Wistful songs
MANJARI SINHA
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Farida Khanam, who rendered that perfect ghazal Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo, carries with her the whiff of the old world
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Photo: R.V. Moorthy
SOULFULFarida Khanam's voice bears the pain of Partition
The mood was just prefect for Indo-Pak musical vibrations. With the successful launch of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus, came Farida Khanam, the Malika-e-Ghazal of Pakistan. The emotion in her voice had given went to the emotion of the hundreds who had suffered the pain of separation, dard-e-judaai. She brought it back by singing "Jane kiski thi khata yaad nahin, ham hue kaise juda yaad nahin."
Born and brought up in Amritsar, young Farida had gone just a few miles away up to Murri to visit some relatives when the country was partitioned and she could never return home. Her sweetest memories belong to her childhood. She was very fond of Begum Akhtar and Ustad Barkat Ali Khan and used to hum their music all the time. Her elder sister Mukhtar Bano was also a singer and a stage artiste.
Farida Khanam's proper taleem started at the age of seven, when Ustad Ashique Ali Khan of Patiala gharana tied the sacred thread and took her under his tutelage. Apart from the daily practice for hours together, her ustad also made her listen to great singers of those days. She remembers listening to Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Jaddan Bai (mother of Nargis) and the mehfils of "Nirat Bhaav ki Thumari" by Achchan Maharaj and Shambhu Maharaj. "Ustad would put me forward and would request, please listen to this child also, isi tarah pukhtagi aati gai."
But she was soon deprived of her musically inspiring and vibrant surroundings when she was forced to settle in Pakistan. There was no atmosphere of classical music especially for women. It was only when President Ayub Khan started programmes on radio and much later at the Pakistan Music Conference that women got some chance. After this much desired break, Farida Khanam represented her country in a delegation to Moscow.
Opportunity did come in the form of television and the setting up of an Art Council. However, some people just appropriated the complete scene and left no chance for true artistes. But Farida does not blame them because in those times there was neither a music college in Pakistan nor was it easy to find an Ustad.
Coming back to the present, if Farida Khanam is highly impressed by something, then it is the discerning audience in India. "Yeh aapki sunne ki tahzeeb door door tak pahunchi hai." She remembers with great warmth how she received a standing ovation at the Siri Fort Auditorium. Farida then remembers performing at Ali Akbar Khan School of Music in California where people did not move for two to three hours while she was singing.
She is extremely happy with the recent friendly communications between the two governments and the reciprocal exchange of artists between the two countries. Totally satisfied with all that Almighty has bequeathed on her, she has no complaints. But we do. We desperately wanted to sing to her: "Aaje jaane ki zid naa karo... "
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