Sunday morning brought the sad news of Reshma’s death. She was a legendary and most accomplished folk singer the entire sub-continent could be proud of. Her incredible songs swayed and inspired millions of music buffs.
Born in Bikaner, Rajasthan to a Banjara (gypsy) family around 1947, Reshma’s tribe migrated to Karachi shortly after independence.
Having received no formal education, she was only 12 when she was spotted singing at a shrine by a television and radio producer, who arranged for her to record her first song on Pakistan radio.
The song was an instant hit, and Reshma went on to become one of the most popular folk singers of Pakistan, appearing on television in the 1960s, as well as recording songs for both the Pakistani and Indian film industry.
During her career she was invited to meet Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
She once said in an interview, “I was born in a family of saudagars in Rajasthan in a small settlement called Bikaner. I don’t know the year I was born but I was told that I was brought to Pakistan when I was a few months old in 1947. My family would take camels from Bikaner and sell them in other areas, and bring back goats and cows from elsewhere to sell at home. I belong to a huge clan of gypsies. We were forever traveling around. Though a lot of us have now settled and taken up permanent residences in Lahore and Karachi, whenever we feel restless we pack our bags and move on.”
In January 2006, she was one of the passengers on the inaugural Lahore-Amritsar bus, the first such service linking both parts of the Punjab since 1947. The bus had 26 passengers in total of whom 15 were Pakistani officials, and Reshma had booked seven seats for herself and her family.
Reshma was diagnosed with throat cancer in the 1980s, in later years her health deteriorated, leading President Pervez Musharraf to come to her aid, giving her Rs1 million to help pay off a bank loan, as well as putting her on a secured assistance of Rs10,000 per month.
With her demise, a golden era of classical folk singing has come to an end. It is an irreparable loss to the world of music. — Ramesh G. Jethwani, Bangalore
Reshma’s death: Huge loss to folk music
