These secondary sound-shows titillated the acoustic sensibility of the cinema-goers they also provided a pedestal for quite a few performers to exhibit their wares and fares under the generous auspices of a major breakthrough in technology. Until then, the acoustic void was filled by many ingenious devices, ranging from a live orchestra entrenched in a pit at the foot of the cinema screen to live singing and dancing by hired performers during the intervals. Sound came to these ‘moving pictures’ as late as 1931.
DR OMER ADIL WIKIPEDIA FULL
Cinema was becoming popular silent films were full of stunts and tricks made possible by the combined magic of camera and editing table. The city’s zestful inhabitants possessed an almost insatiable craving for pleasure, and performers of all sorts thrived on it. In the early 1930s, Lahore was the ideal destination for performing artists. The Punjab Mail in question had come all the way from the sonorous suburb of Kot Murad Khan in the backwaters of Qasur, some 1,000 miles away, after making a brief stop at the dimly-lit cinema houses that were then projecting silent stunt-movies in and around the walled city of Lahore.Ī paucity of patrons had compelled performers who came from the suburbs to move to larger city centers that offered a better chance of recognition and remuneration. This conversation was taking place in a prop-strewn courtyard of Madan Studious, Calcutta, on a crisp April morning in 1934. “But how can you miss the syrupy lyricism of their lilting voices?” asked the studio hand with a distinct disdain for his friend’s apparent tone-deafness. “I can hardly understand a word of what they say,” replied the lad who had spent all of his 18 years speaking plain Bangla without being able to read or write in it. “Can’t you hear them chirp in Punjabi?” came the retort. “What’s the Punjab Mail connection?” he asked, that being the name of the great train that in those days was traversing the wide plains of British-ruled North India. The other boy followed his friend’s gaze. "It is as if the Punjab Mail has arrived in Calcutta!” quipped a Bengali studio hand to his colleague, while keeping his gaze fixed upon a trio of chubby, petite, brown-eyed lasses who were at that moment moving past him and conversing in a thick Punjabi accent.
In this TFT exclusive, Dr Omer Adil tells the incredible story of a little girl from Kasur who arrived in 1930s Calcutta and there began her conquest of India's burgeoning film and music scene
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