When Film Star Neelo Took Sleeping Pills To Resist Ayub Khan’s Dictatorship

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2021-01-31T00:44:33+05:00 News Desk
Veteran film actor Neelo Begum breathed her last on Saturday after a prolonged illness. As the industry mourns her passing, many who knew and worked with her are taking to social media to pay her respect. An account of her resistance written by journalist Hasan Zaidi on Twitter has been published below.

'In the 1960s, during the era of Gen Ayub Khan, the Shah of Iran was visiting Pak. A reception was being held in his honour by the Nawab of Kalabagh who was then Governor West Pakistan. Neelo was asked (ie ordered) to come dance at the reception to entertain the guests. She refused. And was subsequently threatened that she would be forced to do it. According to the popular story, she took sleeping pills in protest. The story gained a lot of notoriety and poet Habib Jalib wrote a poem celebrating her act of resistance. He dedicated the poem to Neelo Begum. Later, filmmaker Riaz Shahid (father of Shaan) would make a film about Palestinian resistance, called Zarqa (1969), and included the poem as a song - composed by Rashid Attre, sung by the great Mehdi Hassan and filmed on Neelo and Ejaz Durrani. Although the film was ostensibly about Palestine, everyone understood the song as a commentary on the military dictatorship of Pakistan. Tells you something that the military censors never caught on.

“Tu ke na-waaqif-e-aadaab-e-ghulami hai abhi/
Raqs zanjeer pehen kar bhi kya jaata hai”

[You are still unaware of the etiquettes of slavery / You can still dance in your chains]'

https://twitter.com/hyzaidi/status/1355568873874059266?s=21
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