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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Shamshad Begum: The forgotten diva
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Shamshad Begum: The forgotten diva

In life, Shamshad Begum was a recluse. Her robust voice and versatility will ensure she lives on

Shamshad Begum (1919-2013). Photo: Kushal GopalkaPremium
Shamshad Begum (1919-2013). Photo: Kushal Gopalka

The voice which continues to dazzle and energize me had first struck me at the age of 8. Like hit-and-run accidents, Kabhi aar kabhi paar, Boojh mera kya naam re and Chhod babul ka ghar had left me wounded. Back then, I was clueless about the woman behind these beauties.

Later interactions with Shamshadji revealed that she sang Subah ki dua at age 5 at her school in Lahore before cutting record discs for the Jien O Phone Record Company at 13. Her early gramophone hits were the nagma
—I
k baar phir kaho zara ki meri saari kaynaat teri ik nazar pe nisaar hai—and the bhajan—
Tere poojan ko bhagwan bana man mandir alishaan, tuned by her mentor, Master Ghulam Haider. Such shellac records and regular radio broadcasts from Lahore, Peshawar, Delhi and Lucknow earned the golden-voiced Shamshad Begum great popularity before her entry into films as a playback artiste in 1940.

Her earliest movie songs, like Sawan ke nazare hain, became the craze of the subcontinent and her first films Yamla Jat (Punjabi, 1940) and Khazanchi (Hindi, 1941) were jubilee hits. History is witness that with every succeeding movie (Gawandi, Zamindar, Poonji, Chal Chal Re Naujawan, Humayun and Mela), the popularity of the songstress soared higher, establishing her as the supreme playback artiste of the 1940s. Her voice and vocalization were unique. So was the energy—unlike that of her star contemporaries Noorjehan, Suraiya and Amirbai Karnataki.

A file photo of Shamshad Begum. Photo: PTI
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A file photo of Shamshad Begum. Photo: PTI

“Kishore Kumar, Madan Mohan and O.P. Nayyar have sung chorus in my songs in their struggling days," the publicity-shy artiste once told me. She chose to live life on her terms, away from the glamour of filmdom for the past four decades. From commanding the highest fees of 2,000 per song in the 1950s (her contemporary Lata Mangeshkar earned 300), she moved from the monopolization era towards semi-retirement at the peak of her popularity in the 1950s. Recording nearly 2,000 tracks in her lifetime, she did not market herself, and did not want to record songs till her last breath. She led a simple and sober life, away from the public eye. She never allowed herself to be photographed. Even her record albums did not have her image as the music company HMV itself did not have her photo.

Shamshad Begum never let success go to her head. After pushing the careers of heroines Ramola, Mehtab, Nargis, Kamini Kaushal, Nalini Jaywant, Vyjayantimala and others to superstardom by singing for them, she unhesitatingly “playbacked" for child actors Jagdeep (Dard, 1947), Parikshit Sahni (Deedar, 1951) and heroes Shammi Kapoor (Bluff Master, 1963), Mehmood (Johar Mehmood in Hong Kong, 1971) and Biswajeet (Kismat, 1968). It did not matter to her that she sang the item song Ek do teen (Awara, 1951) after doing all the heroine numbers for Raj Kapoor in Aag.

Nayyar likened her vocals to the resonance of a brand new silver coin. There is pain in Ek tera sahara (Shama, 1946), innocence in Main to odhun
(Humayun, 1945), sorrow in Pee ke ghar aaj pyaari dulhaniya chali (Mother India, 1957), joy in Mere piya gaye Rangoon, wonder in the multilingual Ye duniya roop ki chor (Shabnam, 1949), mirth in Aana meri jaan Sunday ke Sunday (Shehnai, 1947) and romance in Chandni banke aayi hai bahar (Dulari, 1949) and Chaman mein rehke veerana mera dil hota jata hai (Deedar, 1951). Till today wedding bands play her unforgettable bride farewell song Chhod babul ka ghar.  Saiyan dil mein aana re, Leke pehla pehla pyar and Kajra mohabbat wala have fired the imagination across generations. Expecting a 90-year-old to shrug in despair, I once asked her reaction to remixes. She said she was happy that more and more youngsters were keeping her music alive.

With her death on 23 April, an era has come to an end. In accordance with her wishes, there was no ceremony, no show or interviews to mark her death. Her daughter Usha said: “Mummy always maintained that artistes never die. Her fans are a testimony to that. It is easy for an artiste to make a fortune in Bollywood but it is difficult to earn the respect of an entire industry and people at large."

Born in 1919, Shamshad Begum came to Mumbai in the early 1940s to live and work away from her conservative family in Lahore, and led an exemplary life in Mumbai —although the media had killed her while reporting on the death of yesteryear singer Shamshad Bai of Delhi (Chhamia) in 2005.

The robust, sharp vocals which intrigued me 37 years back won’t stop haunting me.

Kushal Gopalka is a Mumbai-based musician and musicologist who spent considerable time with the late artiste. He is working on his second book on early Hindi cinema.

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Published: 24 Apr 2013, 11:39 AM IST
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