Khayyam roped in several other talented singers, too. Nida Fazli stepped in to complete the work.ĭeciding to pick Lata Mangeshkar as the voice of Sultan (played by Hema Malini) was easy. Akhtar passed away mid-way, leaving two of his songs unwritten. The songs of Razia Sultan were to be written by Jan Nisar Akhtar, Kaifi Azmi, Kaif Bhopali and Maya Govind. Play Jalta Ha Badan, Razia Sultan (1983). In fact, the richly textured music is the only reason we remember this film. Drawing from Rajasthani, Persian and Hindustani classical music, they created a soundscape that straddles the deserts of Rajasthan and the courts of Delhi equally well. Layering their fertile creativity upon this research, Khayyam and team came up with eight wonderful songs that reflect the ethos of that era. “We studied even the route taken by those rulers when they first came to India,” he said in that interview. The fastidious composer recalled in an interview that they studied everything about the 13th century Turkish rulers who founded the Mamluk dynasty to which Razia Sultan belonged. Along with his assistants Jagjit Kaur and Raj Sharma, he dived into the depths of history. Meanwhile, Khayyam was fashioning a magnum opus of his own. All this inevitably lead to delays and pushed up the production cost. In fact, he went as far as Hollywood to get an expert to work on the special effects for this period drama. Amrohi left no stone unturned in his quest for the “right” sets, the “right” costumes and so on. Over the next few years, work on the film progressed patchily. This time, the veteran composer could not ward off the director’s insistence. A furious Amrohi walked out and went straight back to Khayyam. Laxmikant-Pyarelal asked him to come to their office to discuss the matter and made him cool his heels for a long time. The story goes that Amrohi found one of these tunes too fast for a specific situation he wanted a mellower one. The composer duo started work in right earnest and composed a few tunes. The director then turned to Laxmikant-Pyarelal. But Khayyam was busy with Kabhi Kabhie those days, and had to decline Amrohi’s request. Apparently, he had been smitten by the composer’s work in Shagoon (1964), especially the song Parbaton Ke Pedon Par. Amrohi wanted Khayyam to work on this film. But work on the film had begun eight years earlier. Produced by AK Misra, Razia Sultan hit cinema screens in 1983. Even his critics, who pointed out glaring flaws in his work, admitted that he was driven by a powerful cinematic vision. Mahal, Pakeezah and Razia Sultan were outcomes of this quirk in his personality. And having done that, he would give his all to ensure that they came alive on screen. He was a dreamer who conjured up fantastic stories and scenarios. Many people in the film industry put these long gaps down to Amrohi’s pursuit of perfection. His last movie, Razia Sultan, came 11 years after Pakeezah. The gap between Daera and his next movie, Pakeezah, was long by any yardstick: 19 years. In a career span of 45 years, Amrohi made just four movies. Mahal featured two themes that found favour in many movies over the decades: horror and reincarnation. It was in 1949 that he turned director with Mahal, of Aayega Aanewala fame. He made his debut by writing the story for Jailor (1938), and continued in that vein through the 1940s.
Kamal Amrohi wrote scripts and dialogue for Hindi films long before he became a director.
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