Begum Akhtar
Akhtari Bai Faizabadi, Begum Akhtar, is the measure against which every later ghazal singer is heard. She recorded from the early 1930s, acted and sang in a handful of films — Roti (1942), Satyajit Ray's Jalsaghar (1958) — and spent her last two decades on radio and the concert stage, where Ae Mohabbat Tere Anjam Pe Rona Aaya, Woh Jo Hum Mein Tum Mein Qarar Tha and her Ghalib set became the standard.
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Landmark songs
Life
She was born in Faizabad in 1914, trained under Ata Mohammed Khan of Patiala and later Abdul Waheed Khan of Kirana, and was recording for Megaphone by her late teens; she acted in Calcutta films in the 1930s and in Mehboob Khan's Roti, then married the barrister Ishtiaq Ahmed Abbasi in 1945 and stopped singing publicly for several years.
She returned through All India Radio in 1949 and never stopped again: concerts, HMV LPs, the Jalsaghar appearance, and a last tour in 1974 during which she fell ill on stage in Ahmedabad and died there. She received the Padma Shri, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and, posthumously, the Padma Bhushan. Shanti Hiranand and Rita Ganguly were among her pupils.
The voice
A low, husky, slightly broken contralto with a catch in it — the famous 'crack' — that made every line of a ghazal sound lived rather than sung; the thumri and dadra of Purab ang came from the same throat.
Composers
- Her own settings
- Madan Mohan (Daana Paani)
- Khemchand Prakash
Sang for
- Herself (Roti, Jalsaghar)
Honours
Padma Shri (1968); Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1972); Padma Bhushan (posthumous, 1975)
Ghazals and non-film recordings 8
From the Doordarshan and Akashvani archives 3
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