Suraiya: The Last Singing Star

Very informative post, AK. Thank you. I like Suraiya a lot – her voice had a lovely sweetness without being shrill. I must confess I’d not heard most of the songs on your list (except the ones from Mirza Ghalib, Shama Parwana and Rustom Sohrab), so am listening to the songs as I surf the Net…

And here’s my favourite Suraiya song, Aah ko chaahiye, from Mirza Ghalib. She’s superb here, I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Im2JDRUTWQ

AK ji,
A real musical treat indeed.
Thanks.
-AD

@AK,
I am sorry I missed This Anil Biswas number.

Ghulam Mohammad, himself could not unfortunately get the quantum of popular recognition that he desreved, but he has ceratinly added an ever lasting qualitative domension to film music, particularly by his adroit usage of singers like Suraiya, Suman Kalyanpur etc.

@ DustedOff
An intersting information.
For the sake of my undersatnding, if there would have been no pose after gham-e-dil, the sentence would have meant that there is no point in Nuktacheen [discussions?] of the sorrow of the heart communicating to ‘usko’ , whereas as a result of the pose would it now mean that what a pity that one can not communicate the gham-e-dil to usko!

AK ji and Dusted off ji,
Both the singers,Suraiya and KLS sang this gazal for a film,in a film.The constraints of fitting words and pauses perhaps had to be compromised due to metering,tuning and other factors.
The right pause should be after the word hai and then the words ‘gham e dil usko sunayen’ etc should come,only then the correct meaning would come out.
This sort of filmi constraint is not there when this gazal is sung by other singers in a mushayara or you can listen to the gazal sung by Jaddanbai,which is available on you tube.
This is my humble observation,though I am not an expert.
-Arunkumar Deshmukh

AK ji,
Yes,she IS the mother of Nargis.
The pause is after hai, but a short one making the other pause seem bigger.
-AD

But I think in the starting phase of her career she must have given playback. It is said she was in her early teens when she recorded her first song and that she couldn’t even reach the mike. Thus, I think she must have sung for somebody else. Maybe somebody knows which song she sang first.

A lot of discussion has been happening while I’ve been away, but I see that Arunji has already answered the question – the pause should come after “hai”. “Nuktacheen hai” means “He (or she) is indifferent” – which is the prelude to why “gham-e-dil usko sunaaye na bane”. So, having the pause after “gham-e-dil” changes the whole meaning – it seems to suggest that the ‘gham-e-dil’ is indifferent.

But let’s forget that and enjoy the singing and the music for what it is. Perfect. 🙂

Dusted off ji,
very interesting.Would love to hear your singing.
And yes, forget the pause,as you already said,let us enjoy the music as it is.
-AD

To the best of my knowledge, nuqtacheen means ‘critical’. There is no point of telling hale-dil to a person who is critical and not sympathetic to the person who bares his heart. The critic would invariably find fault with the teller and would fail to appreciate the pain of the heart or ghame-dil. To understand the pain of the heart one needs lot of empathy and not critical faculty. Or else, the rendering is pointless and will not meet the desired result, baat ban hi naheen sakti.

Happy Valentine Day to SoY family:

Thank Jignesh. We too enjoy your comments and company.

thanks Akji, Venkatramanji, Mumbaikarji. I m also not fond of this day, and also not against it. But i m furious to those certain ‘card’ making companies who brought this ‘day’ in india and strongly promoted it as only lover’s day and targeted the youngsters to gain higher sales.
This day is for all kind of heartly relations..like i have 4 u ppl.

AK,

You say she wanted Lata to give playback and then say she withdrew from films because Lata emerged as the dominant voice. Are these two statements not contradictory. Otherwise also this implies that she was a playback singer, which was not the case. She was not competing with any of the playback singers either pre-Lata or post-Lata. It was Shamshad who was dominant earlier, then Geeta joined her and Later Lata started dominating. Suraiyya was first and foremost an actress who excelled in singing to such an extent that people started rating her better than the regular playback singers.

Another point on which I wanted to say something was about the Ghalib ghazal ‘nuktacheen hai ghame dil’.

Ghalib was a very complex shayar and to interpret his ghazals is no easy task. He quite correctly told the world ‘ghalib ka hai andaze bayan aur’. In my view Dusted off and others are wide off the mark when they say that there should be a pause after ‘hai’. First of all one thing should be remembered that those who composed for Ghalib ghazals had a deep knowledge of urdu because they intensely studied that language, that era being urdu era. We cannot compete with or replace their knowledge.

My father was along with Saigal and Suraiyya an ardent fan of Ghalib. He could talk about Ghalib endlessly. He was an urdu scholar also. He was very fond of urdu language and always encouraged me to learn it and later on frequently chided me that I was not taking interest in it. Whenever Ghalib was discussed, I used to ask meanings of his Ghazals. ‘Nuktacheen hai’ is such a famous ghazal of his, and I discussed it also with him. Initially I also thought like Dusted off. But my father told me that Ghalib here is talking about the ‘ghame dil’ being ‘nuktacheen’ and not about the lover. The sad heart is critical of his lack of proper efforts to convince the lover. Here all the conversation of Ghalib is with his ‘ghame dil’ or sadness of heart. When I tried to think on these lines, I understood. I am sure, you people would also come to the same conclusion on rethinking.

The problem lies in the modern translators who dont understand the intricacies of the ghazal, let alone ghazal of Ghalib. Sometimes a person like me with such a deficient knowledge of urdu laughs at their translation. So I would request Ghalib lovers to get hold of some very old ‘deewan’ of Ghalib or consult some real urdu scholar.

AK,

I have never said there is contradiction between Suraiyya’s reluctance and Lata’s dominance. Please read my post again.

I have no disagreement with your statement that her personal situation was the reason for her career taking the turn that it took. But, you are giving Lata’s dominance as playback singer as one of the reasons for her withdrawing from films, which is not true in my view and I am conveying only my view and not claiming that my view is the correct one. I have already said that Suraiyya was not affected by who was the dominant singer because she did not deem herself a playback singer.

Suraiyya gave playback only for Naushad. Initially she gave playback as a child artist when she was not given acting roles. Later on when she was established as actress, she never did playback. Using of her song in Shama for Nimmi was perhaps done without her consent.

What Noorjehan did is hardly relevant, because she was a different person placed in a different situation. Suraiyya passed her whole life on her teenage passion and suppressed her love for the sake of her nani, while Noorjehan divorced her husband after having 3 children, had various affairs and then had 2nd marriage which also was dissolved after 3 more children. Your assumption that Suraiyya might have given playback like Noorjehan, is just based on speculation.