Aasia's story begins around 1950 or so in the town of Patiala where she spent her formative years under the tutelage of her mother, a lady of the trade. As her daughters blossomed through adolescence Aasia's mother decided to wrap up in Patiala and make for the big city where the real money was to be made. Thus Firdous (Aasia's real name), her mother, two sisters Asifa and Shazia and a very shady "step father" left for Karachi to try to earn their fortune and landed up in the Bazar-e-Husn (flesh market).

The mother became a Bai (madam) and sent her daughters to parties, festivals and "functions" as well as "private functions" where the girls would invariably delight their audience with their mujra's, song and various other talents. Aasia, was a bit special among the three sisters and soon assumed the role of star performer, with a growing number of admirers. Among the people who noticed Aasia's potential for films were famed producer director Riaz Shahid (Neelo's husband, Shaan's father) as well as Shabab Kairanvi and both of them approached Bhai Ji Haji Akram who was "in charge" of the girls to sign Aasia on for their upcoming productions.

The first film that she signed was Riaz Shahid's Gharnata but it was Kairanvi's Insaan Aur Aadmi which arrived in cinemas first (May 1970). The film introduced Aasia in a song where she was dressed as a butterfly and she played the daughter of Mohammad Ali and Zeba in the movie that went on to become one of the big successes of that year. However despite Insaan aur Aadmi it was to be the Punjabi domain where Aasia was to really make a mark and of the 180 or so films she starred in eventually in her decade long career about 150 are in Punjabi. Aasia arrived on the scene at a time when Firdous was beginning suffer due to her clash with Madame Noor Jehan and the other top Punjabi heroine of the era Naghma was busy finishing up her films as she had decided to get married to screen idol Habib. Aalia had also got married and was less busy and Neelo had already joined the married brigade even though she would soon lose her husband and be forced to return to films to support her family. Thus the path was clear for some fresh blood on the Punjabi scene and this arrived in the form of the effervescent Aasia who slipped into the role of top Punjabi heroine within a year or two of her arrival onto the scene. Despite her success in Punjabi films and her Karachi connection she never managed to become a major force on the Urdu scene and always remained a second or even third heroine in that domain. In the following years Aasia's career started to blossom in a big way and money started pouring in, the less glamorous of the sisters Asifa was handed over to Ustad Amaanat Ali for singing lessons and any other lesson that he would desire!

As Aasia's paycheck started to grow in digits so did Bhai Ji's lust for money and he tried to take complete control and manage all Aasia's dealings himself. The "step father" Bhai Ji started assuming different aliases; sometimes he would be the "step father" sometimes the "uncle" and at other times he would appear far too close to Aasia to be any of the above! Bhai Ji was basically Aasia's all powerful, all controlling pimp and he grew very, very wealthy while Aasia signed films by the bucket-load. Then there was to be a huge family trauma when Aasia's mother realized that the "step fatherly" pimp Bhai Ji had taken control of his daughter in more ways than one and now had her completely under his thumb. She had found that he had plied her with alcohol and managed to seduce her and that this was happening on a regular basis. Now Bhai Ji had not only Aasia's riches but also her physically under his control and the mother and sisters tried to wrest Aasia away from the clutches of Bhai Ji.

Unfortunately for them Bhai Ji's influence and special understanding with Aasia held sway and ultimately the mother banished them from her household cursing Bhai Ji to a fate worse than death for destroying her daughter (aka the Golden Goose). Aasia's mum tried to cook up a plot with Aasia's hairdresser and started sending magic potions and powders to the hairdresser to put into Aasia's tea so that she could slowly be weaned from the grip of the dreadful Bhai Ji. The hairdresser proved to be a huge sleaze-ball and double crossed Aasia's mum spilling the beans to Bhai Ji. Then the two of them (Hairdress and Bhai Ji) plotted to turn the situation around to their own benefit having the hairdresser being deliberately caught red handed by Bhai Ji so that he could convince Aasia how evil her mother was and how her only option in life was to stick beside her beloved ex step father Bhai Ji. Meanwhile Asifa and mum hit hard times and Asifa was forced to abandon her plans for a singing career and return to the kotha to earn a buck or two.

Bhai Ji meanwhile designed a brilliant scheme by which he could maintain a vice like grip over Aasia's finances. He cooked up all sorts of horror stories about how she was going to be nabbed by the Income Tax people and that how she is most likely to be humiliated and sent to prison because she has not been paying her taxes properly for so many years now. He warned Aasia that her entire property was about to be seized and that in order to save herself she should turn every thing over into his name! And so, Bhai Ji had it absolutely made, milking Aasia's highly lucrative career for his own personal benefit and maintaining his physical hold over her at the same time. All he had to do now was to make sure that this would continue for some time to come, so that by the time she started ageing, he would have amassed himself a huge fortune and would never ever have to think about working again in his entire life.

He successfully aborted a budding relationship between Asif Khan and Aasia that seemed to be threatening his position but the next romantic interlude in Aasia's life had far reaching effects for Bhai Ji as well as Aasia. What happened is one of the legendary incidents in the dark annals of lurid Lollywood history and the story goes a little like this. Aasia and a cameraman by the name of Riaz Butt had been seeing a lot of each other and it became patently obvious that the lady had more than a soft spot for the hot shot cameraman. One night after a shoot of one of Younus Malik's epic's Aasia and Butt somehow ended up in the toilet of Malik's office bathroom (at Bari Studios) and were enjoying a hearty romp when they were rudely interrupted by Malik's irate Pathan chowkidar. In his brief absence his charpaee had been slipped inside the spacious bathroom and Aasia and friend were going at it, totally oblivious to the world. This was the charpaee on which the fellow would offer his prayers and now it was being used for a bit of fun and frolic by Butt and Punjab's number one heroine! The chowkidar was enraged and dragged a totally naked Aasia out of the bathroom while Butt scampered away sheepishly. A red faced Aasia claimed that she had been attacked by Butt in the toilet and that the beastly cameraman had tried to rape her, but her story didn't win too many converts especially as the Chowkidar claimed if anyone had been the rapist on that charpaee it would have had to have been Aasia!

Aasia went into deep consultations with Bhai ji and made an announcement that she would boycott any films in which Riaz Butt was engaged as a cameraman. Butt's retort was swift and left the Aasia camp speechless. The entire union of Cameramen made a statement that they would refuse to work on any film that starred Aasia unless a swift apology to Butt was not tendered or the case against him not withdrawn. The matter festered for a while and Aasia, feeling horribly humiliated, went underground for a period of six months and in doing so disgruntled a lot of producers who suddenly found that their shooting schedules ground to a stand still due to the disappearance of their leading lady. There was a terrific battle between producer director Younus Malik and Aasia when he roared and thundered that his leading lady had eaten up his money and absconded from the shooting of Maula Jat in London. The film was in fact delayed for months due to Aasia's period in hiding and Malik had taken out a case against Aasia and threatened to take her to court for breach of contract. Meanwhile, Aasia used her considerable charms on the Colonel who was in charge of the case against her and managed to get it dropped altogether and get her name cleared. All this bad publicity had taken its toll on Aasia though and as the 70's drew to an end she was very much hoping to be able to snag some handsome, rich suitor and be able to break her ties to the industry.

After he bathroom controversy and the bad press that followed her heart was no longer in the game in Lollywood and she was looking for an exit while she was still on or near the top. There was even talk of a new girl Anjuman replacing her as the Queen of Punjabi movies, but at the moment Aasia was still ruling the roost. Aasia took to production and made two films including the famous Jagga Daku, but it seemed now that most producers were looking towards Anjuman as fresh blood and that her best days were now past her. Then in 1980 Aasia suddenly announced that she was not going to be signing any new films and that she was getting married to a businessman from Karachi by the name of Farooq. This man had apparently amassed a fortune smuggling diamonds back and forth from Bangkok and had a flourishing trade in various parts of the world. Aasia was now set to head back to Karachi, the city where she had gone with her mother all those years ago, searching for her pot of gold at the end of the rainbow……..finally it seemed that she was going to achieve her desires of finding a rich prince who would take her away from the world of Lollywood that she felt so stifled by.

There did remain the problem of Bhai ji Haji Akram though but even he realized that Aasia's earning power was now on the wane and that her days as a top draw heroine were numbered and in any case he had managed to make himself quite a nice fortune sponging off her earnings for the best part of ten years now and he didn't lack for much himself at this stage in life. Bhai Ji had been a most successful pimp, but even he was ready to part with his ageing golden goose as she had delivered him the most fabulous set of golden eggs over a ten year period of time. Even then, Haji step-father cum uncle cum lover boy cum pimp demanded his price and got it. He got a cool 15 lacs (a lot in those days) from Farooq for allowing a Nikah to Aasia to go ahead. So, finally in 1980 Aasia completed all her work diligently, making sure that she left her overall reputation of being a thorough professional well in tact and that the bathroom episode a mere single blemish in an overall faultless track record. Aasia acted in 180 odd films, many of them hugely popular and the 70's will always be remembered as an era in which she ruled as Queen of the Punjabi scene, and after all, she was the girl Maula Jat fell in love with, and history can never change that!

These days Aasia is living a happily married life thousands of miles away from Lollywood in the United States. She is thoroughly enjoying her role as housewife and mother and is busy doing the simple things in life like driving her kids home from school. Aasia is engrossed by her life as mother and homemaker and having been back once or twice to Lahore she claims that she would never ever be dragged back to films considering the state that the industry is in nowadays. Another interesting fact about Aasia is that though she still has numerous friends and well wishers in the industry who are always delighted to see her when she returns, she has more or less completely severed her ties with the industry itself and has even gone back to calling her self by her real name Firdous. Actually, she found that it help her to get away from situations when people come up to her in public - quite politely - swearing that she looks just like Aasia the famous actress who was in Maula Jat, Warrant, Nauker Wohti Da, Sheeda Pistol, Hashar Nashar….etc etc etc……..but all she does is tell them they must be mistaken…….using her undoubted acting prowess and experience she looks up quizzically and claims that she is not Aasia but just plain old Firdous, just a common housewife!

Among Aasia's numerous hit films were:
Dil aur Dunya (released in 1971 - this smash hit went a long way to establishing Aasia as a top bracket heroine)
Do Rangeelay - a super hit, Mein Akela, Jeera Blade, Ghulam, Sehrey Ke Phool, Maa tey Qanoon, Ladai, Pyar di Nishani, Tum Salamat Raho, Nauker Wohti Da, Sasta Khoon te Mehnga Paani, Khan Zada, Jogi, Sharif Badmash, Hadhkari, Wehshi Jat, Nawab Zada, Sheeda Pistol, Do Dost, Ultimatum, Toofan, Anjaam, Dara, Baghi te Firangi, Warrant, Jagga Gujjar, Aaj da Badmarsh, Reshma te Shera, Hashar Nashar, Dildar Sadqay, Fraud, Aakhri Maidan, Lahori Badshah, Qanoon, BeGunah, Baghi te Qanoon, Prince, Heera te Basheera, Jashan, Zanga Dakoo, Boycaat, Maula Jat - the longest running ever Punjabi film, Hathyar, Jat da Kharak, Permit, Ghunda Act, Wehshee Gujjar, Jat Soorma, Sardar, Behram Daku, Anokha Raj, Sher Maidan Da, Sheran de puttar Sher, Athra Putter, Basheera te Qanoon, Maula Jat in London, Bharya Mela, Doli

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