LAHORE CULTURAL DIARY: Shaukat Husain Rizvi - in memoriam

Before independence, Lahore was the third major film centre of India, where several blockbusters in Punjabi and Urdu, using mostly local talent, were produced. However, its film industry suffered much after exodus of non-Muslim producers, directors, financiers, distributors and technicians to India in 1946.
The 26-year old film industry of Lahore was almost completely ruined due to these departures and also by torching of local film studios.
In pre-partition days, dozens of highly successful films were produced from Calcutta, Bombay and Lahore, some of which still create nostalgia for senior cine-goers. Included in the list of inveterate film-makers of that era were A. R. Kardar, Mehboob Khan, Bimal Roy, V. Shanta Ram, Kedar Sharma, M. Sadiq and Shaukat Hussain Rizvi, whose masterpieces still retain their original appeal.
Accompanied by his singing actress wife Nur Jehan, Syed Shaukat Husain Rizvi immigrated into Pakistan to settle in Lahore, where he was allotted the damaged Shorey Studios. With its machinery and equipment pilfered, only two bare floors existed therein. A man of strong nerves, drive and energy, Rizvi rebuilt the damaged film studio brick by brick, and installed new machinery parts and equipment in it. It took him more than two years to get the studios back into business. The first film produced at the renovated studios was Punjabi Chunway (1951), which hit the bull's eye.
A peep into Rizvi's chequered career provides some inspiration to budding artistes. Born in Mirzapur near Azamgarh in UP in 1914, Shaukat Husain Riazvi did not show any inclination for education. Worried by his "waywardness", his parents tried their best to tame their son, but nothing worked as his heart was set somewhere else.
The late producer-director-studio owner Rizvi told his life story to me a few years before his death in Lahore on August 19, 1998, which makes a fascinating reading. "For a brief span of time", he reminisced with a gleeful smile on his face, "I managed a small shop of general merchandise to purvey such items of daily consumption as tooth pastes, towels, handkerchiefs, etc. However, I suffered heavy losses as I would sell the merchandise for less than their cost prices to my friends". (Saadat Hasan Manto in his booklet "Nur Jehan Saroor-e-Jehan has claimed that Shaukat Rizvi had a short career has watchmaker) .
To escape the wrath of the parents, who were annoyed by his largesse, and disgusted by his failure in business, Shaukat joined a touring circus, which provided him an opportunity to visit several towns in the province. It did not work either, as he continued dreaming about something unusual, through nebulous and hazy in his mind, At that point of time, his father gave him in the care of a close relative in Ghazipur, who thought the young man wanted to become an actor. That distant mamoon (maternal uncle) of his took him to a man known as Naranjan Chauhan, an employee of Madan Theatres, Calcutta, and requested him to make an actor out of Shaukat Rizvi. It did not work, for the young man from Mirzapur was not interested in playacting.
It was at Madan Theatre, however, that he developed a fascination for "moving objects on the screen" and tried to learn about the process and the force, which made them move. His quest for knowledge took him to a shop at the famous Chore Bazar in Calcutta, which sold cartoon books. Flipping through its pages with a uniform speed he experienced an optical allusion, which explained why the cartoon looked moving. "That single incident unfolded on me the mystery of the movement of objects on the screen through a film projector. It was a turning point in my life", he said with a ting of nostalgia.
This led to his meeting with and training under Ezra Mir, a competent film editor, a master technician and a good teacher. After satisfying himself with the intensity of Shaukat's desire to learn, Mir accepted the young aspirant as one of his assistants and trained him in this important department of film production. Shaukat remained with Mir for over two years and assisted him in editing such hit movies of that era as Masoom, Qaidi and Chorangi.
It was in 1939, impressed by the editing of a number of successful films produced from Calcutta that Seth Dalsukh M. Pancholi, who had set up a couple of studios in Lahore, engaged Shaukat to edit his Punjabi film Gulbakaoli. Pleased with his work, Pancholi put Shaukat on his payroll as a regular employee of the Studios. Shaukat Rizvi also edited Pancholi films Yamla Jat, Khazanchi and Chaudhri, all of which set records at the box office.
"It was the measure of confidence I created in Seth Pancholi", Rizvi told me, "that he provided me the dream opportunity of directing Pancholi Arts Production's first Urdu film Khandaan. Its release in 1942 put film-makers from the Punjab on to All India circuit. The film was a roaring success. It was during the production of this movie that Cupid's arrow stuck Shaukat and Nur Jehan, resulting in their marriage in Bombay sometime later.
After the release of Khandaan, Rizvi left Lahore to try his luck at Bombay, where he directed several successful films one after the other, notching up a high place for himself in the hierarchy of frontline film-makers of India. His films Dost, Zeenat and Jugnu are still remembered for their artistic excellence. In Jugnu (which was completed in 1945 but released in 1947 due to litigation) Shaukat Rizvi introduced the legendary playback singer Muhammad Rafi (originally from Lahore) and the qawwali song Aahain na bhareen shikway na keeyey for the first time in a film. Written by Nakshab Jaacharvi and sung by Nur Jehan, Amirbai Karnatki, Kalyani and Zohra Ambalewali in chorus, the song, tune of which was invented by Hafiz Khan, became uproariously popular as it hummed and sung by millions in the sub-continent for many years.
In Pakistan Shaukat Rizvi produced the film Gulnaar (1953) and also produced and directed Jaan-e-Bahar, Ashiq and Dulhan in the decade of the 1960s, which established his class as a perceptive and creative artiste.