Most of the content of these little single-page blurbs could easily have been woven into one or two representative essays to convey the sentiments of Akhtar’s audiences powerfully and evocatively. The book certainly contains some interesting trivia and endearing reminiscences, but these have to be excavated from within reams of wearying repetition. We learn, again and again, how various famous people were moved to tears by Akhtar’s singing and about how the crack in her voice regularly pierced the hearts of connoisseurs. Tedium and repetition are the hallmarks of this book. Dhar and Kidwai both dispel this simplistic portrayal of Akhtar as victim and Abbasi as perpetrator and yet in the rest of the book, essay after insipid essay includes voyeuristic gossip about this relationship that, with great tedium, undoes Dhar and Kidwai’s work. One is forced to read repeated accounts of Akhtar’s relationship with her husband, Barrister Abbasi, who is said to have caused her to give up her music after their marriage, only to have ‘allowed’ her to start singing again so that she might escape the distress this caused her. ![]() ![]() ![]() Akhtari Bai’s incomparable singing taught me how to understand a ghazalĪn excerpt from ‘Akhtari Bai Couldn’t Live Without Love’, by Sheela Dhar, from ‘Akhtari: The Life and Music of Begum Akhtar’, edited by Yatindra Mishra.
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