Daily Times

The film was well-received as soon as it was released due to the hype it had created. The film was mostly shot outdoors in a village in the Punjab.

In the film, Sabiha and Santosh fall in love in the village and Allauddin comes in the way and plays a villainous role.

There are a lot of dances in the film as well as a Punjabi bhangra performance by a group of young girls on a farm that attracted a lot of viewers to the cinemas in 1958.

Looking back, Sabiha and Santosh, as a couple, could not match this movie’s box-office success again, even though they did make many Punjabi language films together, later in their film careers. This movie still remains one of their best efforts and became a super-hit at the box-office.

Now we shall enter the decade of 1960s till Santosh Kumar’s last film ‘Diwane Do’ with Babra Sharif and Nadeem in 1985 (a film released three years after his death). Santosh Kumar died on 11th June 1982 at age 56. He did 85 films in the span of 35 years in the Pakistan Film Industry.

Ironically, this was a story based on a well-to-do music composer, a role played by Santosh Kumar. Generally speaking in our society, financially strong persons are not music composers as there are many examples that they died poor despite excellent work they produced in their life time. He worked opposite Sabiha Khanum. This pair worked in many films together, their last hit film was ‘Sawaal’ made in 1966. There last film was ‘Garhasti’ in 1971. Rasheed Attre composed five best songs for Nurjehan and classical numbers by Ustad Nazakat Ali Khan-Ustad Salamat Ali Khan duo. He also used voices of Naseem begum, Mala, Salim Raza and Muneer Hussain. The latter rendered ‘Mitwa Tarsain Mori Akhian’ a classical number.

This film shall be remembered by the treatment given to the music and story by Khwaja Khursheed Anwar. The deviation was in the shape of the selection of Nayyar Sultana as lead against Santosh Kumar because of her tall height and structure as she had to play the role of a mystery girl.

There are a lot of dances in the film as well as a Punjabi bhangra performance by a group of young girls in a farm that attracted a lot of viewers to the cinemas in 1958

Nurjehan’s ‘Kabhi Hum Bhi Tum Sey They Ashna’ and Mehdi Hasan singing ‘Mujh Ko Awaz Dey Tu Kahan Hei’ wherein Nayyar Sultana and Santosh Kumar looked at their best respectively in this film. I like the songs ‘Mere Piya Ko Dhoondh Kei Laao Sakhi’, ‘Pal Pal Mora Gi Ghabraye’ and ‘Raahon Pei Chaai Hain Nazrain Jamaye’ better because of haunting impact these compositions ooze out. Site Cineplot.co, observe ‘The substantial part of the picture, however, is the world of spirits, which appears to be more realistic than the matter-of-fact scenes of everyday life, which only serve as a backdrop, against which the main emotional experience is projected. This world of spirits is a dream world conjured up by the artistic genius of Khurshid Anwar by an exquisitely sensitive blending of ethereal patterns of melody with suggestive pictorial imagery. The result cannot be analyzed in terms of independent elements of experience. It is a totality of experience, which is the hallmark of all that is really good in art’. Santosh Kumar had revealed his desire to Naheed, his wife who had not lifted her veil yet that his mother had dreamed his wife to be ‘Purban Ki Rani’ only to postpone seeing his wife’s face in real. He dozes off only to find out that his wife had vanished. She appeared as ‘Purban Ki Rani’ later on in the film. It is one of the best films of Santosh Kumar.

We could go on and on writing on his other successful films but above sample suffices. 1965 film ‘Naela’ opposite Shamim Ara deserves special mention because of the emotional acting by the leading pair and outstanding songs. It was Agha G. A. Gul’s film; the first Pakistani colour film.

Because of his education and experience, Santosh Kumar was always selected to lead the delegation of Pakistan as a representative in meetings held abroad. In other words, he was known as the foreign minister of the Pakistani film industry. This was revealed by him in one of his interviews broadcast by the Radio Pakistan in the mid-1960s. The first Nigar Award for best actor in the history of Nigar Awards was presented to him for ‘Waada’. Then he won the Best Actor Nigar Awards in 1962 and 1963. Finally, he was awarded Sitara-e-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) by the president in 2010 long after his death. ‘Shaam Dhalay’ is the only film he produced, directed and played the lead role in. *

The writer is the recipient of the prestigious Pride of Performance award. He can be reached at doc_amjad@hotmail.com