Tag Archives: Nighar Sultana

Mere Humdum Mere Dost (1968)

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When Dharmendra passed away earlier this year, it struck me that while I have watched many of his films—from both before and after 1970, the cut-off year for my blog—I have reviewed relatively few. I decided, therefore, to make amends. By watching, for instance, Aaye Din Bahaar Ke and Aaya Saawan Jhoomke. Here’s another one, teaming Dharmendra with one of his more frequent co-stars, Sharmila Tagore.

The story begins on a road where Sunil (?) is walking along with his father, Hari Ram (?). Daddy, walking in the middle of the road [? Why? Also, you know what’s going to happen when a character walks in the middle of the road], is hit by a car, and the next we see, he’s dying in hospital, with Sunil, Sunil’s younger sister, and their mother (Achla Sachdev) looking gloomily on while a policeman tries to get Daddy’s final testimony. Daddy manages to gasp out an accusation: Seth Vishwanath has murdered him; the car accident was no accident. He dies, and the cop goes off to arrest Sethji.

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Patanga (1949)

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Of Mere piya gaye Rangoon fame.

Mere piya gaye Rangoon—and some of the other songs of Patanga—were the main reason I began watching this film. Then, when the credits started to roll and I discovered this film also starred Shyam, I sat up a bit and began watching with a bit more interest. Shyam (1920-51, born Shyam Sundar Chadha) grew up in Rawalpindi and, when he was just 22 years old, debuted in a Punjabi film named Gawandi. He went on to work in several films, including Samadhi, Dillagi, and Shabistan—the last-named was also to be Shyam’s last film: in the course of the shooting, he fell off a horse and died.

I’ve seen precious little of Shyam (Samadhi is the only film of his I remember watching), but he intrigues me in the same way that his older contemporary Chandramohan does: they make me wonder if the honour roll of Hindi cinema would have been somewhat different if these men had lived. Shyam, with that handsome face and that impressive height and build, was definite star material. Plus, he was not a bad actor, either. Had he lived well into the 50s, would his presence have perhaps altered the careers of actors like Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor?

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Noorjehan (1967)

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Give me a period film, and I’m willing to give it a shot. If it happens to be set in Mughal India, so much the better. If the cast features people like Meena Kumari, Pradeep Kumar, Rehman, Veena, Lalita Pawar and Nighar Sultana: well, there’s hope that the acting will be passable. And when I realize that the music composer is Roshan: then I’m certainly on for it.

Noorjehan, of course (though Richard would probably question that ‘of course’) is about the noblewoman who married the fourth of the Great Mughals, Jahangir. Born in May 1577 and named Mehrunissa, she was the daughter of a man who rose to great prominence in the Mughal court: Itmad-ud-Daulah (‘Pillar of the State’) was the title given to him, and the marriage of Mehrunissa to Jahangir made of Mehrunissa a powerful woman, too. Initially given the title Noormahal (‘Light of the Palace’) by her doting husband, she was subsequently given the title of Noorjehan (‘Light of the World’) and went on to become probably the most influential of imperial consorts in the Mughal dynasty, a wealthy woman in her own right, as well as a woman who exercised a good deal of power from beyond the purdah.

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