Hamari yaad aayegi: Singer Mubarak Begum passes away

MUMBAI: Mubarak Begum, whose effortless high notes of longing turned ‘Kabhi Tanhaiyon Mein’ (Hamari Yaad Aayegi) into a timeless classic for every aficionado of half-forgotten Hindi film songs, passed away at her Jogeshwari home on Monday night. “She was unwell for quite some time,” a family member told PTI. The news agency said she was 80. Several articles online, though, ascribe her year of birth as 1940 without mentioning the date.
“Mubarak Begum had a clear diction, a flawless throw in her voice. There’s always an undercurrent of pathos, a kind of virah (a yearning for union), as we feel in the poetry of Baba Farid. The song ‘Hamari Yaad Aa-yegi’ evokes that sense in every listener’s heart,” said singer Rita Ganguly.
The number, which became the singer’s signature, was composed by the Gandhi-cap wearing music director Snehal Bhatkar in director Kidar Sharma’s 1961 film. “I was unwell that day and took an injection before the recording,” she recalled in an interview to Rajya Sabha TV in 2012.
Another title song, a duet for the mighty Prasad Productions Madras in ‘Hamrahi’ (1963), brought out the bounce and impishness in her voice. Filmed on Telugu star Jamuna and Rajendra Kumar, the track finished as the year’s seventh most popular number in Binaca Geet Mala’s annual countdown show.
Mubarak Begum belonged to the era when Hindi films were written and retro-fitted around songs. And with hits like these, many believed her stop-start career, which had begun with the aptly-named 1949 film ‘Aiye’, was geared up for a crescendo. Yet songs came to her only like drops of water in a desert tap. Quite a few were mujra numbers, generally all-female duets for small banners. “Smaller films paid Rs 150 per song. Big banners gave Rs 500-1,000,” she once revealed.
Mubarak Begum was born in Sujangarh, Rajasthan, but grew up in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Her father sold fruits in lorries but also enjoyed playing tabla. He took her to watch movies of Noorjehan and Suraiya, whose songs she enjoyed humming. The hard-up family shifted to Bombay hoping that their fortunes would improve if she became a playback singer, Mubarak Begum once said in an undated radio interview available on YouTube. Trained in Kirana gharana, she first sang ghazals for All India Radio.
The singer attracted serious attention in Hindi film industry after singing a bunch of songs in auteur Kamal Amrohi’s ‘Daaera’ (1953), an underfeted masterpiece on unrequited love. Incidentally, ‘Devta Tum Ho Mera Sahara’, one of the finest bhajans in a Hindi film, was sung by Mohd Rafi and Mubarak Begum, penned by Kaif Bhopali and composed by Jamal Sen.
In the years that followed, most top music directors gave her a song or two. SD Burman (Devdas), Salil Chowdhary (Madhumati), Kalyanji-Anandji (Juari, Saraswatichandra), Shankar-Jaikishen (Hamrahi, Arzoo, Teesri Kasam), Khayyam (Shagoon, Mohabbat Isko Kahete Hain). But not more. She recorded between 150 and 200 songs in her entire career spanning nearly two decades. Without naming anyone, the singer once blamed “monopoly” and “groupism” as reasons behind the loss of her “rozi roti” in a radio interview.
Writing for the online magazine, thewire.in, Sidharth Bhatia points out that the singer was “the last of the ‘Muslim voices from the Golden era of Hindi cinema” which included names such as Zohrabai Ambalewali, Amirbai Karnataki, Noorjehan, Shamshad Begum and the queen of them all, Suraiya”. He described the “Muslimness” in her voice “not so much a reference to her religion than to a particular kind of tone and texture and style—a lahja”.
By late 1960s, Mubarak Begum was out of work. The singer performed occasionally on stage and in gatherings for some years. But she fell on hard times in the autumn of her life. Stories in newspapers and television pushed the Maharashtra government and charitable organizations to offer aid. There was also renewed interest in her work marked by Saregama releasing a double CD collection of her 28 tracks.
What remained till her last breath was a lingering regret of songs unsung. And perhaps a wish that fans remember her like the timeless track, ‘Kabhi Tanhaiyon Mein, Hamari Yaad Aayegi’.