By Guneet Narula on February 2nd 2023
In this day and age we know this ghazal not by the name of the shayar who wrote it but by the adakaara who breathed life into it by giving the ghazal her voice. Akhtari Bai had a nuance of immortalising words and the pain that lived through them by laying her fan (फ़न) to the utmost into ghazals. Akhtari Bai Faizabadi was born on 7th October 1914 with a twin sister named Zohra to Mushtari and her lawyer husband. Her life became tragic and despondent from very early on after her father abandoned her and her mother after the twins were born.