Zahida Parveen (singer)

Zahida Parveen was born in 1925 at Amritsar, Punjab during British India.[5] Her parents died when she was very young so she was raised by one of her sisters, Peeran Ditti.[1]

She joined Patiala Gharana School to learn singing from sarangi player Baba Taj from Kapurthalla. Then she studied with Hussain Bakhsh Khan, a sarangi player from Amritsar.[1]

After partition, she moved to Pakistan and learned singing from Ashiq Hussain of Patiala Gharana in Lahore. Then she started singing at Radio Pakistan Lahore. In 1949 she worked as a playback singer and recorded a qawwali with Iqbal Bano and Munawar Sultana in the film Mundri. The qawwali was composed by B.A. Chishti.[1]

At Radio Pakistan, she performed the songs "Kya Haal Sunawan Dil Da" and "Maindi Ajj Kal Akh Phurkaandi Aei", a composition of Khwaja Ghulam Farid with kafi style the songs were recorded for His Masters Voice (HMV) on gramophone both of the songs became a hit.[6] Then she recorded many more Kafis in Urdu, Saraiki, Hindi, Punjabi and Sindhi for HMV, radio and stage.[1]

In 1940s she began to sing songs for films in Kheyal style and in classical vocalisation and she did playback singing by singing light classical music in different forms like in geets and ghazals.[1] In 1957 she along with Ustad Fateh Ali Khan recorded a song Nain Se Nain Milae Rakhoni Ko for film Waadah the song was composed by Rasheed Attre.[1]

In 1958 she worked in film Begunah and sanged a classical song Kaisi Raat Rageeli Aai in duet with Naseem Begum. The same year she was hired again by music composer Rashid Attre for film Jan-e-Bahar and was paired with Naseem Begum the duo sanged the song Ab Tou Ji Bhar Ke Khanjar Chalaenge Hum in raag darbari style.[1]

In 1964, she was honoured by All Pakistan Music Conference with a Gold Medal Award for her contribution to the music industry.[3]

Zahida was married and had a daughter named Shahida Parveen.[3] She also wanted her daughter to be a singer so she trained her daughter in a similar style and Shahida became a student of Ustad Akhtar Hussain Khan at the insistence of her mother.[1][7]

Zahida died at the age of 50 on May 15, 1975, in Lahore at Pakistan.[1][8] She was lead to rest in Miani Sahib Graveyard.[9]

• Zahida Parveen at IMDb