Begum Akhtar, unplugged!
A play ‘Ammi…Akhtari’ celebrates the ghazal queen’s contribution to the genre, her life and times, marking the 50th year of her passing
MUMBAI: She breathed and lived ghazal. The ghazal-Begum Akhtar alliance waltzed through the 20th century to mint new ideas of popular entertainment in India, blending tradition with technology, Ghalib with gramophone. Akhtar died in Ahmedabad on October 30, 1974 at age 60.
Five decades on, Mumbai is eager to re-discover the legend.
A listening session on Akhtar, curated and presented by noted music director Tushar Bhatia, was hosted jointly last week by the NCPA and Music Forum, by a group of music aficionados. Next weekend, a play, chronicling Akhtar’s life and music, will roll out of the wings to mark her 50th death anniversary.
Noted actor Padmini Kolhapure, whose family boasts long ties with classical music, will play the central protagonist, while one of India’s top-rung vocalists Talat Aziz will present some of Akhtar’s best known ghazals and dadras, in ‘Ammi… Akhtari.’ It is written by Dr M Sayeed Alam, Urdu scholar, and directed by Saif Hyder Hasan, writer-director.
It all came together when Kolhapure called Aziz a few months ago to discuss the play. “We met at her residence, where Hasansaab was present too. I fell in love with the play right away, particularly the title ‘Ammi… Akhtari’,” said Aziz, whose engagement with ghazal dates back to the 1980s.
Aziz plans to sing Akhtar’s 14 ghazals and dadras interspersed in the narrative at crucial points. “We wish to present Begum Akhtarji in a proper perspective, and offer viewers a peek into her life and creativity,” he added.
The spice girls
Akhtar belonged to a mesmerising era when technology was democratising music, while women singers such as Jaddanbai, Kesarbai Kerkar, Gauhar Jaan, Anjanibai Malpekar, Hirabai Barodekar, Siddheshwaribai, Rasoolanbai and M S Subbulakshmi were all geared up to challenge the male supremacy in the world of music.
Stating that neither ChatGPT nor Google has dented Akhtar’s legacy, noted vocalist Shruti Sadolikar said, “We, the female exponents of classical and popular music, should be grateful to Akhtar and her peers for clearing the decks for women’s empowerment in the field of music.”
In later years, Akhtar conquered yet another male bastion by becoming the ustad of Shanti Hiranand, Anjali Bannerjee and Rita Ganguly — young, dreamy eyed girls and ardent Ammi admirers, all from the rising middle class.
Rebel without a pause
Music experts say Akhtar, a hardcore rebel, restored the eminence of tawaif, the quintessential symbol of grace and refinement in the Mughal era. While the British Raj, steeped as it was in Victorian values, and overzealous Gandhians, were out to dismantle the tradition in the early part of the twentieth century, Akhtar stepped in to reinterpret the deliciously nuanced tawaif culture and its socio- cultural ethos.
“Begum Akhtar had wealth and fame, but she aspired for respectability,” said Sadolikar. This often created a piquant situation for the great singer, though.
She chose the upscale Hazratgunj neighbourhood in Lucknow — and not Chowk, the popular mujra hub— for her new, palatial house in the1930s. She wanted to consciously cut away from the sleaze which was associated with the tawaif culture.
Yet, she couldn’t really snap ties with the past — Amir Khusro, Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib— and a rich legacy of folk music: chaiti, jhoola, sawani, naat and marsia.
While she married Ishtiaq Ahmed Abbasi, a handsome barrister from a conservative Lucknow family, she continued with her parallel life — meeting friends, sipping whiskey and puffing away at her 555, it is believed. However, she never sang at a public concert in Lucknow, a promise which Abbasi took from his wife on the eve of their marriage.
Recalling her first meeting with Akhtar in Mumbai back in the 1970s, Sadolikar said, “Begumsahiba asked me if I had ever fallen in love. I was speechless. She said, ‘You should be in love all the time. Love will bring longing and sorrow, and your music will become richer’.”
Said noted music critic and vocalist Amarendra Nandu Dhaneshwar, “Longing and eternal ‘dard’ (pain) defined Akhtar’s music.”
Her early life
Born in 1914 in one of the sleepy hamlets of Faizabad, in Uttar Pradesh, Akhtar became a singing sensation when she performed, at age 10, at a show held to raise funds for the victims of the 1924 Bihar earthquake. Mother Mushtaribai, herself a singer and a disciplinarian, shaped her fledgeling career.
Although Akhtar learnt classical music from Ustad Ata Mohammad Khan and, later, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, she didn’t really fancy khayal singing, or ‘pucca gaana’, as career option, it is said.
She had set her heart on ghazal, dadra and thumri, given her close bond with the syncretic Awadh culture, which had for centuries cast its spell on north India. While ghazal brought her closer to cut glass Urdu, dadra, chaiti and thumri deepened her ties with Brij and Bhojpuri, the dialects she spoke at home.
‘Koyalia mat kar pukar’, ‘Chcha rahi kaali ghata’ and ‘Deewana bana de’ took the 1940s by storm. Akhtari Faizabadi became a household name. Pandit Nehru, Sarojini Naidu and Dr Zakir Hussain were among her admirers, it is said.
Flirting with films
Meanwhile, her fling with Parsi theatre in Calcutta (as the city was then known) and cinema — she acted in eight films, including Mehboob Khan’s ‘Roti’ (1942)— was short lived. She resumed her riyaaz at the behest of her mother and Ustad Abdul Wahid. She made a brief appearance as herself, a singer, in ‘Jalsaghar’, Satyajit Ray’s 1958 classic.
“Although Akhtar didn’t pursue pure khayal gayaki she brought its academic discipline and rules to thumri and ghazal. Many of her ghazals — for instance, ‘Yeh naa thi hamari kismat’ or ‘Mere hum nafas, mere hum nawaan’ sound like ‘bada khayal’ as she invests the compositions with profundity and intensity,” said Dhaneshwar.
Pointing out that Akhtar was comfortable with ragas, and navigated its hair-pin bends with effortless ease, he said, “Freeing ghazal from the dingy ‘kothas’ of yore and elevating it to the exalted status of performance is Akhtar’s major contribution to Indian music.” Also, she upgraded the popular taste with exquisite Urdu poetry of latter-day ‘shairs’ such as Jigar Muradabadi, Shakeel Badayuni, Kaifi Azmi and Sudarshan Faqir.
Post-Independence, Akhtar reached dizzy heights of fame across the Indian sub-continent. ‘Hamari ataria pe aao sajanwa’, a lilting dadra, earned her more followers across the border than in India, it is said. She was admired as much for her music as for her grace, beauty and jewellery.
At around that time, ghazal began to gain a wider audience than dadra and thumri. Government officials, lawyers and businessmen, who replaced princely states and zamindars as patrons of music and the arts, loved Urdu poetry.
Steeped in durbar patronage, Akhtar once had the nawabs and kings eating out of her hands. Her close friendship with the nawab of Rampur is part of the UP lore. However, she was quick to realise that record companies and All India Radio were the real arbiters of popular music. Hence, the switch over to ghazals, an astute business move, say experts.
Mumbai was dear to her. Babubhai Raja, Manubhai Amarsey, Satyendra Trivedi, Arvind Parikh, danseuse Sitara Devi, Arvind Mehta, singers Shobha Gurtu and Faiyyaz, and music directors Madan Mohan and Khayyam were her close friends in the city.
Many admirers would try to catch a fleeting glimpse of the ghazal diva, seated in the balcony of Sea Green Hotel, where she stayed often, on a cool evening and watching the calm Arabian sea.
(‘Ammi…Akhtari’ will be performed at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, near Chowpatty, on October 25 and at Rangsharada auditorium, Bandra, on October 27).