Qamar Jalalabadi
Indian composer and screenwriter
Om Prakash Bhandari (9 March 1917 – 9 January 2003), better known as Qamar Jalalabadi, was an Indian poet and lyricist of songs for Hindi movies. He composed the title track of the popular television serial Vikram Aur Betaal.
Early life
He was born as Om Prakash Bhandari in a Punjabi family on 9 March 1917 in Jalalabad, a village near Beas in Amritsar district, Punjab, India. Right from the age of seven, he started writing poetry in Urdu. There was no encouragement from home, but a wandering poet named Amar Chand Amar met him in his hometown and encouraged him to write, recognising his immense talent and potential. He also gave him the penname of Qamar which means moon, and Jalalabadi was added for his native town. It was the general trend in those days for writers to name themselves after the towns they hailed from. After completing his matriculation from Amritsar, he embarked on his journalistic career journey by writing for Lahore-based newspapers like Daily Milap, Daily Pratap, Nirala, Star Sahakar.
Career
Attracted by the promise of a career in the film industry, Qamar Jalalabadi came to Pune in the early 1940s. In 1942, he wrote lyrics for his first film Zamindar which was a Pancholi Pictures production and the songs of this film were very well received, especially the song sung by Shamshad Begum "Duniya Me Garibon Ko Aaraam Nahi Milta", which also had a line or two written by writer and poet Behzad Lucknawi.
“Qamar Jalalabadi” enters the record as indian composer and screenwriter. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Qamar, Jalalabadi and Indian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Qamar Jalalabadi” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Qamar, Jalalabadi and Indian provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7266401. VIAF identifies the subject as 6300154260705024480009. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1917, 2003 and 1942.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Qamar Jalalabadi”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Qamar Jalalabadi primary sources, Qamar Jalalabadi archive and Qamar research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Qamar Jalalabadi”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Qamar Jalalabadi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.