n December 1948, he moved to Lahore to study law and initially stayed at MAO College Lahore hostel in Lahore. A few months after his arrival in Lahore, he did his first performance on stage in the YMCA Hall, Lahore. After his YMCA auditorium performance, Bhatti accompanied Ijaz Gilani to Radio Pakistan, Lahore, where he met and became a formal pupil of Master Niaz Hussain Shami,
a composer then working for Radio Pakistan in Lahore. It was his association with and training under Master Niaz Hussain Shami, which facilitated Bhatti’s participation in regular radio programs as a singer.
He sometimes used to accept character roles in plays broadcast by the Lahore station of Radio Pakistan. Rafi Peer, a play- writer, asked him to be the ‘hero’ in his play Akhhian (Eyes).
Bhatti was introduced to composer Ghulam Ahmed Chishti by Master Shami in 1949, who offered him an opportunity to record a few songs in producer-director Nazir Ahmed Khan’s film Pheray (1949).
After this film’s popularity, Bhatti became an almost overnight celebrity . Producer-director Nazir offered Bhatti Sahib the leading role in his Punjabi film Heer (1955) against Swaran Lata….
