She was equally known for singing Persian ghazals, and performed regularly at the Jashn-e-Kabul festival, an annual high-profile event in imperial Afghanistan until the early 1970s. Her Persian renditions include the classical Ma ra be-gham ze kusht...

Upon migration to Pakistan, Bano, at 17, married a conservative zamindar who, however, fostered her talent

urging her never to give up singing. She also lent her voice to several Pakistani films as a playback singer, mostly in the 1950s. After her husband passed away in 1981, she moved to Lahore from her farmhouse near Multan, to live with her two sons and a daughter. In 1974, she was awarded the President’s Pride of Performance.

As a master of the genre, she is now survived only by Mehdi Hasan, who is critically ill, and the still very charming Farida Khanum. No living artist today comes even near the benchmarks set by these ghazal maestros, along with the late Begum Akhtar and Ustad Amanat Ali Khan. And in Pakistan, a land under the shadow of encroaching Talibanisation, Bano’s classic number from the 1950s, Parishaan raat saari hai, sitaro tum to so jao (‘distressing is the enveloping night, stars you go to sleep’) is all the more haunting — as yet another bright star goes out.

The writer is an editor with ‘Dawn’, Karachi