zehra film clip

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On the same set where Anarkali (Madhubala) danced to Jab Pyar Kya to Darna Kiya.

Camera pans back from the chandelier, till the whole durbar is visibly: next the camera turns slowly towards the throne. 28 secs

Malka Zehra, on the throne.

Camera goes past a profile of the queen and turns around to focus on a messenger curtseying.

(M): Malekah-e-Moazzam, Bulbul-e-Hind, Noor-e- Ishq banda jaan ki amaan paa'aye to kuch arz karay.
(Q): Ijazaat hay. Kaho kiya baat hay?

(Rising, clutching printouts from Chowk, addresses the Queen)

(M): Malekah-e-Aalam, (waving Yasser's poem) maaf kardijiyay, naadaan hay.........

(Camera pans across the coutiers and comes to focus on a meditating Queen.as the messenger is heard in the background)

(M): .....Woh aitraaf kar chuka hay ...yeh oos ki pehli nazm hay. Jazbaat par qaboo naa paa sakha bechara. Dil kay haathouN tou log baRay baRay kaam kar jaatay haiN. Is becharay nay tou sirf oos aah ko naz'm ki shak'l di hay.

(As the Queen emerges from trance like meditation, and slowly memories of some distant incidents stir on her face, the camera cuts to the messenger. Messenger, hands folded across the front, head slightly bowed waits.)

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(Q): Jaao, oo'say khush khabri suna dou kay Malika-e-Hind nay oos ki khata maaf ki. Aur (she claps her hands, and a courtier discreetly appears from behind the curtain carrying Webster's unabridged, Roget's Thesauraus And the Oxford Companion to temporal's poems on a tray) hamari tarif say yeh tuhfaa bhi oos ko poh'chaa do.

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(Note: a response on yasser's one and only qawwali poem)