Zee Classic to air Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak

Writer-director Nasir Hussain, who wrote and produced Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, was the man with the Midas touch. His 1988 home production, which saw Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla catapult into the big league, even as his own son Mansoor Khan took over the directorial reins, is etched in Hindi cinema history for a variety of reasons. Coming at a time when action, vendetta films ruled the roost, QSQT or ‘QS-Cutie’ as it also came to be known as a hit tip to the elfin charm radiated by the film’s lead pairing, resonated like a breath of fresh air with movie-going audiences for its tender love story, a tight script, finely etched performances and a soundtrack that still holds people in its throes to this day.   

Aamir had already served as an assistant director (AD) in his chachajaan Hussain’s earlier films Manzil Manzil and Zabardast. He had also acted in Ketan Mehta’s Holi (1984). But it was only after eminent writer Javed Akhtar advised the filmmaker that he should cast his nephew as a ‘hero’, did Hussain decide to do so. Juhi, meanwhile, had already acted in Sultanat (1986) and had been roped into playing Draupadi in BR Chopra’s Mahabharat television series. However, once she got a call for Rashmi’s role in QSQT, she excused herself from the show and the rest as they say, is history.

Perhaps even more interesting is the story of Mansoor donning the director’s hat in his father’s production. Mansoor, who had studied abroad, had worked on the lighting effects of Hussain’s earlier film Zamaane Ko Dikhana Hai (1981). He had made a short film called Umberto. 

Hussain had seen it and liked what his son had done and he decided to hand over the baton to Mansoor.   

All the quintessential tropes of a Nasir Hussain film — boy and girl falling in love while setting out on a journey, the hero passing himself off as someone else, the emphasis on youth, the hill station setting — were all there to be savoured in QSQT. Yet, it was the inherent delicateness, the sheer tehzeeb of the exchanges between Raj and Rashmi where Husain worked his magic. The use of ‘aap’ and ‘hum’ between the hero and the heroine refashioned an old literary, genteel sensibility that had gone missing in Hindi films of the 1970s and 1980s.

Majrooh Sultanpuri, who together with young composer duo Anand-Milind, conjured something special with QSQT’s soundtrack. Each song in the film, be it Papa Kehtey Hain, Ghazab Ka Hai Din, Akele Hain Toh Kya Gham Hai or Aye Mere Humsafar left a mark on the audience, with author Ganesh Ananthraman writing in his National Award-winning book Bollywood Melodies, “There was an innocence about the score that could only be attributed to the all-round newness.”

Catch the musical masterpiece Qayamat Se 
Qayamat Tak tomorrow at 12 noon only on Zee Classic.