NDLI: Begum Akhtar : Photo Archive - Photograph 02

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Begum Akhtar : Photo Archive - Photograph 02

Content Provider	IGNCA - Begum Akhtar Portal
Owner	Hiranand, Vidushi Shanti
Description	Akhtaribai Faizabadi’s career in theatre & films started when she moved to Calcutta in 1927. She started performing on the stage and some old timers remember her playing “a vamp, dressed in a black velvet Western dress & smoking a cigarette with a long black holder”; as S. Kalidas recounts in his book. Jaddan Bai was a source of inspiration for Akhtari, as she moved to Bombay to act in films such as Ek Din Ka Badshah and Nal Damayanti in 1933. Next year, she was seen in Ameena and Jawani Ka Nasha; and the year after in Naseeb Ka Chakkar. Her career in films continued till early 1940s but ended abruptly after that. Saleem Kidwai offers some insight when he says, “Begum Akhtar had everything she needed to be a star. She was dazzlingly beautiful, she had a screen presence and she sang like an angel. But her reluatnace to stay in films might have been rooted in her reluctance to dance. So much for a tawaif to be automatically a ‘nautch girl’ ! In Mehboob Khan’s Roti she was teamed with Sitara Devi. Yet she got to hum only one song. Sitara got to sing the rest because she could dance with wild abandon as a ‘sexually liberated’; lass. Akhtari’s performance was otherwise professionally competent.” Her last brush with cinema was in 1958 when Satyajit Ray convinced her to play a courtesan in a charming cameo for his classic film Jalsaghar.
File Format	JPG / JPEG
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Khayal Indian Classical Music Thumri Ameena Kolkata Jalsaghar Begum Akhtar Ghazal Nal Damayanti Sitara Devi Classic Flim Saleem Kidwai Mehboob Khan Satyajit Ray Kalidas
Content Type	Image
Resource Type	Photograph

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