Akhtaribai Faizabadi, or Begum Akhtar as she was better known, was a legend even during her own lifetime, and one of the last of the great singers from the tawaif community. Akhtari documents her eventful life and her music through essays and reminiscences by some of her closest friends and associates, and by people who knew her work deeply -- including the likes of Bismillah Khan, Lata Mangeshkar, Shubha Mudgal, etc. The volume also includes long interviews with Begum Akhtar herself as well as some of her disciples. A bestseller in the original Hindi -- and now available in English -- this is a volume to treasure for all of Begum Akhtar's fans and lovers of music.
A journalist who “illuminates the human drama behind the headlines” writes about today’s dramatic events, from terrorist attacks to tsunamis (Publishers Weekly). “An uncannily honest writer,” Amitav Ghosh has published firsthand accounts of pivotal world events in publications including the New York Times, Granta, and the New Yorker (The New York Times Book Review). This volume brings together the finest of these pieces, chronicling the turmoil of our times. Incendiary Circumstances begins with Ghosh’s arrival in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands just days after the devastation of the 2005 tsunami. We then travel back to September 11, 2001, as Ghosh retrieves his young daughter from school, sick with the knowledge that she must witness the kind of firestorm that has been in the background of his life since childhood. In his travels, Ghosh has stood on an icy mountaintop on the contested border between India and Pakistan; interviewed Pol Pot’s sister-in-law in Cambodia; shared the elation of Egyptians when Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize; and stood with his threatened Sikh neighbors through the riots following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. In these pieces, he offers an up-close look at an era defined by the ravages of politics and nature. “Ghosh is the perfect chronicler of an increasingly globalized world . . . Reading [him] is a mind-expanding experience. Once you’ve finished this book, you’re very likely to press it into your friends’ hands and beg them to read it as well.” —Sunday Oregonian
Indian Legends have a way of completely disappearing from public memory as living, breathing (sometimes fire-breathing!), three-dimensional characters who are both loved and loathed for what they are. They remain stuck somewhere on the firmament, like the stars, unreachable, unassailable, untouchable. It is considered blasphemous to even think of deconstructing their myth, equal in depravity to acknowledging one s parents sex lives! As a result of which the things that one would have liked to say to them remain unsaid. Resentments and imagined slights grow and fester. Social hypocrisy demands that we, the acolytes, remain quiet. The pain of our rejection mellows with the years and then suddenly a day comes when we forget the living person, the trappings that defined them, trivia that seemed so important then is completely forgotten. All that remains in our minds is an image of some demigod, performing superhuman feats.
The Imam and the Indian is an extensive compilation of Amitav Ghosh s non-fiction writings. Sporadically published between his novels, in magazines, journals, academic books and periodicals, these essays and articles trace the evolution of the ideas that shape his fiction. He explores the connections between past and present, events and memories, people, cultures and countries that have a shared history. Ghosh combines his historical and anthropological bent of mind with his skills of a novelist, to present a collection like no other.
From the setting dusk of the fading royalties of Awadh, where Akhtari was born in 1914, to the glamour and clamour of theatre in Calcutta and films in Bombay! From the eloquent exuberance and die-hard faith underlying the tormented childhood of Akhtari Bai Faizabadi to the rhythms of silence required of the doting Begum of a Kakori Nawab! And her final transformation to an icon of music! Begum Akhtar remains an enigma! But no one could answer all those curious posers raised over several decades with as much authority as Akhtar's cherished disciple Prof Rita Ganguly, as she lends a unique perspective on the much-fabled and colourful life of this professional singing woman, who immortalised the verses of classic and contemporary Urdu poets. With a passion so varied, given the consistent evolution of Akhtar's technique, nothing short of lifetime research could have authenticated and done justice to unravel the mystique and myth of this singing sensation in the Indian subcontinent, feted by the cognoscenti and the commoner alike. The book delves into the subtle nuances of transition in time, educing the flavour, language and music of a period that witnessed the end of a predominantly feudal society; weaving the cultural tapestry of courts and twaifs and the turbulent times that led to Independence. How the enthusiasm, dreams, and frustration of the post-Independence phase coincide with emergence of the modern era, and how these historic changes connect with the sensibilities of a highly reflective artiste and mould her music! This interaction between an introvert mind of a scintillating singer and the world without, between the changing generations and an inquisitive yet introspective Mallika-e-Ghazal, spins the narrative. Begum Akhtar surfaces in her multiple roles as a performer, a lover, wife and mother, a teacher and friend, juxtaposing stupendous success and dismal failure. Music was the ultimate the eventual destination of her creative soul. But beneath the of fame and fortune was a deeply sensitive woman, facing loneliness, pain and anguish the poignant moments of existence that remained unresolved till her very end. Begum Akhtar's life perhaps mirrors an image where we too may briefly perceive ourselves and question the veracity of our own lives. Prof Rita Ganguly was under the aegis of eight renowned maestros before she came into the fold of Begum Akhtar in the early 1960s. Unreservedly propelled towards academic and artistic pursuits by her father Dr KL Ganguly, an eminent litterateur and editor of the daily, National Herald. Born in Lucknow, she was trained in dhrupad by Gopeshwar Bandyopadhyay, and graduated with honours in music & dance from Viswa Bharati University, Santiniketan. Thereafter, she secured two national scholarships, and trained in Kathakali with the legendary Ashan Kunju Kurup and Ashan Chandu Pannikar, coveting the unique honour of becoming the first woman to perform at Shastha Temple in Kerala. Subsequently, she trained in Bharatanatyam with Rukmini Devi at Kalakshetra. And new dimensions were added to her repertoire as she got closely associated with Martha Graham, the diva of modern dance, the Kathak maestro Shambhu Maharaj, and again became a recipient of national scholarship in music to train with Mallika-e-Thumri Siddheshwari Devi of Banaras. Soon after, she joined the faculty of National School of Drama, pioneered a course in Movement and Mime, and conducted Indian Classical Theatre Appreciation courses at National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Australia, Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in England, and Tower Hall Theatre in Colombo. Her final stop was Begum Akhtar who initiated her in Patiala and Kirana Gharana and gazal-gayaki, and like her last ustad, Ganguly's music transcended mere sensuous experience to scale the heights of Sufism. As a torchbearer, she's among the few musicians in the country who have continued to cultivate and popularise the traditional modes. This engaging quest led her to undertake first-ever research on traditional singing women and twaifs as a Fellow of Ford Foundation. She has also penned the biography, Bismillah Khan and Banaras: the Seat of Shehnai, and received various honours Delhi State Award, Mallika-e-Mousiki (Bangladesh), Critics Circle of India Award, Rajiv Gandhi Shiromani Award, Priyadarshini Award, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and Padma Shri.
Akhtaribai Faizabadi, or Begum Akhtar as she was later called, was a much loved classical diva of 20th century India. The last of the great female singers from the courtesan (tawaif) community, Begum Akhtar effortlessly transcended that label to marry Barrister Ishtiaq Ahmed Abbassi of Lucknow. Witty, vibrant, and engaging with the world at various levels, here was a remarkable woman who took life head-on, and by many accounts, perhaps a bit recklessly. As a tawaif, she was trained to charm the system and subvert narrow patriarchal practices by means of highly sophisticated seduction. At another level, she was a hapless victim, constantly tormented by the twists and turns of her own destiny. She braved on regardless, driven by a deep inner quest to pursue love in its purest form, as an end in itself; be it in music or in life. Begum Akhtar: Love’s Own Voice documents her troubled and tempestuous life through the narratives of some of her closest friends and associates.
