Runa Laila (born 17 November 1952) is a

Bangladeshi Bangladeshis ( ) are the citizens and nationals of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centred on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the Bay of Bengal, eponymous bay. Bangladeshi nationality law, Bangladeshi citizenship was fo ...

playback singer and composer. She started her career in the Pakistani film industry in the late 1960s. Her style of singing is inspired by Pakistani playback singer Ahmed Rushdi and also frequently joined him for singing duets, after replacing another singer Mala. She is one of the most prominent singers in

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

. She's is known as the "'Queen of melody"' in South Asian music. Her playback singing in films – ''The Rain'' (1976), '' Jadur Banshi'' (1977), ''Accident'' (1989), ''Ontore Ontore'' (1994), ''Devdas'' (2013) and ''Priya Tumi Shukhi Hou'' (2014) - earned her seven Bangladesh National Film Awards for Best Female Playback Singer. She won the Best Music Composer award for the film '' Ekti Cinemar Golpo'' (2018).

Early life

Laila was born on 17 November 1952 in

Sylhet Sylhet (; ) is a Metropolis, metropolitan city in the north eastern region of Bangladesh. It serves as the administrative center for both the Sylhet District and the Sylhet Division. The city is situated on the banks of the Surma River and, as o ...

East Bengal East Bengal (; ''Purbô Bangla/Purbôbongo'') was the eastern province of the Dominion of Pakistan, which covered the territory of modern-day Bangladesh. It consisted of the eastern portion of the Bengal region, and existed from 1947 until 195 ...

Dominion of Pakistan The Dominion of Pakistan, officially Pakistan, was an independent federal dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations, which existed from 14 August 1947 to Pakistan Day, 23 March 1956. It was created by the passing of the Indian Independence ...

(present-day

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

). Her father Syed Mohammed Imdad Ali belonged to a Bengali family of

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

Syeds from

Rajshahi Rajshahi (, ) is a metropolis, metropolitan city and a major Urban area, urban, administrative, commercial and educational centre of Bangladesh. It is also the administrative seat of the eponymous Rajshahi Division, division and Rajshahi Distr ...

. He was a civil servant posted in various towns such as Sylhet and

Karachi Karachi is the capital city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Sindh, Pakistan. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, largest city in Pakistan and 12th List of largest cities, largest in the world, with a popul ...

. Her mother, Amina Laila (), was a musical artist and came from a Bengali Hindu family based in Upper Assam. Her maternal uncle, Subir Sen, was a notable Indian playback singer. She started taking dance lessons of

Kathak ''Kathak'' is one of the eight major forms of Classical Indian dance, Indian classical dance. Its origin is attributed to the traveling bards in ancient northern India known as ''Kathakar'' ("storyteller"), who communicated stories from the ...

and

Bharatanatyam ''Bharatanatyam'' is a Indian classical dance form that came from Tamil Nadu, India. It is a classical dance form recognized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, and expresses South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas of Hinduism and Jainism.< ...

genre. In those days, Ahmed Rushdi was the leading film singer who introduced rock n roll,

disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...

and other modern genres to South Asian music. Following Rushdi's success,

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

bands specialising in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

started performing at various night clubs and hotel lobbies in Karachi,

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; , ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the capital city, capital and list of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh. It is one of the list of largest cities, largest and list o ...

and

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

. Laila became a fan of singer Ahmed Rushdi whom she considered her guru (teacher), and tried to emulate not only his singing style but also the way he used to perform on the stage. She then learned classical music with her elder sister Dina Laila (d. 1976). While she was a student of Saint Lawrence Convent, she won an inter-school singing competition in Karachi in the then West Pakistan. She, along with her sister, were trained by Ustad Abdul Kader Peyarang and Ustad Habibuddin Ahmed. Her cousin, Anjumara Begum, had already been a known singer. When Laila was 12, she performed as a playback singer for a male child actor in the Urdu language film ''Jugnu''. The song was titled ''Gudia Si Munni Meri''.

Career

In 1966, Laila made her breakthrough in the Pakistani film industry with the song '' Unki Nazron Sey Mohabbat Ka Jo Paigham Mila'' for the Urdu film '' Hum Dono''. She used to perform on PTV. In PTV, she had a show called ''Bazm E Laila''. She started appearing on the ''Zia Mohyuddin Show'' (1972–74) and later sang songs for films in the 1970s such as the film Umrao Jaan Ada (1972). Laila moved to Bangladesh along with her family in 1974. Her first Bengali song was ''O Amar Jibon Shathi'' for the film Jibon Shathi (1976), composed by Satya Saha. Shortly after had her first concert in India in 1974 in Mumbai. She started in Bollywood with director Jaidev, whom she met in Delhi, got her the chance to play at the inauguration of Doordarshan. She first worked with the music composer Kalyanji-Anandji for the title song of a film called Ek Se Badhkar Ek (1976). She gained popularity in India with the songs ''O Mera Babu Chail Chabila'' and '' Dama Dam Mast Qalandar''. In 1974, she recorded ''Shaadher Lau'' in Kolkata. Laila's name has been written on the

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...

for recording 30 songs within 3 days. In 1982, she won Golden Disk Award as her album Superuna composed by Bappi Lahiri was sold over 1 lakh copies on the first day of its release. In October 2009, Laila released ''Kala Sha Kala'', a collection of Punjabi wedding songs, in India. In 2012, Laila served as a judge on the show Sur Kshetra, an Indian television contest show for amateur singers. She described her relationship with fellow judge Asha Bhosle as that of sisters. In 2014, she collaborated with Sabina Yasmin on a song for a television play ''"Dalchhut Projapoti"'', the first time they worked on a song together. Laila has sung in seventeen languages including her native Bengali,

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati,

Pashto Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...

, Baluchi,

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Persian, Malay, Nepalese, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French and English.

Personal life

Laila has been married three times. She first married Khawaja Javed Kaiser, secondly a Swiss citizen named Ron Daniel and then actor Alamgir. She has a daughter Tani. Her grandson Zain Islam had been selected for the Arsenal progression center in 2012 when he was eight. Her other grandson Aaron Islam is also there.

Charity

After her sister died in 1976 from cancer, Laila held several charity concerts in Dhaka. The money raised was used to build a cancer hospital in Dhaka. Laila was named a SAARC Goodwill Ambassador for HIV/AIDS. She is the first Bangladeshi to hold this post. She visited New Delhi in 2013 on her first trip as the SAARC ambassador. She met India's External and Health ministers.

Discography

* ''Sincerely Yours'' (1973) * ''Runa Laila Sings Songs Of Talib-Ul-Maulla'' (1974) * ''Great Ghazals - Runa Laila (Style)'' (1981) * ''Runa in Pakistan (Geet) and (Ghazals)'' (1980) * '' Bappi Lahiri Presents Runa Laila - Superuna'' (1982) * ''Runa Goes Disco'' (1982) * ''Sings For Umrao Jaan Ada (Ghazals)'' (1985) * ''Ganga Amar Ma Padma Amar Ma'' (1996) * ''Bazm-E-Laila'' (2007) * ''Runa Laila-Kala Siah Kala'' (2010)

Awards

* Radio Mirchi Music Award presented by Radio Mirchi at Nazrul Mancha in

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

(2015) * Independence Day Award, Bangladesh * Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer (1976, 1977, 1989, 1994, 2012, 2013 and 2014) * Sheltech Award, Bangladesh * Lux-Channel I Lifetime Performance Award, Bangladesh * Saigal Award, India * Nigar Award, Pakistan (1968, 1970) * Critics Award, Pakistan * Graduate Award, Pakistan * Firoza Begum Memorial Gold Medal, Bangladesh * Bangladesh Music Journalists Association (BMJA) lifetime achievement award, 2020

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Laila, Runa Living people 1952 births People from Rajshahi District 20th-century Bangladeshi women singers 20th-century Bangladeshi singers Women ghazal singers Bengali playback singers Bollywood playback singers Sindhi-language singers Punjabi-language singers Bangladeshi ghazal singers Nigar Award winners Best Female Playback Singer National Film Award (Bangladesh) winners Recipients of the Independence Award Honorary Fellows of Bangla Academy Best Female Singer Bachsas Award winners Best Music Composer National Film Award (Bangladesh) winners 21st-century Bangladeshi women singers 21st-century Bangladeshi singers Sindhi women singers