Friends and fans mourn Noor Jehan

Filming on movie sets was cancelled in the city of Lahore, and state-run Pakistan Television aired special programmes on Noor Jehan as news spread of the legendary singer's death from a heart attack yesterday.

"She had an heart attack which proved fatal," Meena Shah, one of the family members said adding that the veteran singer died at home.

In her home-town of Lahore, the hub of Pakistan's film industry, the singer's friends and colleagues mourned her death. The news of her death was received with deep grief by the film industry and fans throughout the country.

"A golden era of music has closed today" said  Pakistan's military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a condolence message in which he described her as a "true Pakistani." Her memorable national songs will live in the hearts of the people, he said.

"A legend has died," said senior television and film actor Talat Hussain. "Noor Jehan was a living legend," said Rehana Hakim, an art critic and editor of the monthly English language magazine Newsline.

Perfectionist

Yousuf Khan, an actor, said she was a perfectionist, who practised and worked hard to became the queen of Pakistani music. "She was the best of the best this country has produced. The vacuum created by her death cannot be fulfilled," he said.

Born in 1924 in the border town of Kasur, she sang for the first time at the age of eight, she rose to fame as a singer actress of rare ability and charm.

She remained Pakistan's most popular singer for more than four decades and sang some  30,000 songs in Urdu and Punjabi language films in both Pakistan and India.

Family sources said she stopped singing for films after she developed cardiac problems in 1989. Because of her versatility, she appeared in a number of movies paired off against actors such as Dilip Kumar in the days before partition.

After the partition of India, she migrated to Pakistan and became the darling of the Pakistani film world. Her first marriage to producer-director late Shaukat Rizvi did not last very long after which she married actor Ejaz, only for that marriage to break up.

She will long be remembered for her patriotic songs during the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan wars for the troops on the border. She was honoured with a lifetime achievement award by the state-owned Pakistan Television.

Noor Jehan had a unique style of ghazal singing. Her rendering of Faiz Ahmad Faiz' poem of "mujh se pehli si muhabbat mere mahboob na mang" was an instant hit.

She had been seriously ill for the past two years but slightly recovered recently. At a live special television programmes focussing on her brilliance as an artist, she thanked by telephone the audience that was on its feet as she spoke from the hospital bed to offer her gratitude to well-wishers.

That was perhaps the last time she had a direct contact with the people. Noor Jehan is the only woman in the Subcontinent who was simultaneously an actress, a singer and a film director.

The melody queen won many awards including the pride of performance and the singer of the millennium award. Also are to her credit awards like the voice of century and lifetime achievement award. In the wars of 1965 and 71, Noor Jehan sang songs that touched the soul of every Pakistani.