कुड़माई

A Punjabi-language social drama produced by A.R. Kardar's Lahore unit and directed by J.K. Nanda, released at the Regent Cinema, Lahore on 29 August 1941. While the screen story is now poorly documented, the film's enduring importance lies in its soundtrack — it was the debut assignment of music director Khurshid Anwar, whom Kardar had heard at All India Radio and signed for this very picture.

The score was written by Khurshid Anwar with lyrics by D.N. Madhok, and drew on the leading playback voices of the day — Rajkumari, G.M. Durrani and Iqbal Begum. 'Gotaydaar Haar Wey' (sung by Iqbal Begum, Rajkumari and G.M. Durrani) became one of the picture's best-known numbers, alongside the duet 'Suraj Ne Layee Bahar Mitti Banai Sona'.

A.R. Kardar, then building his reputation in Lahore before his move to Bombay, heard Khurshid Anwar's compositions on All India Radio and offered him Kurmai as his first film. Anwar — a literate, classically inclined musician — would go on from this modest Punjabi debut to score celebrated Hindi films such as Ishara, Parwana and Singaar before migrating to Pakistan in 1948.

Kurmai is the film with which Khurshid Anwar — later one of the subcontinent's most admired composers of haunting, classically grounded melody — made his debut as a music director. Producer A.R. Kardar offered the young Anwar this Punjabi venture after being impressed by his radio work, and the film did fair business and was counted a hit, launching a career that would span both Indian and, after 1947, Pakistani cinema.

Though the film itself is largely forgotten, Kurmai holds a permanent place in music history as the launchpad of Khurshid Anwar. The Lahore-Punjabi production milieu of the early 1940s — of which Kurmai is a representative example — was the cradle for a generation of composers and singers who would shape both Hindi and later Pakistani film music.