Google Doodle pays tributes to veteran classic singer Iqbal Bano
islamabad — Google honoured classic singer Iqbal Bano with her very own Google Doodle on what would have been her 81st birthday.
The illustration, designed by Karachi-based guest artist Samya Arif, celebrates the singer famous for her renditions of ghazal, nazm and other classical forms, as well as music for film and patriotic songs. She passed away in 2009 in Lahore.
Iqbal Bano was born in 1938 in Delhi and studied with Ustad Chand Khan, a master of classical Indian vocals, and began singing on All India Radio as a teenager. She moved to Pakistan in 1952 and sang on Radio Pakistan, provided vocals as a playback singer for popular movies and attracted large crowds to her live concerts.
During the regime of General Ziaul Haq, Iqbal Bano sang Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s poetry in a black sari before a crowd of 50,000 at a Lahore stadium in 1985, becoming a symbol of resistance. She was subsequently banned from performing or appearing on TV. Faiz had written the poem critical of military rule while in prison and the sari had been declared “un-Islamic”.
Bano sang in both Urdu and Farsi, earning admirers in Iran and Afghanistan, as well as India and Pakistan. A regular performer at the Jashn-e-Kabul cultural festival in Kabul, her powerful vocals once inspired King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan to give her a golden vase. In 1974, the Pakistani government honoured Bano with the President’s Award for Pride of Performance.
She was awarded Tamgha-iImtiaz (Pride of Performance) award in 1974.
Google Doodle has also honoured notable Pakistani figures in the past, such as Nusrat Fateh Ali khan, Abdul Sattar Edhi, Noor Jehan, Waheed Murad, Nazia Hassan and Fatima Surayya Bajia. —