Noor Jehan
Singer and actress of Kasur, the Malika-e-Tarannum, queen of melody, whose voice filled the films and radios of both Punjabs.
Allah Wasai, who took the name Noor Jehan, was born in Kasur in 1926 and was singing and acting in Calcutta and Lahore films as a child. By the 1940s she was the biggest star of Bombay cinema.
In 1947 she moved to Lahore, and over half a century sang thousands of songs in Punjabi and Urdu for Pakistani films, earning the title Malika-e-Tarannum, the queen of melody. Her songs of the 1965 war were broadcast to soldiers on the front, and her ghazals of Faiz, above all Mujh se pehli si mohabbat, are among the best known of her songs.
She died in Karachi in 2000. Her Punjabi film songs are still loved on both sides of the border.
