Mala's
real name was Naseem. She was born in Faisalabad, Punjab. She had
been interested in singing and music from a young age. Fortunately,
her sister, Shamim Nazli, happened to be her first music teacher and
Mala learnt the essentials of music from her.
Mala started her career somewhere around late
fifties but her real break came through Naila, the first West
Pakistani color film. Many were surprised in the beginning when
Master Inayat Husain announced his decision to give away all female
numbers from that movie to this lesser known crooner. Most surprised
was Syed Afzal Husain, the chief recordist at the Evernew for he
didn't know what to do with a voice that was so shrill and
high-pitched. At last he came out with the ingenuous idea of
switching off all the lower keys on the recording machine -
something that had never been tried before. The experiment was
successful (who could forget such pieces from that movie as
Tarapna bhi hamain aata hai and Mujhe arzoo thhi jiski)
.
