WHAT’S IN A NAME – IF IT HAD TO BE CHANGED THREE TIMES OVER?

It's okay for Shakespeare to write platitudes like, “What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” But when it comes to the film industry, film stars have assumed different identities for differing reasons. It could be to seem acceptable to a larger audience. Or it could be because of self loathing of your name. The fact of the matter is – that stars want their names to be embedded in the minds of their audience, a kind of shorthand for their own brand of histrionics.

So it makes for an amusing story when a struggling music director in the early forties had to change his name three times over before he finally settled on one single word – Khaiyyam.

Originally born as Mohammad Zahur Khaiyyam Hashmi in the town of Rahon in Nawanshahr District of undivided Punjab, his fascination for music brought him to Lahore where he learnt music under the tutelage of a famous Punjabi music director, Baba Chishti.

Like so many others drawn to the silver screen, he then came to Bombay and began knocking the doors of music directors and film producers. The reputed music director pair of those times, Husnlal Bhagatram took Khaiyyam under their wings and he would go on to learn the craft of music direction from them. At these recording sessions, Khaiyyam met another aspiring music director, Rehman Verma who also regarded the Husnlal Bhagatram pair as his mentors. Khaiyyam and he soon became friends and after gaining enough confidence in composing music, resolved to form a team of their own. 

They consulted their mentors who blessed them in their foray into music direction, and after much deliberation, christened them as Sharmaji Vermaji, where Khaiyyam would be known by the pseudonym , “Sharmaji” and Rehman Verma would be known as “Vermaji” The rationale behind the naming was that not only would the rhyming of names make it easy to remember, but it would also remove the ‘muslimness’ of their names, making them more acceptable to even Hindu audiences.

One must keep in mind that in those pre-partition times, people were certainly very sensitive about these things. Undivided India had seen many Hindu-Muslim riots and it seemed the logical thing to do…and so, Sharmaji Vermaji it was.

The duo made their debut with the movie Heer Ranjha and when it released in 1948, the credit titles were emblazoned with the words “Music by Sharmaji Vermaji” for the first time.

However, with partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, a dilemma arose in the mind of Rehman Verma. He figured that he would have a brighter career in a predominantly muslim Pakistan and he made up his mind to emigrate. Khaiyyam was in a quandary – while it made logical sense that he might enjoy more success in Pakistan, he knew his musical growth lay in inspiration. Inspiration that was far more assured in the diverse strokes of life in India. Only in India, could a bhajan coexist with a qawwali, a ghazal be as applauded as a thumri. And if he opened his mind to the vastness and diversity of India, success would be at his feet.

He resolved to stay back in Bombay.

But now, the twist of fate had reduced his name to just – “Sharmaji”  And he stuck with it even going on to compose for movies like Biwi and Parda where the credits announced him as Sharmaji. It was a weird situation in every sense of the term.

However, the agony over what his name should be didn’t last for long. Soon Khaiyyam was approached by Zia Sar Ali for the film “Footpath.” After Khaiyyam agreed to compose music for it, Zia Sar Ali told him bluntly, “You know, this Sharmaji  can’t really become your identity in the film industry. Why don’t you use your own name?”

Mohammad Zahur Khaiyyam Hashmi thought about this – there certainly wasn’t a shortage of words to play around with. So right there, all sorts of permutations and combinations were tried. When none of them sounded quite right, Zia Sar Ali, in that rare moment of epiphany, spoke up, “What if you simply went as, “Khaiyyam?”