Noor (light) belies containment. This is its most essential property. All light must spread after all, scything through the dark, however viscous or velveteen.
The decision to style an incredibly raw Allah Rakhi Wasai of Kasur as baby Noor-e-Jahan (the light of the world) could have been neither flippant circumstance nor misplaced histrionics. It was a prophecy, casually uttered, but destined to come true under the weight of its own truth. And so it did…
For no single person, with the exception of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, has serenaded the national imagination for so long, and with such a sense of destiny. Perhaps the answer to why this was so lies in the breadth of the Noor Jehan myth, arising from her inimitable technique that even the Lata Mangeshkars of this world have attempted to replicate.
Born in 1926 to otherwise nondescript musicians, Noor Jehan’s early training found itself steeped in the tradition of Hindustani Shastriya Sangeet (eastern classical). Her parents, recognizing both silk and steel in her vocal notes, presented her to Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, the universally respected leader of the Patiala gharana. Where others may have succumbed to indiscipline, Noor Jehan acquainted herself with the structured grammar of raga and tala with alacrity befitting a model student. This hunger to imbibe anything and everything musical, come what may, and from wherever it may, would persist till the very end. In interviews, she would proudly recount how various musicians senior to her would call her siyahi chat (all-consuming). Her humility, expressed in the desire to expand and accentuate her technical repertoire at every juncture, would scaffold, thus, the meta-narrative of her genius.
Musicological curiosity aside, however, Noor Jahan’s greatest asset was a voice touched by the divine, one that possessed peerless range and control, demonstrated by the ease with which she would render complex ragas like Yaman, Bhairav, and Darbari Kanada. Her execution of taans—rapid sequences of notes—was fluid and precise, her voice darting through these shrutis as if a ballerina’s pirouette had been enhanced with an extra flourish. At a time where Salamat Ali Khan and Nazakat Ali Khan were setting musical conferences on fire with characteristic Shaam Chaurasi virtuosity, Noor Jehan relied on her ability to construct emotional cascades, leaving listeners breathless. Her meends—gliding transitions between notes—seduced and emoted alike, infusing the passage with palpable longing. One of Bollywood’s brightest musical lights, OP Nayyar, is said to have broken into tears, fully ensnared by the enchanting magic of Kalli Kalli Jaan from Patay Khan (1959). Here, smatterings of vibrato, used sparingly and most appropriately, added a shimmering sheen to her sustained notes, burrowing rabbit-holes in the audience’s psyche.
Vibrato, as a technique, is often susceptible to shallow use. Where it could truly move, lesser singers have treated it as mere ornamentation. Noor Jehan, in her commitment to emotional intensity, wields it with surgical accuracy. I have never heard a rendition so outwardly expressive and haunting, yet inwardly measured, ripping hearts out in equal measure.
Clarion-like clarity aside, there was also a surreal dynamism to Noor Jehan’s voice production and culture. It lay in her ability to modulate her volume with finesse, leaping from a muted whisper to an irresistible crescendo at will. Her bell-like instrument could curate soundscapes that would swell like a tide, entirely enveloping the unsuspecting listener, rendering them ecstatic. Afterwards, it would lovingly recede, leaving a haunting echo lingering long after the last note had been produced.
Sada Hoon Apnay Pyar Ki is similar to a larger-than-life impressionistic painting, leaving a taste of honey and spice on the tongue. It breaks and constructs anew emotions most don’t even realize exist.
Her phrasing was also unique, distinctive to the point of reinventing the wheel, charting new frontiers in playback singing on both sides of the border. Mujh Se Pehli Si Mohabbat happens to be the first song whose lyrics I fully learned. Or maybe, sentient and animated as the lyrics were, they happened to annex every inch of space in my mind. The way Noor Jahan pauses, stresses certain words, and modulates her tone, adds layers of meaning, turning otherwise insignificant delivery into musings so profound that they could convey the entire spectrum of human experience. Singing a song of unrequited love, her phrasing drips with pathos that shall not be denied, the verses pulsating with pain, the phrases a sigh of yearning.
Anginat Sadiyon ke Tareek Baheemana Talism
Resham-o-Atlas-o-Kamkhawab mein Bunwaye Hue
Jabaja Bikte Hue Koocha-o-bazaar mein jism
Khaak mein lithre hue Khoon mein Nehlaye hue
Is it any surprise then that Faiz Ahmad Faiz, after hearing Noor Jehan cast a spell with her rendition, found himself truly spellbound? Enough to shun proprietary license and tell Noor Jehan that signed, sealed, and delivered, the poem was now hers.
The godmother of actor-singers, Noor Jahan’s career tore through the stratosphere in post-Partition Pakistan. The fledgling nation was, at the time, desperately searching for an identity, and her voice became its soaring soundtrack. Be it Chan Wey, Dupatta, Intezaar or Koel, her songs served as the facade on which the superstructure of commercial cinema would be built. Who could forget her rushing to the studio during a military curfew in the 1965 war, refusing to take remuneration as she converted Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum’s Ae Putt Hatan Tay Nai Wikday into inspiration for an entire generation. Her voice, like the mightiest of rivers, flowed through the plains of Punjab and the bloodstreams of all those that dwelled in them, nourishing their souls with beauty, courage, and strength.
With time, Noor Jahan would go on to become Mallika-e-Tarannum (the Queen of Melody), crowned, quite literally, by the musical intelligentsia of Lahore in a recognition of her status as musical royalty. She, always conscious of reaching out to newer audiences, would go on to include elements from ghazal and folk music into her repertoire, further adding to her expressive charm.
With age, the luster of her voice would dim, but she, forever a wily operator, knew how to mask it with throw and delivery that no one has, as-yet, been able to match. Fittingly, Noor Jehan—the light of the world—spread her luminance far and wide, spanning time, space and memory itself.