Written by: Haroon Shuaib
Posted on: December 26, 2022 | 
| 中文
(L to R) Ustad Rais Khan, Farhan Khan, Begum Bilqees Khanum and Jay Visvadeva
As 2022 is coming to an end, Pakistan’s music industry is already poorer with singers such as the nightingale of Pakistan Nayyara Noor and the nightingale of Sindh, Robina Qureshi, having left for their heavenly abode during this year. On December 22, another golden voice of Pakistan’s musical landscape breathed her last. Renowned singer Bilqees Khanum passed away in Karachi after a prolonged illness. Bilqees Khanum was born in a middle-class household in the Garhi Shahu area of Lahore on 25 December 1948. Her father, Abdul Haq, was a furnituremaker and her mother was a housewife. Bilqees was the eldest of their seven children: five girls and two boys. Bilqees spent her formative years in Faisalabad and though she did not pursue formal education beyond primary school, her interest in the Urdu language led her to develop a clear pronunciation despite her Punjabi background. She had a keen interest in singing from an early age, and used to sing songs at school functions. She took some singing lessons at a young age from her maternal grandfather, Inayat Ali Khan.
Bilqees Khanum
The family eventually moved back to Lahore from Faisalabad and settled in the Ghalib Market area. Bilqees started performing in private concerts, where she used to sing ghazals. In 1964, a friend of her father heard her sing and suggested that she should try her luck in radio. Three months after her first audition, she got a call from Radio Pakistan to come and join as a chorus singer. Those were the times when programs were live and a new artist had to sing for at least three months as part of a chorus. Bilqees did her first solo performance with Nasir Kazmi’s ghazal, ‘Teri zulfon ke bekharnay ka sabab hai koi’. After gaining some confidence, Bilqees again appeared for an audition as a lead singer. This time the renowned producer Saleem Gilani took her audition. Forty artists came to try their luck, and she was among the lucky few that were selected. She was soon singing from radio stations in Rawalpindi and Muzaffarabad. However, she continued to perform at private concerts as she was supporting her family financially and funding the education of her brothers. She had been deprived of education because of her family’s financial hardship.
Ustad Rais Khan, Bilqees Khanum's husband
By the time television started in Lahore, Bilqees, was an established radio singer and didn’t have to audition to get an opportunity on television. She started her singing career on Pakistan Television with a Punjabi song, and then went on to sing many national songs during the 1965 war. Her beautiful rendition of Habib Jalib’s ‘Mat samjho hum nay bhula diya, ye mitti tumko pyari thee, iss mitti main hee sula diya’, is a haunting tribute to the martyrs of the 1965 war. Khwaja Najam Hassan, an old and famous director of Pakistan Television recalls that, ‘Bilqees Khanum started her career as a singer on Pakistan Television when the transmission was live only for three hours every day. They would rehearse songs at a hired building opposite Radio Pakistan. Television’s small studio had been set up on the lawns of the radio station in Lahore, and it continued like this till 1973, when it finally shifted to the new building constructed to house PTV Lahore’.
Bilqees Khanum on PTV Screen
Bilqees Khanum worked with producers such as Kanwar Aftab, Tariq Aziz, Shehenshah Nawab, Fazal Kamal, Rafiq Ahmad Waraich and Shoaib Mansoor on television. She also sang as a playback singer for a few films such as ‘Mela Sajna Da’ and ‘Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan’. She was one of the few singers of her era who made a name mainly through television and radio, without making a serious impact as a playback singer for films. ‘I could not adapt myself to that environment. I gradually moved away from the industry. Twenty-five or thirty film songs must have been sung, but my luck was good because almost all those films were never completed or released,’ she recalled in an interview with a laugh.
Bilqees Khanum and Ustad Rais Khan
In the early 70s, Bilqees Khanum visited Karachi for a concert and decided to settle in that city. It was in Karachi that she recorded her first big hit for television. ‘Anokha ladla’; a composition of Ustad Ashiq Ali Khan in Raag Darbari with lyrics penned by Asad Mohammad Khan. This song was presented for the first time in Amir Imam’s program ‘Sargam’, and was an instant hit. Soon after, Bilqees Khanum sang another memorable ghazal which became her most memorable work. This was Obaidullah Aleem’s ghazal ‘Kuch din to buso meri aankhon mein’, composed by Ustad Nazar Hussain. Incidentally, Bilqees’ brother, Mohsin Raza, started assisting Ustad Nazar and ultimately became a very credible music composer in his own right. In fact, when Ustad Nazar was composing new ghazals for Madam Noor Jehan’s ‘Tarunnum’ series, Mohsin Raza produced a few compositions of his own, and while Madam Noor Jehan did not trust any newbie to compose for her, she was happy to sing Mohsin Raza’s compositions; one of which became the immortal ‘Mein teray sung kaisay chaloon sajna’.
Bilqees Khanum
Some of Bilqees’ other memorable numbers include, ‘Wo to khushbu hai hawaon main bikhar jayega’, a very popular ghazal of the famous poet Parveen Shakir composed by Nisar Bazmi. Bilqees also sang traditional songs such as ‘Chaap tilak’, ‘Sakal ban phool rahi sarson’, and ‘Amma meray baba ko bhejo ri’, all of which are based on classical lyrics and compositions from the 19th century.
Anokha Ladla (original) by Bilqees Khanum
In 1978, she met the famous sitarist, Ustad Rais Khan, a maestro of Meewati Gharana, who was living in India at the time and visiting Karachi for a concert. The meetings soon blossomed into love. In 1980, they got married, and Bilqees Khanum moved to India with Ustad Rais. In 1986 she moved back to Pakistan and again settled in Karachi. Ustad Rais also moved back with her and despite being at the peak of his career, left everything behind and took Pakistani nationality. He passed away in 2017 at the age of 77. Bilqees was by his side like a dutiful wife till his dying day. They have two sons, Farhan Khan and Huzoor Khan, who are also sitar players like their father.
Bilqees Khanum and Ustad Rais with Asha Bhosle and others
Bilqees Khanum did not sing as much as her fans would have liked her to, but whatever she sang became a classic. Her deep cultured voice was well-suited for songs that expressed delicate emotions but had to be sung with restraint and poise. Bilqees Khanum will continue to live through her music for decades to come.
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