In Remembrance, Nalini Jaywant

My ten favourite Nalini Jaywant solo songs

If I ask my niece who is Nalini Jaywant, she will most probably say that she must be one of my innumerable aunts. In fact, I do have a distant aunt with the name of Nalini. But the actress Nalini Jaywant seems to have faded into oblivion. When one reads discussions on Hindi film actresses of the 50s, her name hardly appears. Maybe the reason is her self-imposed exile, otherwise it is hard to understand, why she should disappear from public memory. In her heydays she was considered the most beautiful actress and as a talented actress by her colleagues.

She started her career in her teenage years, playing sister (the title role) to Sheikh Mukhtar in Mehboob Khan’s Bahen [1941], where she sang all her songs in her own voice.. Her films in the 40s were nothing to write home about, till she made a splash with Anokha Pyar [1948] as the all-sacrificing part of the triangle, showing Dilip Kumar once again between two strong ladies, the other being Nargis. After that there was no looking back for her, acting in hit films like Samadhi, Naubahar, Rahi [1952], Shikast, Munimji, Nastik and Kala Pani. Like many of her contemporaries she couldn’t carry her success streak into the 60s and retired from the silver screen. She appeared only in two films in the 80s Bandish [1980] and Nastik [1983].

More detailed writing on her career can be found at Upperstall and by Shishir Krishna Sharma on his blog. The first and last photo in this post are from his collection. Thank you Shishirji for the loan!
Here are my ten favourite solo songs of this beautiful and talented actress. Enjoy!

 

Panzar

My ten favourite songs from Gulzar-Pancham collaboration

Though the pair R.D. Burman – Gulzar is very popular and famous. They might have done at the most a one and half dozen films together as composer-lyricist team. Nevertheless their partnership was very fruitful. Pancham admitted that working with Gulzar brought the best in him though at times the work together was very complicated.
Preparing this list was a pleasant though a very weary process for me. I have lost count how many times I included and rejected the songs. None of the songs here were in the original list except for dhanno ki aankhon me.
So to make matters at least a little bit easy for me, I set up the following rules:
1. The song must be from a film.
2. The film must have had a proper release in the cinema halls.