Parween Sultana, Dilshad Khan

Parween Sultana was born in Gowgong in Assam in 1950. She was steeped in the lore and lives of the great musical masters by her father, Janal Ikramul Majib, a classical music devotee and a great admirer of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. From an early age her father would take her to music festivals. "I come from a very conservative Muslim family and Muslims are very, very conservative," she told me in 1991. In spite of this, her father encouraged her dawning interest in singing. It led in time to the much frowned-upon practice of singing in public. She debuted on stage at the age of ni...