Aap ke haseen rukh pe aaj naya noor hai...
- Independent Ink
- Jan 27
- 7 min read
Remembering great music composer OP Nayyar (16 January, 1926 - 28 January, 2007): Personal recollections from a Pakistani friend of Lahore-born Bollywood icon whose stories are entwined with many legendary figures in the film industry, from Guru Dutt and Dharmendra, to Asha Bhonsle and Madhubala, and whose immortal melodies continue to inspire and shape popular music.
By Siraj Khan/Sapan News
While organising my thoughts last year to start writing my annual January piece on the celebrated composer O.P. Nayyar, I wondered how I would encapsulate the decades of his work into an article for 2026, his birth centenary.
Our relationship had developed into a strong bond since we first met in Dubai in June 1995. I was there on assignment, and he was visiting for a show. We met whenever I visited India and I would call him for marathon phone conversations, considering myself his adopted son.
I tried to keep his work and memory alive. Looking back, it is incredible to think that I, a Pakistani, started and am running the O.P. Trust in Mumbai and managing his official website.
For me, January is ‘O.P. Nayyar Month’ -- the month in which he was born and died, as he had predicted he would. My thoughts were interrupted by news of iconic Bollywood star Dharmendra's death on 24 Novemberlast year, after weeks of rumours.
My mind was flooded with dozens of names and characters, as if the past was embracing the present. I knew that my annual O.P. Nayyar article would be an extract of a chapter from his life, connecting him with Dharmendra -- both proud Punjabis.
Guru Dutt
I remembered Guru Dutt’s last production 'Baharein Phir Bhi Ayengi‘ (Spring Will Still Come), in which Dutt himself played the male lead. By now, Dutt had achieved a cult following, and Nayyar, doing the music score, was a hot commodity. He had earlier done the music for C.I.D., a crime thriller produced by Guru Dutt in 1956.
In 1957, Nayyar became the first composer to be paid a lakh (100,000) rupees. His face was splashed on billboards instead of the film’s leading actors, something never seen before or since.
Eleven unedited reels of ’Baharein Phir Bhi Ayengi’ had been shot, and four of its songs recorded when Dutt, 39, was found dead on 10 October, 1964. That day, he and Nayyar were to meet and discuss the picturization of the title song, which had already been recorded. Only Aapke ke Haseeen Rukh pe (On Your Beautiful Face), already picturized with Dutt and the two heroines, Mala Sinha and Tanuja.
Dutt’s sudden death brought things to a halt. Then the 1965 India-Pakistan war took place. It seemed that the film had died with Dutt.
Then something remarkable happened, and if one single song ever changed the trajectory and destiny of an entire film, it was this one. Dutt’s brother, Atma Ram, heard the title song and was inspired to revive the production.
Badal jaye agar mali, chaman hota nahi khaliBaharein phir bhi aati hein, baharein phir bhi ayengi
(The garden does not become barren if the gardener changesSpring has always come, spring will still come.)
The new maali (gardener) had arrived. Director Shahid Lateef and Dutt’s trusted writer, Abrar Alvi, jumped into action. Along with Nayyar, they started looking for an actor to take up Dutt’s role. Every top hero, including Dev Anand and Sunil Dutt, declined to step into Dutt’s shoes. Then young Dharmendra, who just went by one name, was signed on.
An interesting aspect of the film's music was that its six songs were written by five lyricists.
Koee kehde kehde kehde zamane se jaake (Somebody go and tell the world)
– Aziz Kashmiri
Woh has ke mile humse ham pyar samajh baithe (He met with a smile and I took it to be love)
– S. H. Bihari
Aap ke haseen rukh pe aaj naya noor hai (On your pretty face, today I see a new radiance)
– Anjaan
Dil to pehle hee se madhosh hai matwala hai (My heart is already intoxicated with a hangover)
– Shevan Rizvi
Badal jaye agar mali chaman hota nahi khali (The garden doesn't become barren when the gardener changes)
– Kaifi Azmi
Suno suno Miss Chatterjee, mere dilka matter jee (Do listen to me, Miss Chatterjee, this is a matter of my heart)
– Aziz Kashmiri
Also interestingly, not one song was in the voice of Geeta Dutt, Guru Dutt’s wife.
With the modified script, the songs were initially reduced to five. However, aware that lyricist Aziz Kashmiri was going through tough times, Nayyar wanted to assign at least two songs to him, and convinced the team that a comedy song picturised on Johnny Walker would enrich the film.
Parallel stories
Nayyar also managed to get a higher compensation for Kashmiri for his generous -- and judicious -- use of English words in a Hindi song. When Kashmiri received his compensation, he almost fainted with surprise, finding the amount unimaginable. That was Nayyar.
More twists and turns were to follow, with almost a parallel story running in real life. Until his meeting with Nayyar, Kashmiri was being cast as an extra, playing dead men, often seen in films being carried through the streets for the last rites. He had been playing this strange role well, but Nayyar made him a promise to stop this.
Kashmiri developed a long list of hits with Nayyar in just a few months, starting in 1966, going into 1969. Huzoorewala jo ho ijazat (Your Permission, Sir) was a runaway success. Even established lyricists were taking notice of Kashmiri.
Nayyar had created some sort of a miracle.
Dara Singh’s 1969 film The Killers had six songs, three each assigned to poets Kashmiri and S.H Bihari. Kashmiri only wrote two before he went missing and there was no news about him thereafter. Nayyar used to say light-heartedly that Kashmiri had rehearsed well for his death. The mystery has never been solved.
The last song Kashmiri contributed was Churate ho nazrein aji kis liye (Why do you steal your glances, tell me?). The singers, Asha Bhosle and Usha Timothy, are still with us.
S.H. Bihari wrote another song for the film bringing his total musical contribution to four.
Back to ‘Baharein Phir Bhi Ayengi’, the film limped towards completion, with numerous glitches along the way, and was finally released in 1966. This would be director Shahid Lateef's last one. He died in April 1967, just a few months later.
Interestingly, the only time Nayyar, Azmi and Dharmendra ever worked together in their respective long careers was for Badal jaye agar mali, the title song.
Nayyar, who was born in Lahore, where he lived for the first 21 years of his life, continued to work wonders with Dharmendra. They always spoke in Punjabi, and whenever the legendary singer Mohammed Rafi joined them, there was no stopping them.
Mohabbat Zindagi Hai (Love is Life) was another Nayyar-Dharmendra starrer. Na jaane kyon hamare dil ko tumne dil nahi samjha (I don’t know why you never understood my heart as a heart), Tumhari mulaqaat se mujhko pata ye chala (Meeting you is when I finally learned this) and Ye Purnoor chehra (This radiant face), all sung by Rafi, fared well in the charts.
However, the writing was on the wall. The film Baharein Phir Bhi Ayengi and the year of its release signaled the tipping point, the beginning of the decline of Nayyar’s eventful career. After that peak, Nayyar’s career took a dip and never picked up.
Geeta Dutt's death in July 1972, followed by Nayyar's dramatic break-up with Asha Bhosle, finished the composer in Nayyar. He was never the same again.
In 2005, Nayyar called me, saying that his vertigo was getting worse. The end was near, he said, adding that he had predicted to the late iconic actor, Madhubala, that she would die in the same month as her birth, and that he knew that this would happen to him too.
Then he read me a poem he had just penned.
Ik roz mein har aankh se chhup jaoonga lekin,Dhadkan mein samaya...har dil mein rahunga
Duniya mere geeton se mujhe yaad karegi,Uth jaunga phir bhi… iss mehfil mein rahunga
(One day I’ll vanish from every eye, but still,I’ll live on in every heart, woven into its beat.
The world will remember me through my songs,Even if I depart and leave, I’ll remain in this gathering).
January 2006 came and went. Neither of us brought up his prediction. However, his health went on a downward spiral.
Here and forever
In December, I called to tell him that I had booked my Boston-Mumbai flight for 14 February, 2007, Valentine’s Day. He asked if I could come earlier. I said I couldn’t, but promised that I would go to his place straight from the airport. I also gave him the good news about the launch of his official website www.opnayyar.org.
He left for his final journey on the morning of 28 January 2007. I flew to Mumbai as scheduled and, keeping my promise, went straight to his place from the airport. There I found the poem he had recited to me tucked under his pillow, written in Urdu.
On his birth centenary, 16 January, this year, the singer Sumaira Altaf gifted me a video that encapsulates our relationship -- I often have to pinch myself to remind me that this is all real and not a fairy tale.
Karachi-born Siraj Khan lives in Atlanta and is a connoisseur of Southasian film music. He is the former President of the Pakistani Association of Greater Boston, he heads the non-profit O.P. Nayyar Memorial Trust. A global finance and audit specialist by profession, he has written scripts and directed concerts in the USA, Southasia and the UAE. He also works towards women's empowerment, for children, and youth, and is a founder member of the Southasia Peace Action Network, Sapan.
All photos: Courtesy Wikipedia