Perhaps both Salma Agha and the trade were shocked by the extent of her success and didn't know how to deal with each other. The success of Nikaah made Salma the toast of the town For a brief period Agha was spending time between Britain, she held a British citizenship, and India but her then manager/secretary Rikku found it difficult to get work for her. A revenge drama with Mithun Chakraborty in a double-role, Agha played a night-club singer and had another chartbuster, Jhoom jhoom baba to her credit in the film, and even though the film was a success it didn't do much for Agha. Her second release, B Subhash's Kasam Paida Karne Waale Ki (1984) was as far removed from the universe of Nikaah as it possibly could. Her singer-actor combination was rare and offers started pouring her way. Agha did her own playback singing and her songs such as Dil ke armaan, Faza bhi hai jawaan-jawaan became instant classics and are still as fondly recalled.įollowing the success of Nikaah Salma Agha had become the toast of the town. She was one of the very few women in Hindi cinema who enjoyed success not just in front of the camera but also as a playback singer. Originally called Talak, Talak, Talak, the film initiated a debate about divorce laws in India and Agha’s casting was inspired. In the film Agha played Niloufer, a college educated woman who has a mind of her own but is tossed between two men who love her for different reasons and not allowed to be her own person thanks to the laws that govern a modern Muslim woman. What made Nikaah stand out was that BR Chopra infused his outlook into an antiquated genre and the result was something that looked classical yet was as modern as one would expect Chopra sahab to be. In a period where Hindi cinema, both mainstream as well as art-house, was pushing the envelope as far as characters or stories went and wanted to break away from the old world, Nikaah was a throwback on the classical popular Hindi cinema.Īlthough it was a Muslim social, a genre that might have started with the promise to showcase the little changes that were taking place within the the Muslim society such as Mehboob Khan’s Najma (1943), by the time Nikaah released the genre had not only regressed but couldn’t look beyond the ornate sets and lilting music, et al. In many ways Agha was an anomaly when it came to leading ladies of the 1980s. One of the earliest Pakistani actors to get mainstream recognition in India, Agha had a dream debut in BR Chopra's Nikaah, a rare Muslim social that tried to rise above the trappings of the genre (more on that later) but couldn't make much of her dream debut.
Back then and now as well, Agha is still best recalled as the actor-singer who delivered one of the biggest hits of the 1980s, Nikaah (1982).