Shakila Bano Bhopali passes away
vsr...@hclinfinet.com
-Rawat
Hindustan times, 17/12/2002
Mumbai, Dec 16, The legendary Shakila Bano Bhopali, who
transformed the face of qawaali with her flamboyant and
uninhibited singing style, died last night at the St George
Hospital here after a massive cardiac attack. She was 60.
Shakila Banu was suffering from various ailments including
diabetes, low calcium and a fractured rib and had been
admitted to the hospital 10 days back in a state of coma.
The qawaali singer, who began as a family entertainer at the
age of 8, graduated to singing for small functions in her
native town, Bhopal, before she was noticed by film thespian
Dilip Kumar. Shakila rendered scores of qawaalis, including
famous numbers like 'Ab tum pe chod diya hai, jehar de ya
jam de' and 'Sehar ka waqt hai or jaam me.n sharab nahi.'
Considered to be one of the top 10 qawwali singers in India,
Shakila was perhaps the only woman qawaal to have earned
such a large fan following in Bhopal and rest of the
country.
Her command over Urdu and her penchant for enacting the
lines of the songs as well as her swaying dancing style made
her one of the most sought-after qawaal singers of her time.
"She always sang solo and held her ground alone, which was
remarkable for a woman in those days," saya a family source.
her most important contribution was in transforming qawaalii
from simple form of local entertainment to a lavish affair
with a grand backdrop, musicla orchestra and a lot of action
and dance.
-PTI
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SKalra902
Happy listenings.
Satish Kalra
Kishore Sampat
> May God rest her soul in Peace.
>
> Happy listenings.
>
> Satish Kalra
Do you know of any site from where I can download songs of Shakila Bano Bhopali?
Sudhir
But, it seems, she didn't sing any song (qawwali) in her own voice.
Sudhir
SKalra902
>May God rest her soul in Peace.
I should have been sensitive to remember to omit my regular signature on the
above message.
My apologies to anyone who might have been offended.
Satish Kalra
Abhay Phadnis
news:e32c7906.0212...@posting.google.com...
> She had a small role in the film: USTADON KE USTAD (1963).
>
> But, it seems, she didn't sing any song (qawwali) in her own voice.
>
> Sudhir
She is also on screen in "Shraddhanjali", dancing her way through "sai.nyaa
Dolii leke aaye tere dwaar", playbacked by Shobha Gurtu. AFAIK, she never
sang for films, but she did sing on Doordarshan several times.
Warm regards,
Abhay
Kiran Pal
QUEEN OF QAWWALI'S LAST BREATH
-Hemal Ashar
Mid Day
The Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984 affected the queen of qawwali, Shakila
Bano Bhopali, who died, aged 60, in the city on Monday. Though Shakila
was primarily Mumbai-based, her birthplace was Bhopal.
Her younger sister Zarina Bano Saman reminisces, "Shakila, along with
us (an extended family of 15), was in Bhopal in December 1984 to
attend a relative's wedding.
The family was relaxing on the terrace of our Bhopal house near upper
lake, or bada talaab as it is known in Hindi. It was very late at
night and some family members had already turned in by then.
Suddenly we heard shouts, 'bhago, bhago (run) there is poison in the
air'. We saw hordes of people running on the streets covering their
faces, shouting, pushing and falling over each other.
The family got ready to escape from the house. Shakila galvanised most
of the family members.
She would never think of fleeing on her own, I remember at that time
too, she had said, 'We all live together, we all will die together'."
Zarina recounts how Shakila, who was 42 years old at the time, and 14
others fled the house on foot, joining the surging mass of people
below. "People did not even know what they were running from, there
was so much hysteria.
Some people said Bhopal was on fire. We did not know then that it
would have been better to shut the windows and stay in the house with
a blanket covering our faces. People who were inside their homes did
not suffer as much."
The group walked for hours at night, finally stopping when they
thought they were far away. Zarina recounts, "We returned to a ghost
town in the morning." The family insists that some of the singer's
health problems stemmed directly from the gas leak.
"Shakila suffered acute respiratory problems only after that. In fact,
she became asthmatic. She also had a lot of eye problems after the
leak, which got aggravated after she developed diabetes.
I remember her being unable to go through a full programme in Mumbai
some months after the gas leak."
It may sound morbid but it is a fact that Shakila was one of Bhopal's
most famous 1984 gas leak victims.
As a public figure did she campaign for others who suffered a similar
fate? "No, not really. But she had written to the chief minister of
Madhya Pradesh Digvijay Singh about her suffering. She had received Rs
25,000 like most of the Bhopal victims did as compensation," Zarina
says.
Shakila Bano had then said in an interview to a newspaper that she was
like a factory with 20 workers who all became unemployed by her
illness.
The gas made her less capable of performances and her income dropped.
The tabalchi, peti master, dholakwala, all started getting paid
sporadically.
When told that by 1984, Shakila Bano was not the force she once was,
Zarina said, "Yes, she was not singing in films by then but was giving
live performances. Her respiratory problems put a stop to that too."
Shakila had been performing live stage shows since 1957.
Says Bhopal-based Satinath Sarangi, managing trustee of Sambhavna
Trust Clinic, which provides medical care to the survivors of the
disaster, "Singers in Bhopal who were exposed to the gas were directly
affected by the leak.
Why just singers? Most people who depended on their voice for a living
were affected. Even many muezzins (Muslim priests who call the
faithful to prayer) lost their jobs."
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