Begum Akhtar’s best known disciple Awadh’s Last Song Zarina Begum, a legend who India fa
- Arijit Bose
- Mar 12, 2018
- 2 min read
Zarina begum – Awadh’s Last song
Brilliance is hard earned and it often has its own perks, but very often there remain exceptions like the original singer of Humari Atariya, Zarina Begum, whose song was later adapted in Madhuri Dikshit starrer Dedh ishqiya.
One of the last court singers of Awadh, she boasts of nearly 300 renditions to her credit of which hardly any is preserved in archives.
Akhtari Bai Faizabadi aka Begum Akhtar’s greatest disciple, Zarina Begum is battling for life and her family is finding it hard to pay her bills.
Born in Nanpara, Bahraich, Zarina Begum had begun her musical training under Gulam Hazrat at the age of 11.
Zarina Begum is known to be the only living court singer of the Awadh Court and one of the most popular singers of 1950s and 1960s.
Zarina in her 20s had the option to choose between music and marriage, she chose her first love music instead.
Her rented home in Aminabad’s Hata Khuda Baksha Colony is a tin-shed room over the terrace where Zarina lived with Naved, Rubina and Ayub.
The only pricey belongings she has is a motorcycle, a TV and a refrigerator. All bought out of her prize money. Zarina Begum is the last exponent of Baithak gayaki, a style of singing that was popular in the late 19th-early 20th century in Lucknow, Lahore, Delhi and Calcutta (now Kolkata).
Brimming with romanticism and intimacy it is a gayaki suited to a smaller audience the singer is generally familiar with. Zarina has been a graded artist of both All India Radio and Doordarshan, besides singing for a few films.
Despite the brilliance, for Zarina penury became her biggest companion. Her wish was that she arrange a job for her daughter or son-in-law, or an e-rickshaw for her physically challenged son, so that she could be taken care of in her last days.
Till such time she was in her senses she would often wonder that she neither could build a house nor could she secure her children.
Her eldest son Aslam lives in Kanpur, while daughter Rubina and son-in-law Naved take care of her while the youngest of her children, Ayub, is a tabla player and has lost his legs in an accident.
The family all along maintained her simplicity was exploited by stalwarts. Musicians and artists would earn lakhs courtesy her craft, but gave just a few thousand to her.
More than half the money provided by the erstwhile state government along with the Begum Akhtar award that she got has been spent on her treatment. Multiple bedsores have only increased her suffering in recent years.
Zarina now fondly referred as “Awadh’s last song” has been keeping unwell with bouts of pneumonia, urinary tract infection, swelling in the liver, paralysis and varied complications.
As a legend in her own right, we wish her peace.
Note: Zarina Begum, one of Lucknow’s best singers, a former pupil of Begum Akhtar’s, and one of the last stalwarts of the baithak style, is critically ill. Her family lives in poverty and is struggling to pay her medical bills. Please help. Call Naved : 8853679120.
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