Mehnaz Begum (1958 – 19 January 2013) was a Pakistani TV, radio, and film singer. She was well known as a filmplayback singer in the 1970s and 1980s. She was the recipient of
Nigar Awards
The Nigar Awards ( ur, , translit=Inʿām Negār, lit=Picture Awards) were presented in an annual award show to recognize outstanding achievement in Pakistani cinema. The honors are awarded by Nigar Magazine founded in 1948. The Nigar Awards ...
Mehnaz Begum was born at Mahmudabad, Uttar Pradesh, India in 1958. Her family migrated to Pakistan in the late 1950s. She received her initial training in music from her mother Kajjan Begum who was also a singer.
She started her career as a playback singer in the early 1970s. Saleem Gilani, the director general of
Radio Pakistan
Radio Pakistan serves as the national public broadcaster for radio in Pakistan. Although some local stations predate Radio Pakistan's founding, it is the oldest existing broadcasting network in Pakistan. The network was established on 14 Augus ...
, Karachi first spotted her doing a concert at her college and helped her. Mehdi Hassan and his elder brother Pandit Ghulam Qadir trained her at this radio station for about a month. Her melodious voice, musical training and control over her voice made her popular among the Pakistani film music directors.
She sang a variety of genres but specialized in ghazal,
thumri
Thumri () is a vocal genre or style of Indian music. The term "thumri" is derived from the Hindi verb ''thumuknaa'', which means "to walk with a dancing gait in such a way that the ankle-bells tinkle." The form is, thus, connected with dance, dr ...
noha
A noha ( fa, نوحه, ur, نوحہ; translit. ''nūḥa/nawḥa''; az, Növhə/Нөвһә/نؤوحه), when interpreted in light of Shia views, is an elegy about the tragedy of Husayn ibn Ali in the Battle of Karbala.
Marsiya and Noha have ...
and
marsiya
A marsiya ( fa, مرثیه) is an elegiac poem written to commemorate the martyrdom and valour of Hussain ibn Ali and his comrades of the Karbala. Marsiyas are essentially religious.
Background
The word ''Marsiya'' is derived from the Arabic word ...
. She was the daughter of celebrated sub-continental singer Kajjan Begum. and the famous government officer Abdullah Abdullah Tasnim, but when she realized fame, she changed her name to simply Mehnaz or Mehnaz Begum. She also sang ghazals and light classical music for
Pakistani television
Television in Pakistan started in 1964 and the first live transmission of Pakistan Television began on 26 November 1964, in Lahore.Profile: The songbird (Mehnaz Begum) Dawn (newspaper), Published 11 March 2012. Retrieved 21 April 2020
Mehnaz Begum never married but some of her favorite hobbies included bird-watching and admiring nature. Her favorite television show and movie was Franklin (TV series) (life of a turtle by the name Franklin) and
Bambi
''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten ...
(1942 animated movie by Disney Studios). Mehnaz Begum loved to paint in her college days and wanted to choose painting as her career. She also delighted in drawing various flowers and birds.
Popular songs
Death
She died on 19 January 2013 at a
Bahrain
Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...
hospital while transiting from
Karachi
Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former c ...
to Miami, Florida for medical treatment of a respiratory ailment. Her condition worsened during the flight and during a stopover at the Bahrain airport, she was taken to a hospital where she died. Mehnaz was laid to rest at ''Wadi-e-Hussain'' graveyard in Sohrab Goth Karachi.
Awards and recognition
* She had won the Nigar Award for Best Female Playback Singer 13 times
* ''Lifetime Achievement Award'' by Lux Style Awards (2011)
Television
* Wafa (Serial) 1999
*
Mahnoor
''Mahnoor'' ( ur, ) is a Pakistani musical film directed by Adnan Wai Qureshi, written by Zafar Mairaj and produced by Kamran Qureshi and Nadeem J.
It's a story of a young girl, who was brought up in prostitution business area of town and ...