Aina: Pakistan’s Greatest Blockbuster Movie

Owais Mughal

In its prime days, Pakistan’s Urdu cinema has produced many big hit movies. The biggest blockbuster of the golden era was the movie Aina.

The movie title Aina is pronounced aaina and the English translation of the title is a mirror. This movie was so popular that it was shown in a Karachi Cinema for almost 8 consecutive years (400 consecutive weeks). The story of Aina is a formula love story but what made this movie special was the quality of direction as well as the superhit music of Robin Ghosh. The songs of this movie are still popular. I recently found these songs on Youtube and that is what prompted me to write this post.

Here is the first super-hit song from the movie titled: Wada karo saajna. Singers are Mehnaz and Alamgir.

Perhaps one of the most popular songs of Aina is ‘rooThay ho tum’ by Nayyara Noor.

Following is the data sheet of ‘Aina’:

Release Date: March 18, 1977
Director: Nazr-ul-Islam
Writer: Bashir Niaz
Musician: Robin Ghosh
Song Writer: Tasleem Fazli, Akhtar Yousuf
Cameraman: Afzal Chaudhry
Producer: A.R. Shamsi
Stars: Nadeem, Shabnam, Qavi, Khalid Salim Mota, Zarqa, Bahar, Rehan, Parveen Bobby, Nimmo, Nena and Nasra.

Following song titled ‘mujhay dil se na bhulaana’ is my all time favourite. The sound quality is not upto the mark but I cannot help but share this song with you. This song also won Nigar Award for the best song of the year 1977.

It is said the movie was so popular that it was copied as a Bollywood movie with the name ‘Pyar jhukta nahi’.

Aina is the only Urdu movie which has won a record number of Nigar Awards. That record number is 12. Following is the detail of 12 Nigar Awards which went to Aina team. Nigar Awards are Pakistan’s premier movie awards. Consider them Pakistani Oscar awards:

(1) Best Movie of the Year 1977: aina
(2) Best Director: Nazr-ul-Islam for aina
(3) Best Dialogs: Bashir Niaz for aina
(4) Best Actress: Shabnam in aina
(5) Best Actor: Nadeem in aina
(6) Best Supporting Actor: Rehan in aina
(7) Best Musician: Robin Ghosh for aina
(8) Best Song Writer: Tasleem Fazli (for aina movie song: ‘mujhay dil se na bhulana’)
(9) Best photography: Afzal Chaudhry in aina
(10) Best Singer: Mehdi Hassan (for aina theme song: ‘mujhay dil se na bhulana’)
(11) Best Upcoming Singer: Alamgir (for aina song: ‘bichReN ge na hum kabhi’)
(12) Special Award for Child Star: Shahzeb in aina

Following is the song for which singer Alamgir got the Nigar Award. It is titled ‘bichReN ge na hum kabhi’

Director Nazr-ul-Islam made almost 50 movies in his career but Aina was by far his best production. A lot of hardwork went behind every scene. Outdoor shooting that went around Karachi was also considered a masterpiece for 1977 standards. In 1980s Aina was screened in China and proved very popular there too.

Another mega hit song of ‘aina’ sung by legendary Mehdi Hasan was ‘kabhi meiN sochta hooN’. Here it is:

Following is a photo scene from the movie Aina. Sitting left to right are Mohammad Qavi, Nimmo, Shabnam and Nadeem. The lady standing in the background is actress Bahar.

Following is yet another scene from the movie Aina showing Nadeem and Shabnam. This photo is courtesy of Doctor Kazi at flickr. com

References: Data Sheet and Nigar Award information taken from Pakistan ki 100 shahkar filmeN by Yasin Goreeja