In Memoriam

Bano learnt music from Khan until she got married and moved to Lahore in 1952 in a landlord family which supported her career. “Whenever she visited India,she would stay with us. When she got bored in the evenings,she would tell me to take her around the city. I had an old Fiat car then and felt a little embarrassed,but she would laugh saying,“Dil bada hona chahiye,” says Ahmad.

Till she died,Bano would sing all the ghazals and thumris based on Hindustani classical ragas according to the Delhi gharana

style.

She was an instant hit on the Binaca Geet Mala and her young voice surprised many people in Pakistan including Salima Hashmi,daughter of the poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

“Nobody had ever heard a Pakistani song on Binaca,” says 65-year-old Hashmi on phone from Pakistan.

Her association with Bano began after Faiz was sent into exile in Beirut. “She used to sometimes sing in our house,always dressed in a saree,a true confident Dilliwali ladki. When she really came onto her own,it seemed like the consummation of the ghazal written by my father,” says Hashmi,talking about songs like Dasht-e-Tanhai and Ulfat ki nai manzil ko chala bahen daal ke bahon mein.

For Gurgaon-based ghazal maestro Shanti Hiranand,Bano was a personification of grace.

She recalls her fondness for the India Habitat Centre,where the two would discuss their music for hours on end. “I wanted to call her up again a few days ago,but…,” Hiranand’s voice trails off.

Persian scholar and food connoisseur Salma Hussain had met Bano at the All India Radio office in 1986.

She invited Bano home and the mehfil at her Curzon Road apartments is one that Hussain says will always remain vivid in her

mind.

“When she bagan with Payal mein geet hain cham cham ke,a song from Pakistani film Gumnaam,her persona and her voice were so stunning that we were awestruck,” says Hussain.

Bano,who famously defied Zia-ul-Haq’s regime by singing Faiz’s ghazal of democracy before a 50,000 crowd in 1985,remained a dilli ki ladki all her life.

Now,her admirers hold on to her memories and the 78 rpm records that hold her voice.

Hashmi sums up the mood by reciting a couplet by her father Faiz. Veeran hai maykada,khum-o-saagar udaas hai,Tum kyaa gaye ke rooth gaye din bahaar ke (The tavern is deserted,each glass disconsolate,You left and even springtime forsook me and disowned this world.)