But it is in the ghazal, ‘Aksar Shab-e-Tanhai Mein’, in which Reshma, with faltering strokes of emotion, finds her soul. The gypsy singer from Rajasthan, Reshma, came to be famous for her song in Hero, where Laxmikant-Pyarelal made her render the Hindi version of the Punjabi folk song, ‘Char Dinan Da Pyar O Rabba Bari Lambi Judai’. She wears her grief, a moon-soaked white, / corners the sky into disbelief. ‘Ghazal, that death-sustaining widow, / sobs in dingy archives, hooked to you. In her memory, the late Kashmiri-American poet, Agha Shahid Ali, wrote, From Shakeel Badayuni’s ‘Mere Humnafas Mere Humnawa’, to Ghalib’s ‘Ibn-e-Mariyam Hua Kare Koi’, Akhtar scales songs of bereavement full of longing. All of Begum Akhtar is a veritable plunge into the river of sadness. In the world of the ghazal, a genre ripe with sadness, there are quite a few exemplars.
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