“I only went back to Lahore during Moharram. Soon, other composers including Anil Biswas,Ĭ Ramchandra and Naushad made a beeline for her. Throw her into the ocean and she’ll learn to swim.” And sing she did for Taqdeer with her song Babu darogaji becoming popular. “Mehboob saab came home and told my father, ‘You’ve made her a frog in a pond. He was upset when told that her father wouldn’t send her to the ‘big’ city from Lahore. Right up till the ’70s.īack in Bombay, director Mehboob Khan wanted her to sing for Taqdeer in which he was launching Nargis. Yet she only remained a faceless voice in compliance with her father’s diktat. So I continued singing songs on radio.”īut with her Punjabi numbers in Yamla Jat and later Hindi songs in Khajanchi (both Ghulam Haider scores) her voice made waves in the Hindi film industry in the early ’40s.
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“When my father came to know about it he fumed and said, ‘I’ll ban your singing)’. The sassy Shamshad even gave a screen test for producer Dilsukh Pancholi (of Pancholi Studio) who wanted her to act as well. In the studio I’d take it off,” she laughs. “Hindu girls in Peshawar wore a ghoonghat (veil) so I wore a burqa. She donned a burqa when she went for recordings. Be like the water which takes the shape of the glass,” shares the singer who perfected her Urdu diction with a kazi. Learn their style don’t impose your style on them. He’d say, ‘Accept offers from all composers. “Ghulam Haider saab turned me into a professional. Her ‘breakthrough with the masses’ came when she began singing on All India Radio (AIR) in Peshawar and Lahore during the late ’30s. The Company being patronised by the rich, Shamshad’s popularity grew in elite circles. “I sang Bahadur Shah Zafar’s (the poet-ruler) ghazal Mera yaar mujhe mile agar.” An impressed Haider gave her a contract for 12 songs with facilities provided to top singers including Rs 2 as tonga fare. “I was only 12 and couldn’t climb onto the platform to sing,” recalls Shamshad. Rather it was her chacha (uncle), a Sufi at heart, who enjoyed qawwalis and ghazals and secretly took her to Jenophone Music Company for an audition with musician Master Ghulam Haider. Her conservative father, Miya Hussain Baksh, however didn’t encourage her yen for singing. It was Shamshad Begum’s headmistress who discerned her ‘surili awaaz (tuneful voice)’ amongst a chorus of girls reciting prayers in the school assembly. Usha sits with us through the chat, updating me now and then with trivia. Duniya ke saath badalna chahiye (we must change with the world),” says the veteran who lives with daughter Usha Ratra and son-in-law Lieutenant Colonel Yogesh Ratra in serene Powai. And unlike most singers she’s not offended that her hit numbers are being remixed today. I met Master Ghulam Haider saab,” she says of the maestro who was her mentor. “Mere sitare uruj pe the (my stars were on the ascent), the day I had no ladai (fight) with anyone,” she narrates raising her hands in gratitude. I never insisted that I’d sing only the heroine’s numbers. Firm that she’ll not lambast the composers who used her as a stepping stone and then ignored her. Firm that she doesn’t want a recorder around. As if on cue she sings the zingy C Ramchandra number Sunday ke Sunday complete with the rhyme, ‘Ye dil beating kya jaane.yeh chasing hunting kya jaane’.įun loving as she is, she’s firm. But the lines on her face have left her heart untouched. “Bahut gandh ho gayi thi (the scene had become dirty),” she says cryptically of her voluntary retirement. Instant fame, adulation, separation from loved ones and then a retreat from rivalry. Her lucent eyes mirror the changing notes in her life. Dressed in salwar kameez she moves with a walker.
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While her pictures shot in her heyday show her as a robust woman, today Shamshad Begum at 92 is frail and almost angelic. The romantic Saiyan dil mein aana re (Bahar), the teasing Kahin pe nigahen kahin pe nishana (CID), the pathos-dipped Chod babul ka ghar and even the Hinglish ditty Meri jaan Sunday ke Sunday (Shehnai) are all classics from songstress Shamshad Begum who ruled between the ’40s-’60s. Excerpts from Shamshad Begum's last interview.
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Filmfare's Farhana Farook spoke to the legend. Shamshad Begum, one of the first playback singers in the Hindi film industry died at her Mumbai residence at the age of 94.