Mandwa to screen ‘Neend’ today

Islamabad

Director: Hassan Tariq

Script: Riaz Shahid

Music: Rasheed Attrey

Cast: Noorjehan, Aslam Pervaiz,  Talish , Neelo, Allaudin and Nighet Sultana.

Lok Virsa Film Club Mandwa has selected film ‘Neend’ for screening today (Saturday) at 5 p.m.

Released in 1959, it can be marked as a landmark in film history. It was Hassan Tariq's debuting directorial venture. Hasan Tariq who had earlier assisted Anwar Kemal Pasha and Jaffaar Malik (Saat Lakh), got his first Independent break in ‘Neend’ and then went on to create history with milestones like ‘Anjuman’, ‘Urmaojan Ada’, ‘Tehzeeb’, ‘Dewar Bhabi’, ‘Kaneez’ and ‘Aik Gunnah Aur Sahi’. ‘Neend’ was also a film after which Noor Jehan almost bid farewell to her acting career and her last film ‘Ghalib’ came two years later in 1961. Superstar Aslam Pervaiz, leaving his glowing romantic stardom appeal behind, appeared here for the first time (and all times in future) in the wicked role of a rich rapist.

‘Neend’ would remain a notable film of screenwriter Riaz Shahid and his socially relevant and bitter subject of poverty and its worst exploitation by upper strata of rich and famous. Riaz Shahid's acid dialogue were blunt, ironical and ruthless to tear hypocrites apart. Here, Noorjehan is seen as a free-spirited street woman, picking left-over coal pieces from the railway tracks to feed poverty-stricken family lead by her old visually impaired father, played by Talish. Noorjehan is tactfully tracked by filthy rich Aslam Pervaiz who first enjoys her melodies, then forcefully takes physical pleasure and finally rapes and impregnates her. Luckily this coal picker is no ordinary woman who would give up. She is far ahead of women in slums from the late-fifties and she, in no way, is going to swallow this injustice and punishment. She goes to Aslam Pervaiz for parental rights of the newly-born baby. On blunt refusal, she guns him down at point blank.

This dramatic treatment by Riaz Shahid is cinematically handled by Hassan Tariq. The conflict is carefully knit in flashbacks which start in the beginning when Allaudin and Nighet Sultana bring four-year-old child to school for admission. When the school principal refuses to admit the child, the family background of the child is visually narrated through the dramatic events. Noorjehan and other women keep the kitchen fire burning by picking coal on railway track. The flashbacks end with the school principal admitting the child in school.

1959 was a year when ‘Neend’ had to compete with some of our best and more successful films like ‘Nagin’, ‘Jhomar’, ‘Koel’, ‘Raaz’ and ‘Kartar Singh’. ‘Neend’ played modestly well but did not reach top of the box office chart.

Apart from these attributes, ‘Neend’ carried half a dozen rich melodies of Noorjehan and Naseem Begum, including ‘Chun chun chun chun Bajey’, ‘Jia dharkey’, ‘Akeli mut jana’ and ‘Terey der pey sanam chaley aye tu na aya to hum chelay aye’. These and more became the hit songs as decade moved into the sixties.

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