Guest Post by Altamash Mir
Sohail Rana is the son of renowned poet Rana Akbar Abadi. Young Sohail started showing interested in the arts at a very early age, first in painting and then in music, which he took up as his love and profession.
His first break came in 1962, when he was appointed as a composer in Radio Pakistan and also began composing in EMI. After that he did his first musical score and song for the movie Jab Say Dekha Hai Tumhain. The songs from this movie instantly topped the charts and proved to be a stepping stone in Sohail Rana’s brilliant career. Great film productions like Arman gave Sohail the opportunity to maximize his musical talents by embedding his fresh style of music and turning and twisting the mood of the entire movie.
Sohail Rana understood the power of music and the effect it has on people. During the 60’s he observed that Western music was taking Pakistan by storm and people were beginning to forget the native folk music of the land.
During this period, in addition to doing music for films, he flexed his muscles as a composer and started working on private records such as Folk tunes of Pakistan, Shahbaz Qalandar and Khyber Mail. Many songs from these albums are still admired and re-performed by modern bands.
Listen to some wonderful instrumental tunes from ‘Khyber Mail’, here:
Harvest Time:
Cobra Away:
Saat Maatray:
To accomplish his goal of fusing together the modern music with folk melodies, he started a show on PTV in 1968 called Kaliyon ki Mala. He would take this opportunity to not only introduce traditional music to Pakistani kids but to also teach them about music. Kaliyon ki Mala stayed alive up until mid 80s under different names such as Sung Sung Chalein. In all these years of teaching youngsters to sing and understand music, Sohail Rana produced some of the most popular artists not only for Pakistan, but all of South Asia. He composed over 2000 songs for the childrens musical show.
Mr. Rana has received the prestigious Presidential Award the Pride of Performance, The Nigar Award for film Arman, Gold Discs from EMI for the vinyl album, Khyber Mail and the United Nations Peace Messenger Award, conferred on him, at the United Nations in New York in 1987.
Sohail Rana’s achievements in music are uncomparable to his triumph in causing rippling changes in the Pakistani society, where musicians and music were looked down upon and impermissible in the middle class. Overall, Mr. Rana has achieved what most people dare not dream in their entire lives. Sohail Rana now resides in Canada, runs a music school and is busy composing symphonies. His passion for music lives on and perhaps the best is yet to come, Inshallah!!!
Some of his best film work:
Ye khushi ajab khushi hai
Jab say deikha hai tumhain, dil ka ajab Aalam hai
Ko-Ko-Korina
Saye ki talab karney walo
Akele na jana,
Bay taab ho udhar tum
Jab pyar mein do dil miltay hain
Meri Qismet bata, hai meri kya kheta
Mujhay tum say mohabbat hai
Ik naye maur pay
Aye mere zindigi aye meray hum safar
Do akhian, ye do sakhian
Wada karo milo gey
Raatain theen chandni
Aashiyaan jal gaya
Hai bay qarar tamanna
Tujh jaisa dagha baaz
Bansiri bajanay walay
Aaj janay ki zid na karo
Dheeray, dheeray paoon rakh gori
Some of his other great songs:
Sohni dharti
Sung sung chaltay rehna
Dosti aisa nata
Shawa bhy shawa
Jeeway Pakistan
Mein bhee Pakistan hoon
Allah Akbar
Some of the Artists that he introduced:
Mohammad Ali Shehki; Habib Wali Mohammad; Amjad Hussain; Alamgir; Mona Sisters; Benjamin sisters; Nazia Hasan/Zohaib Hasan; Afshan Ahmed; Anwar Ibrahim; Fatima Jaffery; Adnan Sami Khan; Hadiqa Kiyani
Acknowledgement: The wonderfully informative essay of Sohail Rana by Anis Ahmad Shakur (here); also see updates where he is now and what he is doing here and here.
Altamash Mir is a Chicago-based Pakistani, has been a reader and frequent commentator to this blog from its inception. He is very active in AOPP.
Adnan, Dr. Najam may hestitate to respond to your query out of humility, but yes I do believe he is the same who compared a number of PTV programs in those days, inclduing the Saarc Games.
On the post, I never knew that so many of these old film songs were by Mr. Suhail Rana. Like co co corina.
Owais, Good memories. Zia’s mention has taken away some of the charm from my memories though. Even though I was too young to remember the 5 points and their marde momin. Talking of Mona sisters, I think their lead singer had superb talent. Her song “diyae julaayai rakhna dil ke ghar ke diyae dareechoa’n se hai ghar kee aan baan” was great despite the difficult lyrics. Does anyone know what happened to her career?
Nazia Hassa, Zohaib Hassan, Afshan Ahmed, Mona Sisters etc all grew up to become pro singers after going through Sohail Rana’s children program.
I have vivid memories of seeing a little chubby Zohaib sitting in front rows of stadium seat truope’ that sang in Sohail Rana’s programs.
SAF games which took place in Islamabad got its famous song ‘Asia ke saat (7) mulk saath saath’ composed by Sohail Rana.
Mona sister’s song ’sooraj karay salaam, chanda karay salaam, pyaray Pakistan, mein tujh pe qurbaan” was also Sohail’s composition. This song became the de-facto sound track of Zia-ul-Haq’s referundum of 1984 where PTV used to play its tune non-stop while promoting Zia’s 5-point referendum.
My siblings and I grew up with listening to Sohail in home and in our car on road trips. Movie love songs were considered vulgar for children in our family and were not played in our home. Only songs that were allowed were those from Sohail Rana. We played his cassette albums of ‘Helicopter’ and ‘O taangay walay’ over and over. I still remember many of his songs by heart.
Adil,
This post reminds me of one of his last works done for SAF Games in 89; “asia ke saat mulk saath saath.” I have just been able to make a possible link. Were you the guy who anchored the games on tv for 7 days? I have vivid memories of those games and the way you(?) covered them.
Hi, good article. On a completely different note, there is an EXTREMELY interesting video ,a xhref=”http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=5546 807296660038256&q=Musharraf”>here:
I’m not talking about the guy’s points but the fact that this debate even taking place is SHOCKING to me!!
Altamash, thanks for bringing back these memories. Must confess that the Sohail Rana songs that I first feel in love with were songs that I did not even know had anything to do with Sohail Rana. Was never much of a fan of his children shows and it was not till I was much older than I realized the significance and importance of those programs and those shows. But it was the Rushdi-Waheed Murad songs that hooked me and - my bad - I did not (again) realize till so much later that the magic in those tunes were as much from Sohail Rana as from Rushdi and Waheed Murad.
Armaan, of course, with Akailay na jaana or jabb piyar mein dou dil miltay hain, or the unbeatable koko korina was the absolute pinnacle of this trio’s prowess. But bhooli huwi houn dastaan in Doraha or mujhe tum say mohabat hai in heera aur pathar are equally memorable.
As you can see, the memories flood in. And so does the realization of how many interesting people we so unceremoniously fortgot.
ur right Samdani, It is not easy to summarize the career of this giant. This is more for people who dont know much about his accomplishments, like myself. I grew up watching his TV show for kids, and that was it. I never knew that he was a great film music director or that he was the inventer of fusion music.
Sohail Rana’s impact was more profound than this suggests and he did so much that he never gets full credit for it. His early film music with Rushi and Waheed Murad changed the face of Pakistan music. His later music on PTV with new artists, did it again. And he changed it for a third time with his kids music shows.