|
Name
Begum Akhtar (Akhtari
Bai Faizabadi)
Date of Birth
7th October, 1914
Birth Place
Faizabad,
Uttar Pradesh
Father’s Name
Asghar Hussain (Lawyer)
Mother’s Name Mushtari
Learn Music
Chandra Bai,
Ustad Imdad Khan,
Ata Mohammed Khan
Learn Classical
Mohammad Khan,
Abdul Waheed Khan,
Ustad Jhande Khan.
Music
Spouse
Ishtiaq Ahmed Abbasi (Barrister)
Begum Akhtar was a
Indian Vocalist
of
Ghazal,
Dadra and
Thumri. Her
first public performance was at the age of fifteen. She also acted in
several Bollywood films. Her first public performance was at the tender age
of fifteen. This encouraged her to continue singing ghazals with more
enthusiasm. She cut her first disc for the
Megaphone Record Company,
at that time.
However, after marriage, due to her
husband’s restrictions, she could not sing for almost five years and
subsequently, she fell ill, that is when her return to music was prescribed
as a befitting remedy, and in 1949 she returned to the recording studios.
She sang three ghazals and a dadra at
Lucknow Radio Station.
She sang ghazals and other light classical pieces, singing them in her
inimitable style. She has nearly four hundred songs to her credit. She was a
regular performer on
All India Radio.
She usually composed her own ghazals and most of her compositions were Raag based.
During her last concert in Ahmedabad,
she raised the pitch of her voice as she felt that her singing had not been
as good as she had wanted it to be. She was not feeling well on the fateful
day. The additional demand and stress that she put herself under resulted in
her falling ill and was rushed to the hospital. She died on October 7, 1974,
in the arms of
Nilam Gamadia,
her friend, who invited her to Ahmedabad, which has become her final
performance.
She received the
Sangeet
Natak Akademi award for vocal music as well as a
Padma Shri. She
was posthumously awarded the
Padma Bhushan.
Today her name is almost synonymous with the concept of ghazal gayaki, and
her imitable style of singing which immortalized her, and gave her the title
of Mallika-e-Ghazal (Queen of Ghazals). |
