Jalay Na Kyun Parwana (1970)
Cast: Shabnam, Syed Kemal, Nadeem, Lehri, Mustafa, Santosh Russell, Saiqa, Jalil Afghani, Mehmood Ali
Director: Shaukat Hashmi (who also wrote the film)
Synopsis: A typically 1960’s love triangle plot could also be known as The Last Tango in East Pakistan, perhaps?
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

Jalay Na Kyun Parwana arrived in 1970, when Pakistan was passing through one of many anxiety-ridden phases and a political implosion that would ultimately lead to the loss of East Pakistan.

The film has no political aspirations but features a happy-go-lucky character from a solid family going off for a break to East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Upon arrival, he relishes the opportunity and finds himself intoxicated by a local beauty, Shabnam, who seems to be a free spirit and very easy to get along with. He falls hopelessly in love with her, and she seems to enjoy his company quite a bit.

Love is in the air, but things are confused by the arrival on the scene of Nadeem, who plays Shabnam’s childhood friend, who has feelings for her but has never been able to articulate them to her. She loves him as a dear friend but doesn’t appear to be romantically inclined towards him, resulting in Nadeem pulling a long face, behaving like a wet weekend and a typical kebab mein haddi. Later, Shabnam and her suitor Kemal, decide for the three of them to spend time together. The situation is awkward, and Nadeem dislikes Kemal, who seems to have won over Shabnam’s heart.

Shabnam manages to clear any suspicion of a romance with Kemal from Nadeem, but not long after, they become an official item with impending marriage.

Nadeem is inconsolable, and his sulk remains as irritating as ever. At this point, Kemal’s mother throws a spanner in the works when she refuses to accept Shabnam as her son’s wife, and insists on an arranged marriage from years ago, which he rejects outright. The mother has a fit and nearly dies, thus forcing her son to sever ties with Shabnam or lose his mother to a blood-clot fit of rage again. He sacrifices his relationship with Shabnam, and she finds solace eventually in the delighted arms of her old friend Nadeem, who is quite content to know that he is her second choice.

The tortured Kemal is finally driven to the brink of despair. Will his obstinate witch of a mother relent before Shabnam weds Nadeem, or will Kemal perish in some terrible accident or by taking some poison? The film concludes having failed to build up any real tension.

Nadeem plays an imbecile of a man who may look sharp but is an insecure and jealous man with stalker tendencies. He is supposed to be mild-mannered but comes across as gormless instead. Kemal is fairly charming in his role, and Shabnam is winsome. The love triangle is odd, though, and the meagre tension between Nadeem, Kemal and Shabnam is less than satisfying. The film struggles to pick up momentum after the halfway mark and runs out of fizz rapidly. The last thing the film needs is two or three further songs and a comedy sequence or two on cruise control, but sadly, that is what it gets; some significant padding. The result is the viewer’s interest flags, and you start looking at your Fast Forward button, which becomes more and more tempting along the way.

The film’s average box office performance was to be expected because though it is reasonably entertaining, to begin with, at the halfway stage, the film has nowhere interesting to go and gets badly stuck.

Jalay Na Kyun Parwana The end is not nearly dramatic enough for local audiences. There is no thrilling drama, and juvenile comedy sequences are far from amusing. Lehri is on auto mode and getting a little typecast. He is even given a song in this film—such was his popularity in the late ‘60s.

The film is not bad at storytelling, but the script itself is fragile and unconvincing, and there isn’t enough real melodrama that a movie of this nature needs to thrive on. It’s an okay film, but one gets the feeling Aslam Parvez in his suit and the matching muffler is being sorely missed. The music and songs fail to save the day and are nothing to get the pulse racing.

Jalay Na Kyun Parwana is an unexceptional movie. Interestingly, a year or two after its release, Shabnam and Nadeem would eclipse all the other stars to claim the No. 1 position for years. The two also had a hugely successful pairing on screen and scored some of Lollywood’s greatest hits. Kemal was popular in 1970, but his finest days in Urdu cinema may have been behind him. Jalay Na Kyun Parwana is not necessarily a bad film, just not a particularly memorable one.