Sometime in 2008, Talat Aziz was singing at a concert when the audience began to request a Mehdi Hassan ghazal. Hassan was grievously sick back home in Pakistan but on an impulse, Aziz called him from the stage and put the conversation on speaker mode so that the ailing maestro could hear chants of, […]
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Tag: umrao jaan
Seema Sathyu: Sufi Artist Who Paints Poetry
In Muzaffar Ali’s 1981 master-piece Umrao Jaan, one of the opening scenes featured Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan’s voice as it wove sublime magic with a raagmala, Pratham Dhar Dhyan. And there is a young Umrao in the frame, singing along, wrapped coyly in a white silk dupatta and the poetry, or nafasat (delicacy) of […]
Rekha: The Role Of A Lifetime
Rekha will soon be seen playing Super Nani but the icon turns into an age-defying model in the film to teach her errant family a lesson. No, dowdy weepies for the lady.There are many faces of Bhanurekha Ganesan. The little girl who danced on a table in a white frilly frock to the tune […]
Shama Zaidi-Burning Bright
Memories are like films. Some fade away and some are revisited again and again. Like my interview with Shama Zaidi. Years later, I can still remember her voice pulsing across a long-distance telephone line. As full of character as her writing. Zaidi’s body of work speaks for itself and she is one of the few authentic […]