Guess who sings for Nargis?) Here, Shamshad lends voice to Cuckoo, while Lata sings for the heroine, Nargis.Ĥ. Shamshad but rarely, and seldom for the 'heroine', so also, Naushadīegan to use Shamshad for either the 'vamp' (Nigar in Mughal-e-Azam) or the second lead (Munawar Sultana in Babul. Lata won the prize by singing two Shamshad Begum solos from the movie. Together for Khidki, it was Naushad who gave the two some of their most popular duets (the iconic Teri mehfil mein kismet aazmakar from Mughale-e-Azam/1960 and Kisi ke dil mein rehna thafrom Babul/1950).įew people know that Lata had once won a Khazanchi competition - the film's music was a rage, and in 1941, a competiton was held in Pune to see who could sing two songs from the film. Numbered 28 in all), and if it was C Ramchandra who first got the two Dar na muhobath kar le (with Lata Mangeshkar)Īnd Shamshad had sung but a handful of songs together (their duets He and his wife, Umrazia Begum, were very attached to her.ģ. He was her 'Guru', and until he migrated to Pakistan following the partition, he not only mentored her, but closely monitored her career. Chal Chal Re Naujawan, Humayun, Phool, Bairam Khan and Shama followed, each one with a a plethora of melodious numbers. When Ghulam Haider moved to Bombay in 1944, Shamshad was only too happy to work with him again. Ghulam Haider had previously composed music for a Punjabi film called Yamla Jat (1940) in which the young Shamshad sang for the heroine Anjana, while Noor Jehan sang for herself. Khazanchi (1941) was her first Hindi 'film' recording. Her father finally agreed, but not before imposing many conditions that his obedient daughter followed. He knew her from her Lahore days in fact, was the man who 'discovered' her, and convinced her father, a conservative man, to let her sing. If ever Shamshad Begum had a mentor, it was Master Ghulam Haider. Gori chali piya ke desh (with Zohrabai Ambalewali) Her hero? Motilal, older by more than 20 years.Ģ. The film was the 'adult' debut of Nargis, born Fatima Rashid, and already famous as child actor Baby Rani. It was a triumph of sorts - Shamshad came, sang, and conquered. He also gave in to her father's demands that she not be photographed, that he provide her with a house and car - all of which, Mehboob Khan fulfilled. It was Mehboob Khan who coaxed her into moving. Already a well-known name in her hometown, Lahore, then the hub of the film industry, she didn't want to move to Bombay. Her self-imposed seclusion is remarkable, because during all those decades away from the public eye, her old songs remained popular with the public and not a day passed without at least a couple of songs being played on Vividh Bharati and All India Radio.If it hadn't been for Mehboob Khan, the Hindi film industry would never have known Shamshad Begum.Her family clarified in a press release that this was not so and it later emerged that the Shamshad Begum who had died in 1998 was Saira Banu’s maternal grandmother.In 2004, a controversy erupted in the media, when several publications wrongly reported that she had died a few years previously.She gradually became a recluse and devoted herself entirely to her grandchildren, to the point that the general public was unaware of whether she was alive or dead.Her songs from the 1940s to the early 1970s remain popular and continue to be remixed.She worked with maestros including Naushad Ali, S.She had a distinctive voice and was a versatile artist, singing over 6,000 songs in Hindi and Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil and Punjabi languages and of them 1287 songs were Hindi film songs.She was an Indian singer who was one of the first playback singers in the Hindi film industry.