We grew up when Noor Jehan was in her prime during the decade of the 1960s and it appeared that her presence was for forever.
Actually she burst on the music scene with almost her first number in films Shala Jawanian Mane when she was hardly out of her teens. She used to sing with her sisters in stage shows in the urban centres and melas in the countryside and so tayaar or performance-ready were the sisters that they were known as the Punjab Mail. This must have been in reference to the Frontier Mail, the express train that due to its speed had shortened the distance between Peshawar to Calcutta in terms of hours. These sisters were Punjab Mail because they were loud and relished in their virtuosity.
At a young age she was exposed to the wiles and ruthless world of show business, away from her home in far away Calcutta but as if not to be put down she continued upward on her path as if nothing could hold her back.
From the late 1930s to almost the eighties, she ruled the world of music, particularly the film song which had become the most popular form of music during the course of the century and also the most paying.
When I grew up she was at the top, not to be touched and the aura was further brightened by her larger than life personality. She was undaunted, unafraid and above reproach as people gossiped and spread tales but it only added more sheen to her person and character. She was not damaged by all this and seemed not to bother at all.
And as far as her music was concerned, she totally dominated the scene. None dared challenge her, come up to her standard and class and no one dare cross her path. If so, then she or he was doomed and many stories of her cutting artistes down to size, of deflating egos and ruining careers circulated and became the lore of music and film world.
It seemed she was the only sign of permanence in a world that was subject to change. That only she would not decay and blemish while the other mortals did. She sang in that fifty odd years some of the most memorable songs and numbers that one can recall in the vocal history of music in the subcontinent.
Then she started to fade away and one heard of her cancelling recordings and not appearing on a show. It was just her inability to come up to the microphone due to failing health. It all seemed very untrue and one did not believe it. It could not be her health; it must be only the tantrum of a queen, a diva, temperamental and fiery as they come, as it had been told to happen so many times.
She faded away and the stage was empty. She was in and out of hospital, and became dependent upon her progeny who were always dependent upon an indulgent and doting mother. They even took her away from her beloved Lahore and then one day she was no more -- all so unbelievable.
In a way we are lucky that her music is preserved due to the technological breakthrough of recording sound in its primary form.
People in history have been remembered either through their representation in sculpture, painting or through the written word. Architects and builders have their monuments to show, no matter in ruins, but where music is concerned it has been only through the oral transmission and its associated lore. But every bandish or raag sung is a recreated version never absolutely true to its prototype. And it should not be because otherwise it amounts to negating creativity.
There is always a haze of the unknown when the contribution of great musicians is recalled. Who were Shiv, Krishen, David, Saraswati, Khusro, Tansen, Mirabai and Tanrus among many others? They are all shrouded in mystique and bordering on the incredible. The only safe recreation is part reality, part legend.
Noor Jehan lived up to the prototype of an artiste, a musician who was wrapped in mystery and defied any one definition. There may be an added advantage that we are also able to recall and replay her music unlike the others before her who only exist in words, lore and mythology. The closest that one has got to the age of mythology in an age of prosaic realism has been the person of Noor Jehan. Perhaps the creative world of magic and heightened fantasy is needed to balance the world of analysis and tabulations.