Thumari By Begum Akhtar...

Akhtaribai Faizabadi, or Begum Akhtar as she was more popularly known, was born on 7th October, 1914 in the small town of Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh in northern India. She was born in a high class family that was not musically inclined. However, at her uncle's insistence, she was sent to train under Ustad Imdad Khan, the great sarangi exponent, and later under Ata Mohammed Khan. Later she travelled to Calcutta with her mother and started learning music from classical stalwarts like Mohammad Khan, Abdul Waheed Khan and finally she became the disciple of Ustad Jhande Khan Saheb.
With the advent of talkie era in India, Begum Akhtar acted in a few Hindi movies in thirties. East India Film Company of Calcutta approached her to act in KING FOR A DAY (alias Ek Din Ka Badshah) and NAL DAMAYANTI in the year 1933. Like others of that era, she sang her songs herself in all her films. She continued acting in the following years. The movies she acted in are: Ameena (1934), Mumtaz Begum (1934), Jawaani Ka Nasha (1935), Naseeb Ka Chakkar (1935).
Subsequently Begum Akhtar moved back to Lucknow where she was approached by the famous producer-director Mehboob Khan, as a result of which she acted in ROTI which was released in 1942 and whose music was composed by maestro Anil Biswas. ROTI contained six of her ghazals but unfortunately due to some trouble between producer and director, Mehboob Khan subsequently deleted 3-4 ghazals from the film. All the ghazals are available on Megaphone gramophone records. Begum Akhtar, meanwhile, left Bombay and returned to Lucknow.
n 1945, Begum AKhtar was married to barrister Ishtiaq Ahmed Abbasi and became known as Begum Akhtar. However, after marriage, due to her husband's restrictions, she could not sing almost 5 years, and subsequently, she fell ill. Music was prescribed as the only remedy! In 1949, she returned to the recording studios. She sang three ghazals and a dadra at Lucknow Radio Station. She wept aferwards and returned to singing in concerts, a practice which lasted until her death.
She was posthumously awarded the Padmabhushan. Just eight days before her death, she recorded Kaifi Azmi's ghazal:
sunaa karo merii jaan un se un ke afsaane
sab ajanabii hai.n yahaa.N kaun kis ko pahachaane

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• Begum
• Akhtar
• Thumari

[IMIRZA777]

CORRECTION.

Typo mistake. It should read 1914-1974. at 2.45.

[scanheartin]

@scanheartin : probably, Raag Shahana 

[scanheartin]

outstanding ... some raag which i cannot recall

[65naz1]

Great.......she looks like Shabana Azmi in her youth......am i the only mistaken one?

[vinaypande]

i cant hear this often enough...the tune buzzes in my head all day. thank you once again mirza saheb

[kalyar123]

beautifully rendered in raga kafi frm her akhtari bai's era

[abduranvi]

Wonderful !!!

This earlier version of the Thumari is much melodious.

Begum Akhtar Sahiba was a Gem, a Genious and a Treasure for the Humanity.

Er Ashok Bhalla in Surrey, BC, Canada

[chamogaa]

A precious piece to add to my little treasure of BA ghazals and geets collected from the mahakavi and suhanee11 channels. Thanks, Mirzaji, for another sweet one.