There were two phases in the life of Akhtari Bai Faizabadi or Begum Akhtar. As a rising vocalist she became very famous, got sucked into the ever-growing film world and was adulated like a star. In the beginning, since life was not easy and driven by poverty, she took the bold decision against the wishes of her mother and ustad to sing for the Megaphone Record Company. The ghazal ‘Woh aseer-e-daam-e-balaa’ was such a success that it was rapidly followed by scores of thumris, dadras and ghazals.

Then she was sucked into films and acted in some while also singing in a few. She started to neglect her riyaz and indulged in distractions usually associated with show business. Yet, inspired by the virtuosity of Gauharjan, Malkajan, Jaddan Bai and Moizuddin Khan, she continued to stay attached to singing. Invitations from the courts of Hyderabad and later Rampur gave her the opportunity to wrench herself away from the theatre and film world of Bombay and Calcutta. After singing for a few years, she got married and quit singing till she was persuaded after many years to resume her career as a singer by the officials of All India Radio Lucknow, particularly one Mr. Malhotra.

There is an inherent paradox between the artiste and the star as both poach on public response. The draw in more ways than one becomes the sole criteria for a judgement or barometer for success. It does not take very long for the artiste to mouth popular recipes and fall into stereotypes than to speak his or her own mind. And this paradox of wanting to stay relevant and popular as well as authentic results in a downward spiral of unfulfilled promises and broken spirit. This tends to happen more in professions where glamour is built as its exclusive prerogative. Within no time the star is dissociated from the person and traded as a commodity at the mercy of the highest bidder. The conflict between the artiste and the public performer was best analysed by Shanti Hiranand who was very close to her for decades.

The account of the life of Akhtari Bai Faizabadi by her shagird Shanti Hiranand was further authenticated by the fact that, as in the traditional mould, she lived with her and served her as the shagird is supposed to, calling her ammi in pure veneration. She was rewarded in return by a personalised supervision of an assiduous training regime and emerged as a significant performer in her own right.

In the traditional lexicon, there is no name for a female teacher as it is supposed to be the prerogative of a male to be a guru or an ustad. Calling a female music teacher "ustani" seems to be both unseemly and undignified; so Akhtari Bai was for all purposes an ustad to her with all the implications of high seriousness attached to the honorific. Women, no matter how accomplished, could not qualify to this exalted status and had to become the shagird of a male even if they were recognised in their own right.

As other rules and structures are undergoing a change, so the traditional ustad-shagird or guru-shishya parampara is in a state of flux, but one knows that many female vocalists have tutored the next generation without being given due acknowledgement. Mothers and other female members of the family all contributed to the formal and informal education of the male heirs, they were only supposed to pass all their knowledge and understanding to their male progeny. Mothers or sisters, though accomplished, were not supposed to become performers like their sons and brothers.

In its second phase, ghazal-singing has prospered more in Pakistan than in India. By the time Akhtari Bai passed away, she was acknowledged as a ghazal singer who was unparalleled. The emergence of ghazal started around the third decade of the twentieth century in colonial India and many including K.L Saigal contributed to this evolving form. Gohar Jan and Mukhtar Begum made great contributions to the development of ghazal gaiki as did Ustad Barkat Ali Khan, Rafiq Ghaznavi and Afzal Hussain Nagina. They were great exponents of singing the thumri as well, and actually it was Ustad Barkat Ali Khan who brought the thumri ang of singing into ghazal gaiki and hence started a new trend that was to characterise this form for the next many years to come.  Shamshad Bai, Bhai Chhela and Payare Sahib held in high esteem were thumri singers.

The struggle of the leading singers, as they were reaching out to wider audiences, must have been to raise the level of the popular forms by investing it with greater musical virtuosity. The rise of the thumri and dadra can be attributed to the changing taste of the elite that wanted to spice its austere sessions with forms which were prone to being sentimental. The development of the three major schools of Punjab, Benarus and Lucknow can be traced back to that time. With the thumris and dadras, ghazal too was becoming popular and it was not unusual for the leading thumri singers to switch to ghazal if the occasion so demanded.

Akhtari Bai was born in Faizabad probably in the second decade of the twentieth century and was inspired by one Chandabai, actress with a roving theatrical company. At that time she was taking music lessons from Ustad Imdad Khan of Patna and later Ustad Ghulam Muhammed Khan. She also benefited from the education of Ustad Sakhawat Hussain in Faizabad till she became a shagird of Ustad Atta Muhammed Khan.

The emphasis on the lower register and the precise intonation of the sur must have been the contribution of Ustad Abdul Waheed Khan, for in the earlier numbers available on disc she was more inclined to sing in the upper register. The second phase of her career, when she explored the lower register, made her into a greater singer and also helped her win honours from the Sangeet Natak Academie and won her the Padma Shri. Though she died in 1974, her music is still heard and continues to inspire singers.

Begum Akhtar died on October 30, 1974