Umrao Jaan: A Ghazal That Won’t End
The legend of Umrao Jaan made its return to the silver screen on June 27, 2025. Muzaffar Ali’s 1981 masterpiece has been re-released in a digitally restored format under the National Film Heritage Mission. An initiative by the National Film Archive of India that aims to preserve and restore India’s cinematic classics.
Umrao Jaan is widely considered a cultural gem. It is beloved by critics and audiences alike, celebrated for its music, storytelling, and Rekha ji’s unforgettable performance. As the director better calls it, “A 44-year-old wine coming your way.”
Rekha is said to have poured her entire being into the role. The director recalls, speaking to SCREEN: “She had to prepare on many levels—language, singing, dancing. Yes, there were people to guide her, but she performed beyond expectations. Working with her was a gift because this film is woven from quiet emotions. And it takes an actor like her to absorb those feelings and translate them onto the screen.”
As the curtains rise again, we are met with the same question:
Who really is Umrao Jaan? And why has Bollywood returned to her story not once, but four times? What is it about her that keeps calling filmmakers back? Is it because we haven’t done justice to her in any of the films so far?
Or perhaps, we’re asking the wrong question altogether.
Maybe the question isn’t who Umrao Jaan is, but what she is. Is she merely a character born from the imagination of her author? Or is she the legend she insisted on becoming, despite everything?
Mirza Mohammad Hadi Ruswa
To know the story, one must first be thorough with its birth-giver. If one has not drunk deeply from the life of the author, one is sure to miss the intricate details woven into the story. Perhaps then, and only then, will we finally understand the tale of Umrao Jaan. And give her the satisfaction she has long been denied.
Mirza Mohammad Hadi (pen name: Ruswa) was born in 1858 and lived many lives in one. Trained as an engineer, he found his true calling not in numbers, but in words, verses, and ideas. He left his job in Quetta for a life of learning. He taught Persian in Lucknow, wrote poetry under the guidance of Mirza Dabir, and later crafted novels that would long outlive him.
He was a man of deep curiosity drawn to philosophy, music, chemistry, and even astrology. His mind might have been scientific, but his soul, was unmistakably poetic. He translated books, wrote elegies, and gave the world the unforgettable Umrao Jaan Ada. In the last decade of his life, he moved to Hyderabad, where he continued to write until his passing in 1931.
It is worth noting that he willingly chose the pen name Ruswa, meaning “disgraced” or “infamous.” Why would a man embrace a name so tainted? Is it because he himself was impure—or because he was destined to absorb the world’s impurities and give them form? Perhaps that is why Umrao Jaan chose to appear through his pen. Through the pen of the disgraced, she found dignity.
Ruswa’s Umrao Jaan Ada
In March of 1899, Umrao told her story to Ruswa, who then gave it to the world. Umrao’s story is not just about beauty or betrayal. It’s about reclaiming her truth. Her elegance conceals wounds; her words carry history.
Umrao Jaan Ada is the haunting tale of Amiran, a young girl from Faizabad, abducted and sold to a kotha in Lucknow. There, she is renamed Umrao, and trained in dance, poetry, and the delicate art of charm. She blooms into a courtesan always adored, celebrated, yet always caged.
Her life is marked by longing. She loves deeply— first Nawab Sultan, then Faiz Ali—but each love leaves her lonelier than the last. Society applauds her ghazals but denies her dignity. She becomes a woman who performs for the same world that once destroyed her childhood.
Years later, when she returns to Faizabad, her past greets her with echoing silence. The home she yearned for no longer exists. And perhaps, neither does the girl who once lived there.
Umrao’s Junoon-e-Intezar
A month after the world first heard Umrao Jaan’s voice in March 1899, she spoke again—but this time, not to narrate her own life. In Junoon-e-Intezar (The Madness of Waiting), published in April 1899, she spoke of Ruswa, through him.
In this haunting little novella, the courtesan, once the creation becomes the creator. Umrao avenges herself on the author, the society that silenced her, and the reader who thought she was done speaking. She picks up the pen and tells his story.
Of a man named Ruswa, consumed not by her beauty, but by another forbidden love: a Christian woman named Sophia.
Here, fact and fiction blend. Here, the courtesan is not an object of desire or pity. She is the narrator, the critic, the keeper of truths. She reads his letters, uncovers his secrets, and questions his intentions. She exacts her revenge.
But why? Why did Ruswa write it? Perhaps he feared what Umrao had become, a woman who lived beyond the pages. Or perhaps he knew he had only told half the tale.
While the woman became a legend and her voice was silenced. Umrao Jaan Ada became immortal, but Junoon-e-Intezar quietly disappeared.
Umrao Jaan in Cinema
The legend of Umrao Jaan has passed through the hands of four different filmmakers. Each trying to ‘mend’ it in their own way. Adding their own anarkalis, ghazals, dances. But none could truly claim her, only borrow her grace for a little while.
1. Mehndi (1958)
Starring Nimmi as the courtesan, Mehndi was not a direct adaptation, but heavily inspired by Umrao Jaan Ada. In this version, Umrao became a symbol of pathos and performance. woman carrying both poetry and punishment in her eyes. But the film stayed on the margins, as though afraid to step too close to her truth.
2. Zindagi Ya Toofan (also 1958)
Also known as Zindagi Aur Toofan, directed by Nakhshab Jarchavi. This version is another loose adaptation. The story of Nilofer, a toddler from a wealthy family promised in marriage to Akhtar. She is soon kidnapped by a family enemy and taken to a kotha.
3. Umrao Jaan (1981)
Then came the film that defined her for a generation. Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan, starring Rekha, was not just cinema, it was elegy. Wrapped in Khayyam’s ghazals, Shahryar’s lyrics, and Rekha’s stillness. This version gave Umrao her most memorable face. Rekha surrendered to Umrao, but it wasn’t enough for Umrao.
4. Umrao Jaan (2006)
J. P. Dutta’s retelling, with Aishwarya Rai in the lead, tried to reimagine the courtesan for a new century. Rich in production, draped in velvet and sorrow. It aimed for grandeur but missed the quiet agony that makes Umrao eternal. Rai’s portrayal was delicate, but somewhere, her voice, her vengeance was lost behind the spectacle.
Will Umrao Jaan Return?
Each film tried to hold her in its frame, but Umrao Jaan was never meant to be caged. She is not a role to be played. She is a lingering sigh, a pause between couplets, a shadow in the mehfil that never truly left.
She keeps returning, not because we love her, but because we have never done her justice. We admire her beauty but overlook her bruises. We listen to her ghazals, but not to the silences between them. We read her dialogues but not the lines between them. We speak her name, yet forget the nameless thousands she stands for.
She is the voice of a silenced, ‘disgraced’ history and maybe that’s why she will always return, until we dare enough to understand her pain.
Stay tuned for more such articles at The World Times!
