Replay of Muneeza Hashmi’s idea of a series titled ‘Khawateen Time’ brought back the memories of famous singer of yesteryears Nazeer Begum in one of the episodes.
Watching her interview by Dr. Fauzia Saeed produced by Zulfiqar Ahmad, another competent producer of PTV brought back many programmes of the established singer of that time from Radio Pakistan and PTV. Famous music composer Mian Sheheryar would often book her in his programmes. As a matter of fact, he used to book other veteran singers like Mumtaz Begum, Khursheed Begum also. Nazeer Begum’s personality always reflected a sober countenance especially as she dressed in decent clothes. She did not opt for glamour which some of her colleagues did in the singing field even at that time.
Nazeer Begum was basically a Radio singer. She was born in Faisalabad on May 15, 1939 but moved to Peshawar where she started singing at Radio Pakistan at the age of thirteen or fourteen years, she disclosed in the above referred interview. She said that she was fond of singing since her childhood and used to sing in her school. Though she got married in Peshawar at an early age but it was her brother in law the cricketer Maqsood alias Merry Max who referred her to his friend producer Hameed Naseem at Radio Pakistan Karachi. She moved to Karachi. Singing at Radio was considered an honour in 1950s. It still is though the regular monthly bookings of singers have stopped since many years. Radio Pakistan was considered as an informal training academy where all the great classical and semi-classical singers used to come for LIVE singing on monthly bookings.
The excuse offered nowadays is that of lack of budget. Music producers such as Muhammad Azam Khan, Khalid Asghar when at helm of affairs would fight with Headquarters for allocation of budget and they used to succeed. Every month a booking chart was prepared and the singers received a letter from Radio Pakistan about their performance date. Azam Khan would discuss the Raag to be sung and get the contract signed from the singer in advance. Lahore Radio Station also had competent music producers such as Tasaduq Ali Khan, and Syed Shehwar Haider.
Nazeer Begum always felt relaxed in Radio Station’s environment as she could sing in its studios even if she was clad in Burqa. Bazeer Begum was of the opinion that any artist who excelled in Radio would not fare less in any other forum. She praised the music composers as informal teachers as they used to take pains in rehearsing with the vocalists. Then great station directors sometimes used to sit on the studio panels like Bukhari Saheb and the artist used to work hard to maintain a good standard.
ENTRY IN FILMS — while in Karachi, Nazeer Begum was invited by the producers of the film ‘Hamari Zaban’ to sing five songs for that film in the music of Ghulam Nabi Abdul Latif. It was the first film produced in Karachi but unfortunately failed at box office. It was only released in Karachi circuit. Before this film she sang one song filmed on Sabiha Khanum opposite Masood namely ‘Sailab’ in the music of Asghar Ali Muhammad Hussain. This film had introduced Fareeda Khanum as an actor also though she established herself as famous Ghazal singer later on. She only appeared once in the films. Nazeer Begum was very ambitious in the sense that she sang in all the local languages and also in the foreign languages where ever she visited as a part of government cultural delegation like in China and Korea. In Karachi she lent her voice to the Sindhi film Umar Marvi. By the time famous playback singer Zubeda Khanum got married and said goodbye to the playback singing in Lollywood, there was a vacuum. To fill this void, Nazeer Begum was invited to sing for Lahore based movies, mostly in Punjabi language. 1963/1964 was a successful period for her. Her folk songs were already very popular at Radio Pakistan like ‘Kala Doriya Kunde Naal Aryai Oye’ and she disclosed that Aslam Irani and Shabab Kiranvi invited her to sing songs in their films. Her songs ‘Nimbuan Da Jora Assan Bagay Wichaun Toreya’ and ‘Thora Thora Chann Wekhya, Buhta Reh Gaya Ghataan Dei Ohlay’ were instant hits. Despite the fact that Nazeer Begum rendered around 300 songs in 150 odd films, the success ratio was not that high probably because of quality of films produced at that time. To improve her performance Nazeer Begum became pupil of Ustad Payare Khan in classical music. After his demise she referred herself to his son Ustad Umeed Ali Khan of Patiala Gharana. He was maternal grandfather of Ustad Amanat Ali Khan and Ustad Fateh Ali Khan. Nazeer Begum’s third film was ‘Mehfil’ starring Sabiha, Sudhir and Allauddin released on June 17, 1955. Nazeer Begum’s song ‘Rut Mastani, Haye Jawani, Raha Na Jaye Re, Haye Re’ was filmed on Gulshan Ara composed by Hassan Latif. One of the reasons for shifting to Lahore was the advice of Agha GA Gul, the owner of Evernew Studios in Lahore. Nazeer Begum started singing songs for Urdu and Punjabi films. Her first song ‘Rasham Da Lacha Lak Wei’ with Zubeda Khanum was for the film ‘Yakke Waali’. This MJ Rana film had Musarrat Nazir and Sudhir in its cast. She also sang for the film Rani Khan but Tees Maar Khan’s song quoted above filmed on actress Shirin gave her popularity. In the long run this song became identity of Nazeer Begum. In 1963 her song ‘Samaa Jab Pyara Pyara Ho’ for the film ‘Maan Ke Aansoo’ was also liked. It was Shabab Kiranvi’s film with Nayyar Sultana and Habib in the lead but the song was filmed on actor Roshan and Naghma Begum in the music of Manzoor Ashraf. Nazeer Begum’s duets with Ahmad Rushdi and Masood Rana and with Irene Parveen are even remembered today. She sang a lot with singer Khursheed Begum. It is not appropriate to reproduce the list which is available on net. Her duet with Mehdi Hassan was for the film Miss 56 with the lyrics ‘Yei Chandani Yei Saaye, Pehlu Main Tum Ho Merey’. To summarise we shall list some of the movies below for which Nazeer Begum rendered songs: 1965: Ik Si Chor, 1965: Pilpli Sahib, 1965: Mann Mouji, 1965: Malangi, 1966: Chughalkhor, 1966: Bharia Mela, 1966: Tabedar, 1967: Yaaran Naal Baharan, 1968: Pind Di Kurri, 1968: Kurmai, 1969: Ishq Na Puchhay Zaat.
FAMILY LIFE — Nazeer Begum was not very happy with the struggle in her life, so she did not encourage her three sons to join music industry. One son became a doctor; the other became an engineer and the third one, a banker. This reviewer remembers that he received a call from Nazeer Begum in Lucas House Birmingham, UK where he was studying for his doctoral thesis to send Grey’s Anatomy for his son, which this reviewer did. Her son Khawer lives in Lahore and looks after his Mom who is a thyroid gland patient. He worked in Izzat Majeed’s Sachal Studios for a while till that studio was in operation. It is closed now because of Izzat’s dementia disease.
The writer is the recipient of the prestigious Pride of Performance award. He can be reached at [email protected]