Alamgir

Alamgir is indisputably the pioneer of Pakistan's popular music. He marked his entry on television with his famous Spanish tune Albela Rahi. Hailing from Dhaka, he landed in Karachi at a time when the city's entertainment centres were full of life and colour.

He began by singing at Hill Park for the sake of a few bucks. The story took a major turn when Sohail Rana discovered his genius and offered to work with him. Alamgir's talent significantly helped the composer creat the all time hit, Jiway Jiway, Pakistan. He started by singing westren tunes. However, Alamgir established his genius and versatility by composing and vocalising diversified folk tunes and semiclassical styles. He first composed a number for the early 70s TV programme, Dam Dam Dee Dee. His work such as, Ye Sham Aur Tera Naam, Badal Bhi Aur Pani Bhi, Koi Bhi Rang Ho Tera, Iss Ko Naam Junoon Kaa Dedo, Paas Aakar Koi, Khayal Rakhna, Ja Ja Jani, Tum Meri Ankhain Ho, Sham Say Pehlay and countless other numbers are still hummed by the lowers of popular music.

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Aslam Azhar

I don't Know anything about televisition, Aslam Azhar told the Japanese who interviwed him. "neither does any other Pakistani" came the respones. And so the freelance journalist, theatre and radio worker in Karachi began his memorable career in Pakistan Televisition, when it was set up with Japanese help in 1964.

As Programmes Director in Lahore, and the first Pakistani in the set up, he is remembered for his encougragement of new ideas and talent, integrity and idealism. He was moved to Pindi in early 1967 to state the televisiyion station there as its General Manager, and set up the Karachi station within the year, again as JM. Appointed Manager Director of the Corporation in 1972, he also started the Quetta and Pesharwar stations. Having headed and nursed PTV not only through its teething period but also probably its most creative period, he had differences with an increasingly dictatorial Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and was neraly sacked for speaking against ZAB's information policies at a cabinet meeting. shortly afterwardes, he offered to resign and was placed as head of a proposed Academy for film, televisition and theater, being set up under the Ministry of Culture. The venture was cut short by Gen. Ziaul Haq, who sacked Azhar and effectively, the academy, at one go, in 1977. Appointed Chairman PTV and PBC by Benazir Bhutto after she was elected prime minister in 1988, Azhar resigned a year and a half later, again after differences with the information policy. But the history of Pakistan Television will never be recounted without a mention of the man who was virtually its founding father.

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Hamid Nizami
Hamid Nizami and his Nawai Waqt are two outstanding names from the Pakistan Movement. Nawai waqt was first taken out on March 29, 1940 as fortnightly, a week after the passage of Pakistan Resolution in Lahore. It was edited by Nizami, who was then a student at Islamia College Lahore and his friend Shabbar hasan, a medical student. The paper became a weekly after two years in 1944, it became a daily and was offered financial help by the Muslim League. Nizami declined, but assured the League of his full support. He remained committed to League ideas and was extremly critical of those who supported the imposition of the first martial law in country by Ayub Khan. After the creation of Pakistan, the readership of Nawai Waqtgrew, as it came to be regarded as a paper which gave voice to right-wing views. It is one of the three largest newspaper concerns in Pakistan.

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Kamal Ahmad Rizvi
Rizvi, known for his wicked wit and biting humour that spares none, has penned dozens of translations and adaptations of stage and television plays as well as original writing. In the 1950s besides doing translations and original work for Urdu newspapers like the now defunct Ehsas and Imroze, he also wrote extensively for Sibte Hassan's Lail-o-Nehar, the famous socio-political and literary weekly. In the early days, penniless and armed with little but his intellect and pen, he started out doing work for children, editing children's magazines like the monthly Tehzeeb and Phulwari, as well as Ferozensons taleem-o-Tarbiat (still published). One of the theatre pioneers of Pakistan, an exacting actor-director and writer, Rizvi has also acted in and directed several of his own productions.

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Khawaja Mueenuddin
The little theatre that took place in the areas that became Pakistan was by touring companies that travelled all over from their bases in bombay and calcutta. Khawaja mueenuddin realising that there was a void started to write plays and also stage them for the large section of the population in karachi. His plays were mostly satires revolving round the theme of migration of population and the wide gap that existed between reality and the self professed slogans of the leaders of the community. His Taleeme Balighan, Mirza Ghalib Bunder Road Per and Lal Qile se Laloo Kheet tak were staged in public auditorium and were applauded by the cross section of the population besause the satire was biting but never black enough to border on the tragic. He set up the first repertory company and most of the like Qazi Wajid, Subhani Ba Younis and Muhammed Yousaf who made a contribution in redio, stage and television started their career from his repertory. He showed others that it was possible to do theatre in an environment that was not congenial for such activity. It was later that theatre picked up in Lahore and the inspiration came from none other than Khawaja Mueenuddin

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Khurshid Anwar

Khurshid Anwer started his career as a music composer from the All India Radio but was soon absorbed by an ever growing film industry of Bombay. He composed music from the forties onwards in many films for such popular singres as K.L Sehgal.

After independence he came into his own and composed some of the most outstanding tunes for a number of filme, some of which were also produced by him. His compositions for Nur Jehan in particular, both for Urdu and Punjabi films, have now become part of the classical repertoire of film music. His compositions were also based on the foundations of our classical music and though deceptively simple were extremely difficult to sing. He was also influenced by the folk music of Haryana were the spent the formative tears of his life. He tried to produce films which were relevant to the situation here, thus giving the much needed depth to the films. He devoted a great deal of his creative energy in getting classical music sung by the most prominent exponents with the view to classifying them according to thaats, raags and gharaanas. Its final shape known as Ahange khusravi is his lasting tribute to the very great tradition of classical music of the sub continent

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Masood Pervez
Masood Pervez arrived in the subcontinent's cinema as an actor at a wrong time, when Bombay's film industry had fallen in the grip of communal frenzy of post-war tears. Back in Lahore, his first attempt at film-making ended in disaster. The setback was overwhelming. That further softended his speech and made him more self-effacing than before. But he remained a progressive at heart, committed to the principle of collective group work. An admirable collection of talent materialised in the mid-fifties as film director Masood Pervez the role of a balancing actor between an innocent producer (Sultan Jilani) and a highly assertive cine-aesthete-composer (Khurshed Anwar). The result was a production that became a model of entertainment, one which brought the discriminating moviegoers and the masses together in its appreciation. It also presented the least controversial blending of the demands of art and commerce in the uncertain environment of Pakistan's cinema. For many years his name alternative route to entertainment open. At a time when Pakistan's cinema was under assault from plagiarists and purveyors of vulgarity he kept the high on for decency and the values of film technique. He faced out as quietly as he had borne himself in the noisy studios and sustained himself by exercises in poetry -- purely for self-satisfaction -- including a rhymed traslation of the Quranic verses in Punjabi

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Mazar Ali Khan
Mazar Ali Khan was among the pioneers of Pakistani journalism. He joined The Pakistan Times as a young man, when it strated publication in june 1947. In 1951, he became its editor. During his period, Times described The Pakistan Times as the best edited newspaper in Asia. Khan resigned when Progrssive Papers Ltd was seized by the military regime of Ayub Khan in 1959. Some time later, he sreved briefly as the editor of Down. In 1957 he launched his own weekly Viewpoint from Lahore, which in his own words owed "allegiance to no political party or to group, but to the basic concept of a democratic polity." He kept his promise and throughout its 17 years, viewpoint remained a qua;ity opinion journal. Never one to overstate a point or be a drawn into debate over personalities, Khan's work set high standareds of journalism in Pakistan. For those who believe in the value of issue-based journalism and who want to take pride in their profession, he continues to serve as a role model. His pen always spoke powerfully to raise such issues, and to the end he unheld the ideals he believed in, standing tall in the histiry of Pakistan's journalism

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Mehdi Hassan

Mehdi Hassan is undoubtedly one of the most renowned ghazal singers in the world today. An artiste, who has set such towering standards in the light classical music, his career is used as a benchmark along which many young artistes model their own.

Mehdi Hassan never had a formal education. His education was solely in the field of classical music that he had been studying since the age of eight. Born in a village called ‘Luna’ in Rajasthan (India), Mehdi Hassan trained under his father Ustad Azeem Khan and uncle Ustad Ismail Khan. He hails from a family that produced fifteen generations of musicians making him the ‘solva pusht’ (sixteenth generation) of artists, with an ancestry that boasts of ‘Darbari Ustads’ who were seasoned performers in the courts of several Maharajahs of Indore, Patna, Chhatarpur and Mysore.
Mehdi Hassan produced his first public performance at the age of eight at the behest of the Maharaja of Baroda. Since then he has had nearly 25,000 records to his credit and has rendered nearly all forms of vocalism including classical, thumri, film music and of course the ghazal that he is most widely reputed for.
As the classical forms became less popular, ghazal gaiki gained in prestige in a culture that was more hung on the importance of words than the abstraction of the sur. Singers trained in the classical tradition found it difficult to survive in the new environment. A few highly trained singers who broke away from this tradition of high classical, instead, chose ghazal as their main forte of musical expression and the most successful among them was Mehdi Hasan. Ghazal was sought as a substitute for the from like kheyal and thumri. One of the singers who brought the richness and virtousity of thumri into the ghazal gaiki, thus elevating its musical worth and retaining the sweetness and romance that goes with this kind of singing in Mehdi Hasan. As he is from Rajisthan he also brought the colour of that area to enrich his style of singing. This trend was started by Barkat Ali Khan and has been strenghtened by Iqbal Bano. Freeda Khanum and Mehdi Hasan has taken the ghazal to a totally new level.

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Mir Khaliur Rahman

Mir Khaliur Rahman took out the Jang Dehli in 1941 during the Second World War. From this humble beginning was to evolve the largest newspaper empire in Pakistan. What distinguished Mir Khaliure Rahman from other newspaper owners was his emphasis on reporting.

Something he had learnt in his early career in Dehli as a reporter, news editor, editor and distributer all rolled into one. Migrating to Pakistan at the time of partition, Mir Khaliur Rahman re-estadlished Jang in Karachi, started it in a rented building, with a mearge Rs 5,000. Not only did he make Jang the largest-selling Urdu paper in the country, he expanded his enterprise by launching the English weekly eveninger Daily News, Urdu weekly Akhbare Jehan and English weekly Mag. The News, the English morning newspaper launched by the Jang Group, was one year old at the time of Mir Khaliur Rahman's death in 1992. He was never shy of experimenting, and the first to introduce new technology. Qualities which made him a trendsetter in Pakistan journalism.

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Naheed Siddiqui

She may be Pakistan's only Pride of Performance holder (1994) who is banned from showing her art on Pakistan Television. No wonder Naheed Siddiqui depicts herself as an isolated figure in her latest choreographed piece titled 'My Motherland?', which premiered in England this summer.

The final part of the dance shows her straining to hear music, opening doors and finding them slammed shut in her face, becomeing entengled in a voluminous black shroud that eventully trails like an ominous shadow behind her as she walks away when the piece ends. She initially left the country in 1979 after being unable to practice her art here -- her Kathak programme on Television, Payal, was banned by the Zia regime after only five out of thirteen episodes had been aired. In the UK, she has been able to build up a formidable reputation for herself as a danser, and has been showered with awards like the prestigious Time Out (1990) and the Dance Umbrella (1991). Yet she has stubbornly persisted in tyring to build up interest and awareness about dance here, risking private performances even in the years when dance was strictly banned. She started her own company in 1990, and frequently gives performances in other countries. Her real interest, however, lies in Oakistan, and teaching dance at the French Cultural Centre in Lahore. Siddiqui wants to creat an awareness of "our real culture and heritage" with its harmony and peace, as opposed to the valgarity and gun violence that have become popular culture. Unassuming and passionately committed, her increasing expertise and international fame has only made her more determined to hold her ground in the motherland where her own standing as an artist and as a woman are questionable

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Nazia Hassan & Zoheb Hassan

In 1981, pakistan's clandestine video rental network was hit by Feroz Khan's Qurbani, made famous by a modernistis blend of Euro-Westren and South Asian style Aap Jesaa Koi. While this number set new records of popularity, just a few here knew that the voice behind belonged to Nazia Hasan, a fellow Pakistani. The songs was composed by Biddu.

As Biddu continued to make music for them, their album 'Disco Dewanay' hit Pakistani music market with a bang. Their songs were popular not only in Pakistan but also in other parts of the worlds. Entirely based on electronic orchestration and effects, the composer employed Western chord patterns and beat to blend with local melody. Variation from lowest to highest vocal tones, interminable moderate beat, synthesized chords, counters and effects were essential parts of their numbers. And this was the fasion which the composer applied in most popular songs such as, Aik Do, Aay Dil Meray Chalray, Disco Diwanay, Laikin Mera Dil, Ye Dil Tere Liyay Hai and others. Soon Zohab began to compose. With Zara Chehra, he proved himself to be a complete musician, though, the composition techniques in Khoobsoorat Ho Andaar Say, Pesa Bara Yaa Piyar and Zara Chahra were not diffrerent from the style set by Biddu. The brother and sister duo rarely sang for other composers. In Pakistan, Nazia sang Khabi Khabi in Javed Allahditta's and Komal komal in Arshad Mehmud's compositions, with lyrics by Anwer Maqsood and great Indian musician Laxmikant Piyaraylal (LP) selected them for a duet.

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Sheema Kermani

For Sheema Kermani, dance is a passion as well as a social cause. She teaches dancing and also acts for the stage and television. She combines this with activism which includes mobile theatre in poor localities of the city. Pakistan’s leading dancer with a social cause, Sheema Kermani talks to Asif Farrukhi at her home in Karachi as the cool evening sea-breeze brings relief after a humid day, and the darkening city prepares itself for yet another strike the next day.

We were living in small towns, there was nobody who could teach us and I never saw a dance performance. When we shifted to Karachi, I was about 13 or 14 and really plump. My mother took me to Ghanshyam’s. That’s where I had my first exposure to dance. I started dancing and I enjoyed it but I never took it seriously. During my childhood my parents did a lot to encourage art, music and creativity. We used to do small plays for birthdays with a present for the best play." She recalls that the house was filled with the music of Beethoven and Bach. "From the age of seven, I learnt the piano and for 10 years I studied Western classical music, passing the exams from the Royal Academy of Music and when I became more conscious, I thought that I should learn Eastern classical music." She trained with Ghanshyam’s Dance Troupe in Karachi and later graduated from Croydon College of Art in London.

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Nur Jehan

When the silent films were upgraded into talkies singing became an essential ingrediet of the emerging medium in the subcontinental cinema. The voice that was to give it a definite form was Nur Jehan in the late thirties. In the next few years leading up to independence sge had firmly established singing in the films as a popular and authentic form.

She also played the leading roles in films as there was no focility of playback recording but her stature as a singer always overshadowed her role as an actress and it was not surprising that she left one for the other in her later age. She migrated to Pakistan from Bombay when at the height of her career and helped in building the film industry from a scratch in her new country. A great number of her songs have become classics of film music and she had maintained her top ranking for more than fifty years -- no mean feat. the full richness of her voice and her Punjabi ang has remained as a distinct contribution even after film music proliferated in the subcontinent. Some of her non-film geets and nazms too have been very highly regarded bu music connoisseur.

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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan came from a family of great qawwals. His father and uncle were respected for their knowledge of the raags and a wide range of Kalaam in Urdu, Punjabi and Persian and Arabic.

Nusrat Fateh, in the initial phase, sang the traditional qawwali with great virtuosity in laikari and sargam and later switched to experimentation with some of the leading musicians and composers of the world and when he sang for Peter Gabriel in The Last Temptation Of Christ he became an enternational celebrity. He bacame one of the leading members of the movement that espoused World music. Mostly basing his melody on traditional sources he brought in a huge input of instrumental music which varied from heavy metal to computer-generated sounds. World Msic became a craze and has been taken as the begining of globalisation of music and Nusrat was a very active member of it. Unfortunately his premature death put an end to the endeavour of arriving at a definite form. He was perhaps the best known Pakistani in the world and was rewarded with praises and awards from all the four corners of the world.

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The Peerzadas

No other family has done so much for the promotion of art and theatre in Pakistan, strating with Rafi Peer (born March 21, 1898) one of the pioneer of modren drama in the subcontinent. He abandoned his law studies in England and went to the Germany to study law language and philosophy. There he met theatre director Mex Reinhardt, who encouraged him to study theatre. Rafi Peer taught acting and direction at the Indian A cademy of Dramatic Art in the 1930s and in 1945 made film Neecha Nagar in which he was the main actor.

After partition he settled in Lahore and set up Drama Markaz theatre group and wrote plays. After his death in 1974 his five sons and two daughters have continued their father's mission to promate art and culture. The Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop (RPTW) was set up to promote performing arts, puppets and folk theatre forms. Starting with puppet shoes, children art festivals and drama programmes RPTW has produced many international art festivals in Pakistan. RPTW in run by the twins Faizaan and Sadaan, along with Usman, Imran and Salman while sister Tasneem looks after public relation. RPTW has to its credit four international puppet festivals, a national dance festivals and three international dance and drama festivals.

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Razia Bhatti
Her untimely and sudden death in 1996 ended an almost 30-years long journalistic career and left bereft all those whome she had inspired and trained and groomed on the job and by example. Razia Ronderay, the dimunitive gold medallist in English literature and language from Karachi University joined The Illustrated Weekly of Pakistan in 1967. She was part of the team that converted it into a monthly in 1970 and re-named Herald. Razia's stint as editor, which begab in 1975, coincided with the most repressive period in Pakistan's history. Her independent stance was predictably unpopular with the military authorities; Gen. Zia once got so would not tolerate such journalism. Undeterred by pressure, from either the authorities or the publishers, Razia resigned rather than compromising her editorial independence. Most of the editirial team walked out with her -- and started a bold new venture. Newsline, born in 1989, was the first magazine in Pakistan's history run by a journalists' cooperative with complete editorial freedom. The motto: "to seek the truth, to spotlight injusyice and to fight for redressal." Its very first year, it won the Asia-Pacific Award for Editorial Excellence. In 1994, Razia was awarded the Courage in Jourlalist award by the Washington-based International Women's Media Foundation. Modest and unassuming, she considered the media attention as too much fuss. Which is what she would have said of all the tributes pouring in after her passing away and of this note.

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Pathana Khan

Although Pathana Khan was born, brought up and lived in Pakistan, it will not be fair to call him a Pakistani singer. He belongs to everyone who loves Sufi poetry. There are many self-styled darvesh gayaks (saintly singers) but Pathana Khan was a true exemplar of the type. All his life he lived in the small village Kot Addu, near Multan.

He was admitted to school in 1932 and passed six classes. He got married at a time when Hindus still lived in the region, i.e., before 1947. He fathered eleven children — seven sons and four daughters.
Pathana Khan’s family had no tradition of singing as he belonged to potters’ caste. He trained for five or six years, under Ustad Nazar Hussain, the famous vocalist of the Patiala gharana. Then he spent some years in Panjab University to learn the Punjabi language from Nazaf Shah.
All his life, he sung only the classic poetry of the sufis like Khwaja Ghulam Farid, Shah Hussain, Bulle Shah and Sultan Bahu. Once he gave the reason for this:" This poetry has the secret of love, it is natural poetry that descended from the unknown; it has simplicity, reality, and love; it is the very embodiment of humanity. I am in love with sufi poetry; it has a soothing effect; it gives peace of mind."

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Roshan Ara Begum (classical singer)

Roshan Ara Begum was one of the most outstanding disciple of the legendary Abdul Karim Khan of the Kirana Gharana. After singing a few ghazals and geets for the films she devoted her entire life to classical music even when it was not that popular in Pakistan. She too shifted to Pakistan at the height of her career knowing that the conditions were not that conducive for her.

Considered to be one of the most accomplished singer of the kheyal at that time, impeccable in her control of the taal and the delineation of the raag. Her taan too was very fast and unerring and in the old tradition relished to perform on stage in competition with the leading singers of her time. Her voice was extremely crafted and the correct intonation of the sur in relation to the raag was the result of great perseverance that she had to endure during her long training. Even when she lived in the far way Lalamusa with very limited opportunities to display her immense talent she was a soure of great inspiration as she refused to compromise on quality in return for acceptance and popularity. She was a supreme craftsman and was admired by the aficionados of classical music who called her (Mulkai Mauseeqi) the Quin of Music.

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Roohi Bano (TV star)
Television had not found a great actrees till Roohi Bano appeared on the mini screen. Her performances in Darwaza, Zard Gulab and certain other long plays were absolutely outstanding and set her apart from the other performers. Roohi Bano was able to capture the average woman of our society -- repressed with energy that does not find an commensurate outlet, she has to live the vital part of her life under cover. The characters that she excrlled in were of women, very talented and exceptional but inhibited not by external circumstances but by the internalisation of values which have been in operation through centuries. The lost look, the strutting syllables and the unsure step epitomised the great crises that went on, betraying the desire to free from these shackles and flower in a world of her own. This has often been the woman's world sheltered from outstand either within the four walls or within oneself. She could never express herself in films because there the stereotypes cannot capture the sensitivity and subtlety that she was so capable of representing.

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Sadequain

The most distinct aspect of Sadequain is that he brought art close to the people of our society. There are various reasons for this: one of them is that Sadequain did not belong to the elite from the art instotutions. He identified himself with the public and reached to them through his work.

He produced innumerable works in his creative life including poetry, paintings and murals at public spaces. The imagery in the work of Sadequain is related to the 'work' in two ways. In one kind of work the images are inspired by the narrative, such as the poetry of Ghalib and Iqbal or create their own narrative, similar to fiction. The other aspect of his work is the use of script, either to formulate the visuals or as an independent art genre. Long before the trend of calligraphy, Sadequain recognised the possibilities of 'Nastaleeq' and 'Naskh' weitings and employed their linear character to construct the recognisable and readable images. The fascination with the script led him to make painting of Quranic verses. It will require some years to guage the genius of an artist who through his work represented our verbal side and our culture. Probably his art can be described as the true voise of his society and this may be the reason that he was the most popular, respected and appreciated artist of his times.

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Shakir Ali

Born in 1922, Pakistan Shakir Ali has spent 12 years, 7 years in Bombay and 5 in London to learn classic and modern art. He came back to Pakistan in 1952. Art for Shakir is a meant of expressing his own lonely personality. It is devoid of sensuousness and sentimentality, and possesses the distilled quality of brooding in in solitude on subjects from life, which only provide point of departure into the realm of line, tone values and color. His approach to his craft is essentially of virtuoso.

He treats line solely as a matter of Measure, short or long, of angles, obtuse or acute. He uses tone values or chiaroscuro as Weight and color as Quality. He uses these three formal elements in the construction of new order and creates image, which we call the subject.
In the work of such artist, the appearance of recognizable object is cause for confusion among the viewers. Every object from organic world has whole range of associate properties, which exist for viewers, but may or may not be present in the mind of artist, when he is painting it. His aim appears to be to construct symphony in line, tone values and color, and open now perspective in the dimension of meaning.
Shakir, in 1956, is held in high esteem, as an artist. His background, together with long time at National College of Arts, first as Head of Art Department and later as Principal, deservedly earn him a position of reverence. He has reached the stage, where he runs the risk of being praised, without being really understood or appreciated

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Gulgee

Born in Pakistan Qualified engineer in USA and self-taught abstract painter Before 1959, he has painted the entire Afghan Royal Family.His paintings are were bright and full of color, but the paint is put on with greater sensitivity and paintings vibrate with intense feeling.

Areas sing with luminous thin color, thick blobs of paint pulsate with fiber-glass tears, the brush swirls strong and free. The total effect is very gray, yet considered and well thought out. They work enormously well, because it is all orchestrated with great care and concentration.Paintings are often commissioned, or go abroad and therefore only reach relatively small audience.He has had exhibitions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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Abdul Rahman Chughtai

Born in 1899, Pakistan; he comes from a family which for generations has produced architects, engineers, painters and decorators.His individual style was formed in the years before 1947, so the main body of his work was produced before Pakistan was born: Persian and Mongol Traditional Style.

Chughtai admitted himself to Lahore's Mayo School of Art, which then emphasized crafts more than art. He did not stay there very long and started learning on his own, concentrating on the traditional methods and techniques of Mongol artists. Then, he moved on to Calcutta and worked there foe several years, painting in Bengal School Style.
By 1923, when he was only 24, he started developing his style of drawing luscious, languid, narcissus-eyes and stylized figures with erotic overtones and heavy with fictional contents.
He also introduced him to some of Western art techniques, chiefly as practiced by Victorian artists, and to the cave painting of Ajanta, which were then in process of being re-discovered by contemporary painters.
It was in formative phase of his career that Chughtai imbibed certain stylization and mannerism, including extensive use of architectural motifs and pictorial nuances, which mark his illustrational paintings of this period.
In 1927, Chughtai published Muraqqa, his first major work, which comprised a series of illustrations he made for new edition of the thought-heavy and highly imaginative verses of Ghalib, 19th century " poet's poet" of Urdu and Persian. Early in the thirties Chughtai visited Europe, researching on painting; also did a few years later.

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Salima Hashmi,
Professor Salima Hashmi, recipient of the President's Award for Pride of Performance, is a painter, art educationist, writer and curator. She taught for thirty years at NCA, Pakistan's premier art institution, recently retiring as its Principal. She has exhibited her own work, traveled and lectured extensively all over the world, and curated international art shows in Europe, the U.S., Australia, Japan and India. Daughter of the great Urdu poet Faiz, Salima Hashmi was also, along with her husband Shoaib Hashmi, one of the pioneers in the '60s and '70s, of television, theatre and puppet theatre in Lahore.
Hashmi is currently Dean of the School of Visual Arts at the newly-established Beaconhouse National University, and has recently published a book on Pakistani Women artists entitled Unveiling the Visible: Lives and Works of Women Artists of Pakistan

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Sultan Rahi

Sultan Rahi is a Record Holder Great Punjabi Film Hero. He belongs to an Urdu-speaking family from Utter Pardesh, India and was settled in Rawalpindi after partition. His first appearance was as an "extra actor" in Urdu film "Baghi" (1956).

He struggled many years as supporting actor in various Urdu and Punjabi movies. He got some significant roles in 1967 in films like "Chacha Jee" and "Hatim Tai".
Sultan Rahi got breakthrough in film "Babul" (1971) and then in film "Bashira" (1972). He became the first choice of any Punjabi film producer after the great success of film "Wehshi Jatt" in 1975, it was an action film with to much violence and a new era of Punjabi films. He was in the title role as "Moula Jatt" in 1979, which was the best ever box-office hit film in Pakistan. He had unique record as film hero and played a lot of title roles in record films. His three films released on the same day created an amazing record, when "Sher Khan" and "Sala Sahib" became double diamond jubilee films (200 weeks) and "Chann Waryaam" was single diamond jubilee in Lahore´s cinema´s in 1981. Sultan Rahi dominated Punjabi films as hero in almost a quarter century and was killed by an unknown gunman in January 1996, which ended a magnificent film career.
Other big films on his credit are Sakhi Badshah, Kale Chour, Dulari, Mela, Akhri Jang, Mafroor, Toofan, Jagga Gujjar, Wehshi Gujjar, Ann Daata, Abdullah The Great, Baadal, Sholey, Moula Bakhsh and many more...

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Ustad Salamat Khan

After the departure of Barre Ghulam Ali Khan there was a yawning void in vocal music. But it was the dous of Nazakat Ali Khan-Salamat Ali Khan who moved in to compensate to some extent for the great loss. From the Sham Chaurassi Gharana not known for Kheyal singing, the duo of Salamat Ali-Nazakat Ali worked haed to incroporate the dhurpad ang into the Kheyal and make it their very own.

It was actually the virtuosity of Salamat Ali Khan that won many an accolade. He is a past master at laikari, with a genius for dividing and sub-dividivg the rhythmic cycle to express the intricacies of the tonal pattern. His lightening quick taans are admired by those who understood the technicalities of classical music. Midway through his career he started to sing alone and the twin assets of taan and laikari served him well. He also sang the thumri and the kaafi in the semi classical in those sections devoted to the importance of poetry in singing.

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Waheed Murad

Hero, Villain, Producer, Writer and Singer First film: Aulaad (Urdu - 1962) Last film: Hero (Urdu - 1985) Waheed Murad is The All Time Greatest Pakistani Film Hero. He was born in a wealthy family at Sialkot. His father was a film distributor in Karachi.His first two films were as producer "Insaan badalta hai" (1961) and "Jab se dekha hai tumhein" (1963). Waheed Murad´s first two films as actor "Aulaad" (1962) and "Daaman" (1963) were as "side hero".

He became famous hero in film "Heera aur Pathar" in 1964 and got breakthrough in Pakistan´s first ever Platinum Jubilee Film "Armaan" in 1966. He was also producer and writer of this film.
Here is a brief film career record of Waheed Murad:
Diamond Jubilee Film: Shabana (1976)
Platinum Jubilee Films: Armaan (1966), Anjuman (1970), Ishq Mera Naa (1974), Aawaz (1979)
Golden Jubilee Films: Aulaad (1962), Daaman (1963), Kaneez (1965), Insaniyat and Dever Bhabhi (1967), Dil mera dharkan teri (1968), Andleeb (1969), Neend hamari khwab tumhare and Mastana Mahi (1971), Daoulat aur Duniya and Baharo Phool Barsao (1972), Tum salamat raho, Dushman and Shama (1974), Jab jab Phool khile and Phool mere Gulshan ka (1975), Waqt and Surayya Bhoopali (1976) and other musical films are Doraha (1967), Tumhi ho mehboob mere (1969), Salgirah, Khalish and Khwab aur Zindgi (1972). His pair with Zeba and Rani was a great success
Waheed Murad was villain in film "Sheeshe ka Ghar".
His last film was "Hero", which was released after his death in 1985.
He was well-dressed, handsome and attractive personality. He had extremely popular hair style. His nickname was "Chocolate Romantic Hero".
Waheed Murad died by heart attack in Karachi in 1983

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Zia Mohyeddin

International name, international fame 'A man of many parts' is how Zia Mohyeddin might describe himself. A fastidious aesthete with a particular interest in literature and classical music, his passion for theatre was visible in his student days as a member of the Government College Dramatic Club (GCDC) Lahore.

After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (1953-56) he returned to do some memorable productions, notably 'Julius Caesar' and 'Long Daya Journey into Night' in 1957, as well as 'Khwaja Moinuddin' and other productions.
In 1960 he took on the role of Dr. Aziz in 'Passage to India', staged in the West End and Broadway continously for about three years, and did the film in 1963-64. He also did several other films, televisioin roles and plays, the most prominent Pakistani actor on the scene, but returned to Pakistan in the early 1970s on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's insistence that he set up the PIA Arts and Dance Academy. This wasa also the period of the stylish Zia Mohyeddin show which ran for two seasons, and set the pattern for talk shows on PTV.
mohyeddin retuned to England in 1975, disenchanted with the Bhutto regime, and began working in a more directoral capacity, occasionally taking on film roles. He again returned to Pakistan in 1995, where his Urdu poetry and prose recitations have become legend, and which take him all over the country, and indeed the world.

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HAMEED HAROON

The Chief Executive Officer and publisher of Pakistan's leading English daily 'Dawn', and magazines 'Herald', 'Spider' and 'Aurora', Hameed Haroon is also the President of the All Pakistan Newspaper Society. He has presented a prime time serial, 'Quarrels', on Channel 4 in London (1994) and played Judge Brack in his own production of PTV's "Hedda Gabler" (1975). He has been associated with theatre in London in Eugene Ionesco's "Bald Primadonna" (1972), as director in Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" in Karachi (1975) and, again, as director of the much acclaimed "Love Letters" in Karachi (1999). Hameed Haroon has been on the board of some of the country's leading art schools - the National College of Arts in Lahore, the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi and Studio Gandhara in Islamabad. He has also been associated with the Sindh Environment Protection Board, the National Conservation Strategy, and has served as the Chairman of the KMC Zoo and the Karachi Safari Park. He is currently a member of the Advisory Committee on Heritage, Government of Sindh, and was the recipient of an Institute of Architects of Pakistan (IAP) award for his contribution to architecture (1982). He has been passionately involved with the documentation and promotion of sufi shrine music at the Bhit Shah shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai and is the recipient of the Latif Award (1994), the highest cultural award in Sindh province. He is also a member of the governing bodies of the National Fund for Cultural Heritage (NFCH) and the National Fund for Moenjodaro. Haroon has also served as the Chairman for the National Task Force on Culture in the Federal Ministry for Culture (1999). He has written articles focusing on the music, culture and archeology of Sindh and Balochistan and owns an extensive collection of Pakistani art. He has grown up watching and following Pakistani cinema and has a deep and abiding interest in international cinema. He is also currently involved in documenting and issuing the collected works of the famed Pakistani singer Noorjehan.

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Mohammad Ali, popularly known as Ali bhai, started his career from Radio Pakistan Karachi, in the early 1960's.

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Ozzir Zuby

Ozzir Zuby was born in 1922 in Kasur. He obyained a diploma from National College of Arts, Lahore. He went to Italy in 1950 for further studies. He was the founder Principal of the Institute of Arts and Crafts at the Arts Council, Karachi. Later on he set up his own School of Decors.

Ozzir Zuby made sculptures of about 50 notable persnalities.Like the great Impressionist and post-Impressionist painters Zuby has a style of his own. Even a lay-man can distinguish his paintings from the others. He has not succumbed to become a mere copyist of the modern schools of Western paintings. There is thus no chaos, no confusion in his works as we find in the works of many of his contemporaries in Pakistan.
His style is a vigorous style. There is movement. There is harmony. There are contours and straight lines but they do not make his paintings static but like a Japanese painting they suggest movement and dynamism.
His monumental painting 'The Awakening....6th of September, 1965' is the best tribute that a Pakistani artist has paid to that memorable moment of our history.

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Amin Gulgee

BA. in Economics and Art History, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA, 1987. Recipient of Cogar B. Goodyear Fine Arts Award for Thesis on Moghul Garden.

Sculptor Amin Gulgee is an innovator of tradition. His medium is metal, his inspiration the varied and rich spiritual history of his native Pakistan.

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Reshman

Reshman belonged to the golden sands of Rajisthan with her gifted voice and known as "The Desert Queen". She had an opportunity to leave her village to enter the world of fame. She was discovered by Saleem Jilani, Director, Radio Pakistan at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalander.

Reshman had always been confident and when she appeared on TV, she didn't have the slightest notion of how this would change her life. She should be proud of her song being adapted by Lata Mangeshkar (Indian Singing Legend) for a movie soundtrack.
Reshman has been visiting India several times to sing on the shrines of Nizamuddin Aoulia, Bakhtiar Kaki and Moinuddin Chishti. These visits have grown her assication with India. She has been called time and again. She had also sung for Indian movies and has been praised by many including Dilip Kumar (Indian Film Legend). She has performed world over and won numerous awards. People gave her immmense love and attention.
Reshman loves her country and says, wherever she goes, represents Pakistan. According to her its just because of Pakistan she is heard all over the world, otherwise it wouldn't have happened. Reshman has every intention to continue making her presence in the world of music.

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Sajjad Ali

Sajjad Ali, Pakistani Babia fame, started his career in 1979 through the release of his album by EMI. In 1983 he performed for the first time in the program "Silver Jubilee" as a pop singer. Then he performed in "Rag Rang" and "Neelam Ghar".

He was aware of his inborn capabilities. He first tried his hand on audio-auditing in 1980's at EMI studio. He soon learnt to use a camera for movie production as well as still photography. He first directed music video in 1988 and has since directed more then fifty videos. He has also directed two movies and acted in three movies. Sajjad Ali has also done some serious playback singing for his movies and for others. His last feature film as an actor/director was "Aik Aur Love Story" 1998 was a blockbuster.
He says that if he weren't the singer he would have been the cricketer but at the teenage he started learning music. He used to listen to Ustad Baray Ali Khan Sahab.
For future, Sajjad Ali wants to direct and write movies that should be known internationally. He also wants to establish Music Research Center and Scientific Music Academy.
Sajjad Ali has performaed all over the world. More than twenty of his albums have been released including "Babia 93", "Geet Ghazal", "Goldies not Oldies", "Chief Saab", "Moody"," Aik aur love story", "Cinderella". and many more.

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Rafique Ahmed

Rafique Ahmed " Feica" is a well known cartoonist of Pakistan. He did his graduation in 1979 in Fine Arts from National College of Arts, Lahore.

In the same year he joined "The Muslim". In 1981 he started working for the Star, Herald and Frontier Post (Published from Peshawar & Lahore). Since 1991 he is working with Daily DAWN Karachi. Besides cartoons he excel in manual animation.

Feica visited many countries of the world viz. USA, UK, and all th