Munawar Sultana(1924-1995)

Munawar Sultana was a film playback singer of Pakistan active in the 1950s. She started her career in the mid-1940s as a radio and film playback singer. She used to take music lessons from the renowned music director Ghulam Haider. After independence of Pakistan in 1947, Lahore film industry had to rebuild itself because most of the Hindu film studio owners decided to migrate to India and they left Lahore, Pakistan.Music Director Ghulam Ahmad Chishti, Munawar Sultana and Inayat Hussain Bhatti are mostly credited with bringing the dead music industry of Lahore back to life again.She also worked with music directors Rashid Attre,Safdar Hussain besides Ghulam Haider and Baba Chishti to produce many super-hit film songs in the 1950s. She continued to work at the Radio Station,Lahore and recorded many popular Punjabi folk songs there as well. Munawar Sultana was known for her melodious voice among the Pakistani public.In the late 1950s,she married the then Station Director of Radio Pakistan,Lahore-Ayub Roomani.Her marriage coupled with arrival of new playback singers-especially Zubaida Khanum and Naseem Begum ended her singing career.She started focusing more on her family life and kids. She died on 20 May 1995 in Lahore,Pakistan.