झंकार

A 1942 social drama from Silver Films directed by S. Khalil, centred on a young woman, Kuki (Pramila), whose life is complicated by her entanglement with the character played by the great Chandra Mohan. Like much of the era's output, the slender melodrama is chiefly remembered as a vehicle for its music — a nine-song score by composer Bashir Dehlvi sung by a roster of period voices including Rajkumari, Pramila, Gop and the classical vocalist Ustad Amanat Ali Khan.

Bashir Dehlvi's score across nine numbers spans the period's idioms — folk-derived bidaai laments (the traditional 'Kahe Ko Byahi Bides'), light romantic duets, comic situation songs voiced by Gop, and a Punjabi-flavoured number for Pramila ('Raat Haneri Mahi Ve'). The lyric duties were shared among four Lucknow-school Urdu poets, with D. N. Madhok contributing the largest share.

Jhankar belongs to the dense, music-driven crop of wartime Bombay social dramas of 1942. Its lasting interest lies in the soundtrack: composer Bashir Dehlvi assembled lyrics by the leading Urdu poets of the day — D. N. Madhok, Hasrat Lakhnavi, Arzoo Lakhnavi and Salik Lakhnavi — and unusually for a commercial film, drew on the classical voice of Ustad Amanat Ali Khan alongside popular playback singers.