Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a Pakistani singer, songwriter, and music director. He was primarily a singer of qawwali — a form of Sufi devotional music. Often called the "Shahenshah-e-Qawwali", he is considered by The New York Times to be the greatest qawwali singer of his generation. He was described as the fourth greatest singer of all time by LA Weekly in 2016. He was known for his vocal abilities and could perform at a high level of intensity for several hours. Khan is widely credited with introducing qawwali music to international audiences. He was also a master in Hindustani classical music.
Ustad Ghulam Ali is a Pakistani ghazal singer of the Patiala Gharana. Ghulam Ali is considered one of the greatest ghazal singers of his era. He has also been a prominent playback singer in Bollywood. He is a disciple of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Ali was also trained by Bade Ghulam Ali's younger brothers – Barkat Ali Khan and Mubarak Ali Khan.
Anwar Sardar "Anu" Malik is an Indian music composer, singer, music arranger and score composer. He is an Indian National Award and Filmfare Award winning musician, who primarily composes music for the Hindi film industry. He is the son of Sardar Malik.
Punjabi cinema, popularly known as Pollywood, refers to the Punjabi-language film industry centered around the Indian state of Punjab, and based in Amritsar and Mohali.
Muzaffar Warsi was a Pakistani poet, essayist, lyricist, and a scholar of Urdu. He began writing more than five decades ago. He wrote a rich collection of na`ats, as well as several anthologies of ghazals and nazms, and his autobiography Gaye Dinon Ka Suraagh. He also wrote quatrains for Pakistan's daily newspaper Nawa-i-Waqt.
Shaheed Uddham Singh is a 1999 Indian Punjabi-language biographical film based on the life of Udham Singh, an Indian revolutionary who had witnessed the 1919 Amritsar massacre and wanted to avenge the mass killing of his countrymen. He was desperate to punish Michael O'Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab for his involvement with the massacre. The film was theatrically released in India on 24 December 1999, just two days before Singh's birth centenary. The film was screened retrospective on 13 August 2016 at the Independence Day Film Festival jointly presented by the Indian Directorate of Film Festivals and Ministry of Defense, commemorating 70th Indian Independence Day.
Tahkhana, also known as Tahkhana: The Dungeon, is a 1986 Indian Hindi-language horror film directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. Its plot follows two sisters separated at birth and the search for a hidden treasure, which is guarded in a dungeon by a bloodthirsty monster.
Chhaap Tilak Sab Chheeni, is a Ghazal written and composed by Amir Khusro, a 14th-century Sufi mystic, in popular Western Indian language Braj Bhasha. Due to the resonance of its melody and mystical lyrics, it is frequently heard in Qawwali concerts across Indian Subcontinent. Chaapp Tilak Sab Chheeni is considered as Amir Khusru‘s most known Kalam which is basically a penned version of his imagination of devotion and the joy of oneness with the eternal one. This poetry is an epic example where an inherent middle eastern art form gets entangled with the Indic philology, custom and art a unique twist between the two artforms. This kind of devotion is rarely seen in Islamic ghazals and qawwalis preceding it. This poetry is a great example of the role both cultures played to create this Ghazal and Qawwali which has a unique essence combining both Indic and Islamic culture which inherently created a new unique art form which contributed to the early beginnings of the Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb culture to be developed.
Amar Haldipur is a noted music director or composer of Indian music industry. He composed music for number of Bollywood as well as Punjabi movies including Shaheed-E-Mohabbat and Channa Sachi Muchi. His sons Siddharth Haldipur and Sangeet Haldipur are also doing well in music.
Sheikh Muhammad Sadiq or S M Sadiq is a Pakistani lyricist and a poet whose written songs frequently have been sung by Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and other singers like Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi, Aziz Mian, Shabnam Majeed, Shahid Ali Khan and Arif Lohar.
Des Hoyaa Pardes is a 2004 Indian Punjabi-language film, directed by Manoj Punj, starring Gurdas Maan, Juhi Chawla, Divya Dutta and Anup Soni. It won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Punjabi.
Sai Production Private Limited is an Indian film production house based in Mumbai, owned by singer-songwriter and actor, Gurdas Maan and his wife Manjeet Maan. The company began with TV software but, since 1998, has produced several award winning Punjabi-language films like Shaheed-E-Mohabbat Boota Singh, Zindagi Khoobsoorat Hai, Des Hoyaa Pardes and Waris Shah: Ishq Daa Waaris. Sai Creations and Sai Lok Sangeet are its sister concerns.
Boota Singh sometimes spelled as Buta Singh, was a Sikh ex-soldier of the British Army who served at the Burma front under the command of Lord Mountbatten during World War II. He is popularly known in India and Pakistan for his tragic love story with Zainab, a Muslim girl he rescued during the communal riots in the time of partition of India in 1947. They both fell in love and got married. Later, being a Muslim, Zainab was deported by Indian authorities and sent to the newly created Pakistan. Singh illegally entered Pakistan to reinstate contact with Zainab, but she ended the marriage under pressure from her family. In 1957, after the failure of the marriage, he committed suicide by jumping before an upcoming train near Shahdara station in Pakistan along with his daughter, but she survived.
Gurkirtan Chauhan, also credited as simply Gurkirtan, was an Indian actor who worked in Punjabi and Hindi films. He played various roles in many films such as Taare Zameen Par, Tabaahi, Jatt Jeona Mour, Waris Shah: Ishq Daa Waaris, and Shaheed-E-Mohabbat Boota Singh.
Zooni is an unreleased Indian Hindi-language film directed by Muzaffar Ali, starring Vinod Khanna and Dimple Kapadia. The film was in production from 1988 and was expected to release in 1990.
Kuldeep Singh Kang, better known as K. Deep, was an Indian singer of Punjabi-language folk songs and duets. He sang most of the duets with his wife, singer Jagmohan Kaur. The duo is known for their comedy characters Mai Mohno and Posti. Poodna is another notable song by the duo. He was the first to sing songs penned by Shiv Kumar Batalvi. In 2010, he got PTC Life Time Achievement Award, along with Babu Singh Maan, which was presented to him by Punjabi singer Gurdas Maan.
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is a Pakistani singer, who has sung several songs in Pakistan and India, including the Pakistani film and drama industries, as well as Coke Studio and Bollywood. He is a well-known Qawwali singer, and has also sung many national songs and ghazals.
