militancy, instead she embodies the nation’s aspiration of getting over war as positively as they can.”

“And the poetry being Soofi Tabassum’s, it showed how much Noor Jahan felt for the common man,” added Hashmi. “In fact that was what brought Faiz and her together.”

The most memorable and remarkable lineup was when for the first and last time, Noor Jahan, Farida Khanum and Ustad Allah Rakha came together to produce a song called ‘Saajan Laagi Tori Nazar Manwa’. While Noor Jahan and Khanum were the female singers in the track, the male singers were the great Ustad Salamat and Nazakat Ali Khan. The song was included in the 1962 film ‘Baji’. The film has been lost but the song has been saved and re-released.

Right after the 1965 war she sang a bhajan, composed by Nisar Bazmi, in a film where she played a Hindu girl Shakuntala. Of course, the song was banned from being aired.

Published in Dawn February 23rd , 2015

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