When a favourite student decides to pay tribute to an artiste of eminence like Begum Akhtar, it is bound to be littered with nostalgia and fond reminiscences. The Story of my Ammi is like Aktar herself – turbulent like a river in spate, expansive like a bird on a flight and lyrical in its subtlety. It brings forth the contradictions inherent in a genius like Akhtar who made the transition from being born into a world of courtesans and “baijis” to a songstress. She is who nimbly navigated the ghazals and the thumris and became a doyenne of the form.
Hiranand, who passed away last year despite being a singer of repute, was always content being in her mercurial but ever lovable guru’s shadow even after her marriage. Begum Akhtar shared a common birthplace with the famous chanteuse poet from Faizabad, Umrao Jaan. Moreover, marriage to a reputed lawyer helped her to move from the world of the baithaks and Mehfils to the upper echelons of society. She was patronised by princes and royals and high society alike. She also dabbled with the movies during the Talkies and much later acted in the likes of Mehboob Khan’s Roti and Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar.
Ironically her husband did not let her sing after marriage but had a change of heart when she had a nervous breakdown as her mother passed away. Resuming singing healed her. Her empathetic husband understood his free spirited wife and many passages in the book reveal that his unconditional love for her made him look the other way even when he knew he was cuckolded.
Akhtar’s music healed broken hearts even while her tongue was wounded and lacerated. She presided over petty household politics and yet was the perfect hostess in her Lucknow home to eminent poets like Jigar and Firaq, whipping up exquisite dishes for her guests.
Akhtar’s was a constant quest for true art, for which she broke all barriers and constantly improvised with the form and technique of singing. She could drink into the wee hours of the night with a filmi Madan Mohan and yet go off to Haj unmindful of restrictions to ostensibly save her soul. Those were strange contradictions inherent within her that gave her art an edge. For me, the book is also a love story between a man and his wife which surmounted all the caprices and heartbreak. What a movie it would make!
Begum Akhtar is the voice of heartbreak. It is the voice of despondency. It is also the voice that holds you in its maw long after the world has deserted you. She left us in 1974 but her melancholy and at the same, joie, envelopes and banishes the world into a silly puerile rumour.
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