Legendary folk singer Reshma passed away in Lahore on Sunday morning.
According to Dawn, the singer, who was diagnosed with throat cancer, had been in a coma for a month.
Reshma was born into a Banjara family in Bikaner in India’s Rajasthan state in 1947. The same year her family migrated to Pakistan after the Partition.
“I was born in a family of saudagars (traders) 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 travelling 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,’’ Reshma once said in an interview about her family.
Reshma’s talent was unearthed by a television and radio producer when she was 12 and she became immediately famous after she sang `Laal Meri” on Pakistani radio.
President Pervez Musharraf helped her financially and arranged a monthly pension of Rs 10,000 after her health worsened.
Her famous numbers include “Dama Dam Mast Kalandar”, “Hai O Rabba nahion lagda dil mera”, “Ankhiyan no rehen de ankhyan de kol kol” and “Lambi Judai”.
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