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Zahida Parveen was from Amritsar and she rose to
prominence early as she had acquired enough proficiency over a number of
forms. She was particularly adept at singing the kaafi and to music lovers
she was one of the greatest exponents of the kaafi. For the connoisseurs
she was much more than that and her rendition of the kheyal, thumri and
ghazal too were of equal importance. She sang the kaafi formalistically in
raagdaari as the musical variations of the bols were based on the
principles of progression in the raag. |
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Zahida Parveen |
If Shahida Parveen was a lesser singer than her mother
then some of the causes can be laid at the door of the times that she
lived in. She was usually referred to as the last of the female classical
vocalists in times when there were very few takers of classical music and
probably she found the demands on her time and energy not being
compensated enough either in financial or critical terms.
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For years Roshan Ara Begum stood along the leading
vocalists, and head and shoulders above the female vocalists with none
that could even be a distant second. She lived mostly in Lalamusa, a small
town in the Punjab and only performed in Lahore or other bigger cities on
invitation. Yet the level that she had achieved in her early years stood
her in good stead and even with the minimum of riyaaz she rose up to the
challenges of live performances.
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After Roshan Ara Begum's death it was said that if there
was any female vocalist to fill the void it was Shahida Parveen. But the
conditions were such that there was not enough motivation for her to
pursue this difficult task all on her own. She was the type that needed
support, encouragement and goading, and was not made of the material where
she could continue on her own with a crusade like spirit, the odds only
stoking the fires of creativity.
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Probably like many of us she too waited for the
opportunity to arrive and the conditions to become conducive but she was
disappointed as she kept waiting like the most of us. The external
conditions became less favourable, getting from bad to worse, making it
even more difficult for a person of her temperament to go it alone.
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Shahida Parveen usually sang
items made popular by her mother. For the people with a more popular
taste there was also this demand for her to sing the kaafis which her
mother had made famous but to others, though a diminishing breed, it was
important for her to sing the khayal. She did so on occasions specifically
designed for such singing and at times she performed quite well,
manifesting the years of training that she had put in. Her repertoire was
not limited, but in public she sang only a few raags, constantly
underestimating her training and talent. |
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Shahida Parveen
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She could sing multani very well, a difficult raag
because capturing the correct nuance of rikhab is the test of a singer,
but one wonders how many times she sang it. She usually limited herself to
bagheshri, aimen, megh and malkauns, the raags more commonly sung and was
not pushed hard enough to exposed a bigger repertoire that she had been
trained to acquire. The kaafis like sohne yaar bahzoon meri nahin sardi,
kiya haal sunawaan dil da koi mehram raaz na milda, dukhi dilre dardaan
maari were sung very well by her mother.
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Zahida Parveen had great command over the craft and she
sang with a certain abandon. The range of her voice easily traversed the
three registers. Shahida Parveen on the other hand never sang with that
kind of abandon and the range of her voice was limited.
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After the death of Roshan Ara Begum at least it was said
that Shahida Parveen could step in her shoes but now with the death of
Shahida Parveen such an optimistic prediction cannot be made about even a
single female vocalists who sings professionally on the media to larger
audiences. |
