Iqbal Bano

I came across this news this week and even though I wasn’t explic­itly aware that she was liv­ing, the news of her death makes one think about the bygone era of tyranny, polit­i­cal upheaval and sup­pres­sion. She was a leg­end not only through her artis­tic tal­ent but also through an insup­press­ible spirit.

She is remem­bered for singing the works of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and gave musi­cal rel­e­vance to his the ghazals. She became a cult fig­ure under the rule of Gen Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s when she sang songs banned by the government. The chants of the audi­ence in the 1985 record­ing of a con­cert at which she per­formed Faiz’s inspi­ra­tional anthem, Hum Dekhenge (We Will See), have become a sym­bol of resistance.

Few singers of clas­si­cal music matched the bril­liance of her voice and her com­mand of musi­cal notes, crit­ics say.

But her nat­ural tal­ent was towards semi-classical music, such as thum­ris, dadras and the clas­si­cal ren­di­tion of ghaz­als, a genre of Urdu poetry.

She was given the Pride of Per­for­mance award by the Pak­istani gov­ern­ment in 1974.

src: BBC and Hin­dus­tan Times

Here’s for the lady and her most famous piece–

Hum dekhenge by Faiz — ren­dered by Iqbal Bano

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