NEW DELHI: The one Hindi movie actress to be felicitated by two Prime Ministers for a similar function – with which she carried out a salutary service to Indian literature – and who each on and off the display screen, despatched audiences swooning, drew a Hollywood star to her house unannounced and had enterprising fruit-sellers use her identify to entice consumers.

Suraiya, who handed away on this present day (January 31) in 2004 after 4 many years in quiet and peaceable obscurity, was the third and final of Indian movies’ singing superstars, after Ok.L. Saigal and Noor Jehan, however went on to outpace them.

In her heyday, she wanted a police crew deployed outdoors her house given the crowds thronging the world for an opportunity glimpse, made followers bunk work or lessons to catch the primary present of her new movies, and needed to cease attending her movie premieres to keep away from frenzied followers.

There was one future Hindi movie star who confessed to seeing certainly one of her movies a number of occasions however nonetheless not having his fill – Dharmendra.

Born in Lahore in June 1929, Suraiya Jamal Sheikh was simply six when she started singing for AIR in Bombay, the place her mother and father had moved in 1930.

Aged simply seven, she acted in her first movie – ‘Madame Trend’ (1936), produced by Nargis’s mom Jaddanbai – and had accompanied a relative to the shoot of movie ‘Taj Mahal’ (1941), when she caught the attention of the director and was forged because the younger Mumtaz Mahal.

In the meantime, her AIR singing stint had introduced her to the eye of music director Naushad, a newcomer making an attempt to ascertain himself within the business, and he made 13-year-old Suraiya sing, although she wanted to face on a stool to succeed in the microphone.

She additionally got here to the eye of Devika Rani, who gave her a contract and even Saigal, who handpicked her for what can be a few of his final movies. Nevertheless, she refused to sing duets with him, believing she was no match for him as a singer.

Suraiya got here into the limelight with ‘Anmol Ghadi’ (1946), the place she stood her floor reverse fellow singing famous person Noor Jehan.

With Noor Jehan leaving in India 1947, Suraiya not solely turned a high feminine star, but in addition the highest-paid within the late Nineteen Forties and the early Nineteen Fifties. Her seems to be of unaffected, unpretentious woman subsequent door, with a slight air of naivete, solely added to her attraction. This was complemented by her dulcet voice, with an undernote of hesitation and tentativeness, however sounding as melodious as tinkling bells.

This was the rationale why fruit distributors claimed that their wares got here from ‘Suraiya ke khet’, implying they have been as candy.

But, on the peak of her profession, the place she had a detailed – however finally star-crossed – relationship with co-star Dev Anand, and had a visiting Gregory Peck look her up at her house and spend hours chatting after her, Suraiya regularly started decreasing movies and withdrawing from the limelight.

Whereas a part of this needed to do along with her having to desert Dev Anand resulting from household strain the place faith was cited as the rationale, however the truth that she was the household’s sole-earning member additionally performed a task. The arrival of playback singing, the altering rhythms of life and her personal in poor health well being too performed their roles.

Nevertheless, she shone in ‘Mirza Ghalib’ (1954), as she introduced Ghalib’s ghazals to life for the trendy technology and was complimented for it by at least Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who on the movie’s premiere in New Delhi, advised her: “Ladki, tumne Ghalib ki rooh ko zinda kar diya.”

Practically 4 and half many years later, it was Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who honoured her for a similar function at a particular operate in Delhi in 1998 to mark the bicentenary of Ghalib’s beginning.

Nevertheless, nonetheless in her mid-30s, she turned her again absolutely on the tinsel world after ‘Rustam Sohrab’ (1963) and spent the rest of her life, in sporadic contact with some previous colleagues and showing on the odd operate however by no means singing in public once more.

Nevertheless, her reminiscence lives in her 338 odd songs in 67 movies between 1936 and 1963, reminiscent of ‘Man leta hai angdai’ (‘Anmol Ghadi’), ‘Tu mera chaand essential teri chandni’ (‘Dillagi’) – for which Dharmendra watched the movie a number of occasions, ‘Man mor hua matvala’ (‘Afsar’), the gently philosophical ‘Yeh mausam aur yeh tanhai’ (‘Dastaan’), after which ‘Aah ko chahiye umr asar hone tak’ and duet ‘Dil-e-Nadan’ (with Talat Mehmood) in ‘Mirza Ghalib’.

However her swan track – and unintended epitaph – was ‘Ye kaisi ajab daastan’ (‘Rustam Sohrab’), particularly when she sings ‘Bujha do bujha do, bujhaa do sitaaron ki shamme bujha do…’