The only Hindi film actress to be felicitated by two Prime Ministers for the same role - with which she performed a salutary service to Indian literature, she, both on and off the screen, sent audiences swooning, drew a Hollywood star to her home unannounced, and had enterprising fruit-sellers use her name to entice buyers.
Suraiya, who passed away on this day (January 31) in 2004 after four decades in quiet and peaceful obscurity, was the third and last of Indian films' singing superstars, after K.L. Saigal and Noor Jehan, but went on to outpace them.
In her heyday, she needed a police team deployed outside her home given the crowds thronging the area for a chance glimpse, made fans bunk work or classes to catch the first show of her new films, and had to stop attending her film premieres to avoid frenzied fans.
There was one future Hindi film star who confessed to seeing one of her films multiple times but still not having his fill - Dharmendra.
Born in Lahore in June 1929, Suraiya Jamal Sheikh was just six when she began singing for AIR in Bombay, where her parents had moved in 1930.
Aged just seven, she acted in her first film - 'Madame Fashion' (1936), produced by Nargis’s mother Jaddanbai - and had accompanied a relative to the shoot of film 'Taj Mahal' (1941), when she caught the eye of the director and was cast as the young Mumtaz Mahal.
Meanwhile, her AIR singing stint had brought her to the attention of music director Naushad, a newcomer trying to establish himself in the industry, and he made 13-year-old Suraiya sing, even though she needed to stand on a stool to reach the microphone.
She also came to the attention of Devika Rani, who gave her a contract and even Saigal, who handpicked her for what would be some of his last films. However, she refused to sing duets with him, believing she was no match for him as a singer.
Source : ENT