DEDICATED to PAKISTAN'S MATINEE HERO: WAHEED MURAD [1938 -1983]. KHAARTOUM SINGS classic Pakistani film ghazal: 'ZINDAGI MAIN TO SABHI PYAR' or 'IN A LIFETIME EVERYONE LOVES SOMEONE' with ENGLISH SUBTITLES. The GHAZAL said to be MEHDI HASSAN'S best ever FILM RECORDING is from the 1973 URDU FILM: 'AZMAT'.
The SONG is a MAGIFICENT MELANCHOLIC FILMI GHAZAL that is FATEFUL and HEAVY with INTROSPECTION and FORLORN LONGING of the HUMAN SPIRIT.
'ZINDAGI MAIN TO SABHI PYAR', though not one of his songs, is a POIGNANT REMINDER of the LIFE of PIONEERING PAKISTANI HERO: WAHEED MURAD...'The Choclaty Hero'...'The Lady Killer'...
WAHEED MURAD:
- An Iconic Actor of Lahore Cinema starting in 1961
- MURAD shaped some of Bombay Cinema's actors like JEETENDRA
- MURAD'S hair cut was much copied by youth
- WAHEED MURAD was seen as CHARISMATIC
- After a STUNNING RUN, WAHEED'S CAREER began to UNRAVEL
- BANNED to STAR by HEROINES' HUSBANDS MURAD got no work with TOP ACTRESSES: ZEBA, SHABNAM and NISHO in the later 1970s
- WAHEED MURAD became TRAPPED in B-ROLES
- The CHOCLATY HERO'S CAREER began to fail
- Some DIRECTING PROJECTS were SUCCESSFUL
- WAHEED began DRINKING HEAVILY
- WIFE SALMA abandoned MURAD to AMERICA
- MURAD had to have STOMACH REMOVAL for SEVERE BLEEDING
- WAHEED MURAD became increasingly ILL and FRAIL in his later career.
URDU ACTRESS: BABRA SHARIF [b.1954] recalled WAHEED MURAD on the sets of his own film 'HERO' in the early 1980s. "Waheed lost his balance on the sets and fell down. He took several minutes to compose himself. His condition was very bad".
WAHEED MURAD, like REKHA, AMITABH, LATA MANGESHKAR, SMITA PATIL was another 'IN LOVE WITH LOVE' LIBRA whose 'CHASING DREAMS OF LOVE OVER THE RAINBOW' created CINEMA ICONS that LIVE ON FOREVER...Yet, most of these LIBRAN 'SNOW QUEENS and SNOW KINGS of LOVE' never found their dreams. Often they remain SINGLE all of their LIVES or have DISASTROUS RELATIONSHIPS that ABANDON THEM to their ALONENESS and 'IN LOVE WITH LOVE DREAMS'...
WAHEED MURAD is likely to have COMMITED SUICIDE in 1983. He was found dead in his bathroom with a PAAN LEAF with an 'UNKNOWN SUBSTANCE' in it...The END of the ICON...
As ALTERNATIVE SINGER: LENE LOVICH [b. 1949], another UNIQUE ICON, said: "At the height of our fame...Nobody ever told us that...One day...The phone would stop ringing...People would stop taking our photo in the streets...And nobody would remember who we once were as pop stars..." WAHEED MURAD and many other ICONS meet that same FATE...An EXTREME of FAME to an EXTREME of OBSCURITY... How hard to bear...or be impossible to bear...
But WAHEED MURAD and the other ICONS LIVE ON FOREVER. MURAD'S STYLE influenced both PAKISTAN and INDIA'S CINEMA and STILL DO, TAUGHT in ACTING SCHOOLS and UNIVERSITY MEDIA COURSES...THE LEGACY LIVES ON...
In his LAST EVER INTERVIEW, WAHEED MURAD said: "If I should suddenly disappear I should like to be remembered for the film song 'I am a tale forgotten, a thought bygone, I am the question you couldn't understand'..."
"WAHEED MURAD WAS NOT AN INDIIVIDUAL...HE WAS AN ENTIRE ERA IN HIS OWN RIGHT..." Actor: Ghulm Mohiuddin
