For Bombay film industry, 1946 was the last year before everything changed due to the turmoils of partition. After that many talented actors, singers, writers, directors left for Pakistan while some arrived from Pakistan. The year is best remembered for two blockbuster super hits that were released in it.
Anmol Ghari directed by Mehboob Khan and Shahjehan directed by AR Kardar. Interestingly both of these eminent film directors were not only Muslim but related to each other with Mahboob Khan the brother in Law of AR Kardar. Another common factor was that the music of both movies, something which played the major role in their success was composed by Naushad Sahib and this was something rare as well for Naushad Sahib seldom worked on 2 movies at the same time.
Anmol Gahri starred Noor Jehan in the lead role and interestingly she played the role of a Hindu girl named Lata. The movie starts with Lata leaving her village to move to the city and ironically soon after its release Noor Jehan left for Pakistan and this was her last movie in Bombay. And after Noor Jehan left Bombay, her place was taken by a singer who was called Lata.
The most famous of the songs from the movie was the evergreen ”Awaz Day Kahan hai”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANptt7VMxXU
The song is an example of the remarkable ability of Naushad Sahib to blend Indian classical ragas and film music for the song’s melody was based on Raag Pahari. Naushad Sahib also firmly established the Mukhra-Antara structure of Indian and later Indo-Pak film songs. This consists of a Mukra which in this case is ”Awaz Day Kahan Hai, Dunya Meri Jawan Hai” which is repeated throughout the song with interludes of music and the Antras. If you listen to the original song you will note that the musical interludes are quite brief and this was because the records at that time could only take a song of 3.5 minutes. Later versions of the song have much longer music interludes.
The movie has the basic theme of sacrifice with the male lead sacrificing his love for his friend. The songs of the film were written by Tanvir Naqvi Sahib who also migrated to Pakistan (he was married to Noor Jehan’s elder sister). He subsequently wrote the songs for Pakistan’s first movie Teri Yaad.
Shahjehan by AR Kardar was a spectacular historical drama. It starred KL Saigol and in contrast, he plays the role of a Muslim poet called Sohail. Once again the theme is the sacrifice, perhaps that was the fashion then and Sohail also sacrifices his love but not for his friend but to save the empire. And this tragedy acts as the backdrop to movies most famous song, ”Jab Dil Hi Toot Gaya”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lZLePeN7BA
And Naushad Sahib once again uses a classical raga Bhairvie as the base melody. The song was written by Majroh Sultanpuri (Asrar Khan) who was making his debut as a song writer. He stayed in Bombay and wrote hundreds of songs over the next 50 years.
Alas, this was also KL Saigol’s last movie in Bombay for he died soon afterwards.
Mehboob Khan and AR Kardar both left Bombay and moved to Pakistan but fortunately for Bombay film industry both returned after a few months and made many great films. No one knows why they came back. Naushad sahib stayed put in Bombay and soon Bombay gained Sahir Ludihanvi and the magnificent trinity of Rafi-Naushad-Sahir was created which gave us some outstanding songs.
