Jaddanbai

Jaddanbai (1 April 1892 – 8 April 1949) was an Indian singer, music composer, dancer, actress, filmmaker, and one of the pioneers of Indian cinema. She along with Bibbo and Saraswati Devi were one of the first female music composers in Indian cinema. She was the mother of actor Anwar Hussain and the well-known Hindi film actress Nargis, and the maternal grandmother of Priya Dutt and Sanjay Dutt.

Jaddanbai was born around 1892 to Mian Jaan and Daleepabai.^[1] Mian Jaan died when she was five. Daleepabai was a well known tawaif (courtesan) of Allahabad. Jaddanbai grew up in Calcutta and later approached Calcutta's Shrimant Ganpat Rao ("Bhaiya Saheb Scindia") and became his student. Shrimant Ganpat Rao died in 1920 while she was still a student.^[2] She then completed her training under Ustad Moinuddin Khan, a Hindustani classical singer and thumri specialist. Later she also trained with Ustad Chaddu Khan Saheb, Ustad Laab Khan Saheb and Barkat Ali Khan (brother of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan).^[3]

Her music became popular and she became an even more famous tawaif than her mother.^[4] She began recording ghazals with the Columbia Gramophone Company. She started participating in music sessions and was invited by the rulers of many princely states such as Rampur, Bikaner, Gwalior, Jammu and Kashmir, Indore, and Jodhpur to perform mehfils. She had also rendered songs and ghazals at various radio stations nationwide.^[3]

She later began acting when the Play Art Photo Tone Company of Lahore approached her for a role in their movie Raja Gopichand in 1933. She played the role of the mother of the title character. Later she worked for a Karachi based film company, in Insaan ya Shaitan (1935).^[5]

She worked in two more movies, Prem Pariksha (1934) and Seva Sadan (1935), before starting her own production company called Sangeet Films; producing, directing, writing, and composing the music. Becoming one of the first female music composers in Hindi cinema. The company produced Talashe Haq in 1935, in which she acted and composed the music. She also introduced her daughter Nargis as a child artist the film under the name "Baby Rani". In 1936 she acted in, directed, and wrote the music for Madam Fashion, in which she introduced Suraiya.^[6][3]

Her first marriage was to a wealthy Gujarati Hindu businessman Narottamdas Khatri ("Bachhubhai" or "Bachi Babu"). Khatri converted to Islam upon marriage and together they had a son, Akhtar Hussain.^[3]

Her second marriage was to harmonium master Ustad Irshad Meer Khan, her harmonium and tabla teacher and a frequent collaborator, with whom she had her second son, actor Anwar Hussain.^[3]

Her third marriage was to Mohanchand Uttamchand ("Mohan Babu"), a wealthy heir from Rawalpindi to a Mohyal Brahmin of Saraswat Brahmin caste (the same caste of her Son-in-law Sunil Dutt), who converted to Islam upon marriage ^[7]and adopted the name Abdul Rashid. Film actress Nargis (née Fatima Rashid) was their daughter.^[3] She is the mother-in-law of Sunil Dutt and maternal grandmother of Priya and Sanjay Dutt.^[8][9]

Despite being a nominal Muslim and her husband formally converting to Islam, Jaddanbai and her family practiced aspects of Hinduism, fluctuating between a Hindu and Muslim identity. Jaddanbai was sometimes known by the alias "Jayadevi," a Hindu name, even in some official documents.

• Tawaif
• Nautch

• Jaddanbai at IMDb