Sequel of my previous upload.... Syed Ahmed Rushdi was born on April 24th 1934 , to a well respected Hyderabad Dekkan family of Maulana Hafiz Qari Syed Manzoor Mohammad, a revered religious scholar. Singing was strictly disallowed in his household, but Rushdi was crazy about music and wanted to sing all sorts of songs. In this context, he met many talented seniors, and took admission in a small music school by another name. According to many statisticians the first film he sang for was Ibrat, in 1951, in India, although generally it was held that Rushdi sang his first number for Karnama (1956). He was just 16 then. Ibrat, which had in its cast one called Arsalan, Rushdi's elder brother, turned out to be a flop, but very soon, in 1954, he came to Karachi with his family, and gave an audition at Radio Pakistan. He first sang Himayat Ali Shaer's poem, Clifton Kee Ik Shaam, which was appreciated. Soon followed another hit, Bandar Road se KemaRi which was a mega-hit of the times. Recognition of Rushdi's services to radio, television, cinema and overall to the nation, now so many years after his death, could be summed up in the adage 'better late than never!' He has been decorated with a Pride of Performance posthumously, but it is less than what he deserved. He served the country distinctively, and the least our government could have done for him was to take care of his family, and look after their well being. Rushdi came to the fore through one of the most popular numbers ever fashioned in Karachi, Bandar road se Keamari meri chali re ghora gari, which was supposed to be written and composed by a superlative musician, Mehdi Zaheer. But, actually, it was just written by him, while the composition was a re-hash of Lata's famous number, Bahey ankhiyon se dhaar, jia mora beqarar! If you know both tunes, you will note how similar the songs are. Yet, it was a case of the copy being more popular than the original. The tune fitted the wordings like a hand in a glove. It was such a huge hit that people do not even remember Lata's song. Rushdi's first film song in Pakistan was recorded for Karnama, which was a duet with Nazeer Begum, and was titled Chamkein seep ke moti jaise. He had three other duets in the film which I'll present to you laterz. Some facts about Ahmed Rushdi. Ahmad Rushdi's first film in Pakistan as playback singer was Karnama but Karachi made Urdu film Anokhi was his first released film in 1956. The first film song was: Mari Laila ne aisi katar, Mian Majnu ko aaya bukhar... was filmed on Lehri. His first hit song was from Lahore made film Speran in 1961 with the lyrics: Chand sa Mukhra, gora badan... filmed on Habib and music by Manzoor Ashraf (first film). He got breakthrough from film Mehtab's mega hit street song: Gol Gappe wala aya, gol gappe laya... in 1962 which was filmed on Allauddin. His first Punjabi film was Chodhary in 1962 and the first Punjabi song was filmed on Asif Jah, which was: Pyar tera main jholi paya te taaney marey Sharikan... He became 1960's "Abrar-ul-Haq" after his western style song "Koko-koreena... in film Armaan (1966) Ahmad Rushdi's peak period was from 1963-77. His last film as playback singer was Mashriq-o-Maghrib in 1985. Ahmad Rushdi sang 812 Urdu, 132 Punjabi, 3 Sindhi, 3 Gujarati and a single English song - a total number of 951 film songs. These figures are without songs from un-released films and none-film songs. Ahmad Rushdi's 951 songs in 508 released films could be a record for any male singer in Pakistani films but according to incomplete songography of Masood Rana, his songs are 887 in 574 released films. Followed by Mehdi Hassan's 631 songs in 445 films (complete figures) Ahmad Rushdi sang the highest number of 812 Urdu songs in the highest number of 421 Urdu films. Followed by Mehdi Hassan's 542 songs in 368 films (complete figures) and Masood Rana's 357 Urdu songs in 213 films (incomplete figures). Ahmad Rushdi sang 132 Punjabi songs in 75 Punjabi films. He was not successful in Punjabi films and sang mostly B- or C-class songs. But his Punjabi songs tally is the third highest by any male singer in Pakistan after Masood Rana's 526 songs in 360 Punjabi films (incomplete figures) and Inayat Hussain Bhatti's 222 songs in 114 films (complete figures) Ahmad Rushdi sang the highest number of songs for Waheed Murad and set a record for the first ever "centaury partnership" by any male singer and actor. The only other example is by Mehdi Hassan-Mohammad Ali pair. He also appeared as actor in following films: Anokhi (1956) Aur bhi gham hain (1960) Raat ke Rahi (1960) Lakhon Fasaney (unreleased) Neelam (1963) Jhalak (1964) Insaan (1966) Sartaj (1965) Lakhon mein ek (1967) Baharen phir bhi ayen gi (1969) Kaneez (1965) Chaudhveen Sadi (1972) Dekha jaye ga (1976) Ahmed Rushdi died on April 11, 1983 at Karachi. May Allah have mercy upon his soul..aamin.

• published: 09 Jan 2014