Hindi Popular Cinema and Its Peripheries
First things first. For an uninitiated viewer (and reader) of Hindi cinema produced from Bombay, it may be imperative to recognize 'who was Suraiya' While biographies and interviews of well known (male) actors frame her life in a particular way,1 especially highlighting her enigmatic presence/absence, it may be worthwhile to know that Suraiya (1929 2004) initially did a few playback songs (at the early stage of her career during 1941 42) and her popularity as a singer actor, as well as a dancer, grew during the mid 1940s (especially during 1948 49) with the success of films like 1857 (1946) Dard (1947) Dak Bangla (1947) Aaj Ki Raat (1948) Kajal (1948) Vidya (1948) Pyaar Ki Jeet (1948) Gajre (1948) Shair (1949) Jeet (1949) Dillagi (1949) Duniya (1949) Char Din (1949) Dastaan (1950) Sanam (1951) and so on, along with films by influential filmmakers like K. Asif, Mehboob Khan, Chetan Anand and Nitin Bose Phool (1944) Anmol Ghadi (1946) Afsar (1950) Waris (1954) and so on. Moreover, she also co starred with the singing legend K. L. Saigal in Tadbir (1945) Omar Khaiyyam (1946) and in Parwana (1947) though her career arguably took off with Tamanna (1942) Let us say that she was one of the actors who continued to perform her own songs, even at the times when the popularity of the playback singers soared and their voices demarcated the scene with their extraordinary skills.2