Sukesh
2009-08-17 16:37:08 UTC
Indian Express dated August 16, 2009
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-last-song-of-awadh/502153/
A photograph showing her singing is on the web site above.
----------
Zarina Begum is one of the last living singers of the Awadh court.
Her story
When Manjari Chaturvedi, a Delhi-based kathak dancer, went looking for
someone who could sing the baithak thumri once sung in the royal
mehfils of Lucknow, the city’s qawwals came up with one name. Zarina
Begum, the last living singer of the Awadh court.
Little remains of Zarina’s work by way of recordings or tapes. Of the
thousands of videos floating around on YouTube, only a couple features
her. They are mostly grainy footage of an old, fidgety woman, clinging
to a harmonium. And a rich, striking voice singing the famous ghazal
written by Bahadur Shah Zafar: Lagta nahi hai dil mera ujde dayar mein
(My heart’s not happy in this barren city).
For the 83-year-old, present-day Lucknow is indeed a barren city,
where the sarangis have fallen silent and the mehfils died out. The
narrow lanes of Aminabad and a narrower staircase lead to the tiny,
crumbling room where she lives with her husband and children. We enter
just as she is about to sit down for her riyaaz. “I have been living
in this house for more then 35 years now. No one remembers me. I don’t
know what happened to the people of Lucknow. I think they lost their
interest in good music,” she says.
She seems wary at this interview, this intrusion from the outside
world. “Bibi, ye bata du ki hum Awadhi raj durbaron ki gayika hai.
Humen tawaif to na kahogi? (I am a court singer of Awadhi durbars. I
hope you won’t label me a tawaif).” she says.
In the Lucknow of the 1930s, when women singers like Begum Akhtar and
Siddheswari Devi found fame and fortune, Zarina was a teenager being
initiated into its competitive world of music. Her father Shehehshah
Hussain, a singer himself, was her teacher. She was also trained by
Begum Akhtar.
Zarina still remembers the clip-clop of the tonga as it took her to
the court, an eager 16-year-old dressed in her finest, to sing for the
then Nawab of Nanpara, Raja Saadat Ali Khan. “I would sing for hours.
The Nawab of Nanpara christened me Zarina Begum, as a mark of
respect,” she says.
Soon, she was a must at the soirees of the Awadh court, the favoured
destinations of the local aristocracy in the 1940s and 50s. At Sheesh
Mahal, the abode of the Nawabs of Awadh, she was a regular performer.
“Nawab Sajjat Ali Khan used to call for me every time there was a
wedding in the family or just a royal court mehfil. The Raja of
Mehmoodabad was another connoisseur of music and his chhoti rani was
really fond of me,” she says.
The Nawabs of Awadh came into their own after the decline of the
Mughals in the mid-18th century. Many courtesans and singers from
Delhi moved to Lucknow, where money was available in plenty. But by
the time Zarina Begum started singing at the royal mehfils, the
royalty was in a decline.
It was at one such mehfil that she met her husband, Qurban Hussain,
who used to play the tabla with Begum Akhtar. Qurbaan is now 90. He
stares out from the only window in the room with hollow eyes, a
painfully impoverished man who can barely talk. “He broke his hip in
an accident some years back and could never regain his health. But
mashallah bahut khoobsurat dikhte the us zamaane mein. (He used to be
really good-looking then),” she says with a laugh.
In the 1950s, radio happened. “We all were awed by it. Ad when I
started singing on radio in 1956 as a regular artist, it was an out of
the world experience,” she says. But she never got a chance to become
a recording artiste. “My shows were off and on air. So nobody really
noticed a regular court singer. There were many like me in Awadh and
after some time they stopped calling me,” she says.
Zarina Begum was not the only one to fall off Lucknow’s culture map.
Her fate was part of the decline of an entire community of women
performers. “The complete culture of courtesans and court singers was
suddenly stigmatised as they were associated with displacement of
morality. The society that had held them in great esteem for their art
now started to look down upon them as mere sex workers and then
followed the decline,” says Kabir Khan, a retired forest officer in
Lucknow, who organised a few concerts for Zarina in the 1970s.
A family friendship with Muzaffar Ali got her an opportunity to sing
for one of his albums, Husn-e-jaana, in 1997. He also recorded her
voice for a film called Daaman that was never shot. “This woman
deserves much more than what she got. Her voice, which is still so
powerful, was full of richness and a unique depth that was the shaan
(pride) of many mehfils,” says Ali.
Zarina hardly sings now but she practises daily; her riyaaz is as
important to her as her daily prayer. She is at the harmonium when
it’s time for us to leave. She sings one last song for her visitors:
Deewana banana hai to deewana bana de, a famous Begum Akhtar ghazal.
“Jab tak jaan hai hum gayenge aur chahte hai ki log humko bhi yaad
kare. (I will sing as long as I live and want people to remember me.)
Tell them that Zarina still sings,” she says.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-last-song-of-awadh/502153/
A photograph showing her singing is on the web site above.
----------
Zarina Begum is one of the last living singers of the Awadh court.
Her story
When Manjari Chaturvedi, a Delhi-based kathak dancer, went looking for
someone who could sing the baithak thumri once sung in the royal
mehfils of Lucknow, the city’s qawwals came up with one name. Zarina
Begum, the last living singer of the Awadh court.
Little remains of Zarina’s work by way of recordings or tapes. Of the
thousands of videos floating around on YouTube, only a couple features
her. They are mostly grainy footage of an old, fidgety woman, clinging
to a harmonium. And a rich, striking voice singing the famous ghazal
written by Bahadur Shah Zafar: Lagta nahi hai dil mera ujde dayar mein
(My heart’s not happy in this barren city).
For the 83-year-old, present-day Lucknow is indeed a barren city,
where the sarangis have fallen silent and the mehfils died out. The
narrow lanes of Aminabad and a narrower staircase lead to the tiny,
crumbling room where she lives with her husband and children. We enter
just as she is about to sit down for her riyaaz. “I have been living
in this house for more then 35 years now. No one remembers me. I don’t
know what happened to the people of Lucknow. I think they lost their
interest in good music,” she says.
She seems wary at this interview, this intrusion from the outside
world. “Bibi, ye bata du ki hum Awadhi raj durbaron ki gayika hai.
Humen tawaif to na kahogi? (I am a court singer of Awadhi durbars. I
hope you won’t label me a tawaif).” she says.
In the Lucknow of the 1930s, when women singers like Begum Akhtar and
Siddheswari Devi found fame and fortune, Zarina was a teenager being
initiated into its competitive world of music. Her father Shehehshah
Hussain, a singer himself, was her teacher. She was also trained by
Begum Akhtar.
Zarina still remembers the clip-clop of the tonga as it took her to
the court, an eager 16-year-old dressed in her finest, to sing for the
then Nawab of Nanpara, Raja Saadat Ali Khan. “I would sing for hours.
The Nawab of Nanpara christened me Zarina Begum, as a mark of
respect,” she says.
Soon, she was a must at the soirees of the Awadh court, the favoured
destinations of the local aristocracy in the 1940s and 50s. At Sheesh
Mahal, the abode of the Nawabs of Awadh, she was a regular performer.
“Nawab Sajjat Ali Khan used to call for me every time there was a
wedding in the family or just a royal court mehfil. The Raja of
Mehmoodabad was another connoisseur of music and his chhoti rani was
really fond of me,” she says.
The Nawabs of Awadh came into their own after the decline of the
Mughals in the mid-18th century. Many courtesans and singers from
Delhi moved to Lucknow, where money was available in plenty. But by
the time Zarina Begum started singing at the royal mehfils, the
royalty was in a decline.
It was at one such mehfil that she met her husband, Qurban Hussain,
who used to play the tabla with Begum Akhtar. Qurbaan is now 90. He
stares out from the only window in the room with hollow eyes, a
painfully impoverished man who can barely talk. “He broke his hip in
an accident some years back and could never regain his health. But
mashallah bahut khoobsurat dikhte the us zamaane mein. (He used to be
really good-looking then),” she says with a laugh.
In the 1950s, radio happened. “We all were awed by it. Ad when I
started singing on radio in 1956 as a regular artist, it was an out of
the world experience,” she says. But she never got a chance to become
a recording artiste. “My shows were off and on air. So nobody really
noticed a regular court singer. There were many like me in Awadh and
after some time they stopped calling me,” she says.
Zarina Begum was not the only one to fall off Lucknow’s culture map.
Her fate was part of the decline of an entire community of women
performers. “The complete culture of courtesans and court singers was
suddenly stigmatised as they were associated with displacement of
morality. The society that had held them in great esteem for their art
now started to look down upon them as mere sex workers and then
followed the decline,” says Kabir Khan, a retired forest officer in
Lucknow, who organised a few concerts for Zarina in the 1970s.
A family friendship with Muzaffar Ali got her an opportunity to sing
for one of his albums, Husn-e-jaana, in 1997. He also recorded her
voice for a film called Daaman that was never shot. “This woman
deserves much more than what she got. Her voice, which is still so
powerful, was full of richness and a unique depth that was the shaan
(pride) of many mehfils,” says Ali.
Zarina hardly sings now but she practises daily; her riyaaz is as
important to her as her daily prayer. She is at the harmonium when
it’s time for us to leave. She sings one last song for her visitors:
Deewana banana hai to deewana bana de, a famous Begum Akhtar ghazal.
“Jab tak jaan hai hum gayenge aur chahte hai ki log humko bhi yaad
kare. (I will sing as long as I live and want people to remember me.)
Tell them that Zarina still sings,” she says.