Mai Bhaghi

Mai Bhaghi (Youthful)

Mai Bhaghi (middle-aged)

Mai Bhaghi (1920-7 July 1986) the legendary Pakistani folk musician, was bornBhag Bhari in Mithi in Thar, Sindh.^[1] Mai Bhagi grew up in a small village surrounded by the vast and unforgiving Thar Desert. She began to sing Thari songs as a child. After the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Bhagi’s family began to regularly travel to Pakistan’s largest city (and future capital of Sindh), to earn some money by singing at marriage ceremonies of Sindhi families residing in Karachi. It was at one such ceremony that a producer associated with Radio Pakistan noticed a then 30-something Bhagi and offered to record some songs by her in the studios. She was paid a check of Rs.20 for her efforts. By the early 1960s, Mai Bhagi was regularly appearing on Radio Pakistan singing songs in Thari and Sindhi languages, but she remained rooted in her small and impoverished village of Tharparkar. Mai Bhagi’s ‘Kharee neem kay neechey’ (underneath a neem tree) is one of the most famous songs ever to emerge from the desert expanse of Tharparker (in the Sindh province). Sung in the complex Thari language (the ancient Rajasthani dialect still spoken in the region), the song is believed to have been written by an obscure woman Sufi saint who lived in the Thar desert more than a century ago. Nevertheless, the song was first brought into the mainstream in Pakistan when it was performed by Mai Bhagi on Radio Pakistan in the early 1960s. It is believed that though she had been singing ‘Kharee neem kay neechey’ ever since she was a teenager, she first sang the song on Radio Pakistan sometime in the early 1960s. But it wasn’t until she sang it on the state-owned PTV in 1974 that the song became a national mainstream hit and turned Bhagi into a Sindhi/Thari folk star. The song speaks of a dreamy young woman of the desert standing underneath a neem tree, watching the sands of time roll by, as Thar’s ‘national bird’ (the peacocks) and koels dance and sing around her, becoming Mai Bhagi’s main claim to fame after she performed it on TV. She soon began to accompany a number of other folk singers who were often sent to various countries by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to perform at ‘folk concerts’ and ‘folk melas’ in cities like New York, London, Moscow, Paris, etc. Bhagi was already in her 50s when she first gained widespread national recognition in the 1970s. She continued to perform the song in concerts and on TV until her death in 1986 at the age of 66.^[2] Mai Bhagi won Pride of Performance and other main Sindhi awards.^[3] She also had many other amazing songs, besides the first one to launch her into stardom. Her collection of music is masterful, enthralling, magnetic, and rare. While it is hard to find, any Pakistani folk music enthusiast, has tracked down and treasured as many of her recordings as possible.The music speaks for itself, and lives on despite her absence. Easily the most famous and talented female singer from Sindh, she died on July 7, 1986, a true legend of Pakistani Folk Music.

Mai Bhaghi (1920 - died 7 July 1986) is a folk singer of Sindh. She was born in thar desert. Much of her songs are in tharilanguage. Many of her songs have been telecasted from Pakistan Television.^[4]