Amirbai Karnataki

Amirbai Karnataki Biography

Amirbai Karnataki was a popular singing actress of Bollywood in the first era of talkies. When heavy thumri-style and often nasal voices fully dominated the scene in the 1930s and 1940s before the entry of Lata Mangeshkar-Asha Bhosle-Geeta Dutt trio, Amirbai was one of the popular playback singers. Zohrabai Ambalewali, Rajkumari Dubey and Shamshad Begum were her contemporaries. The popular bhajan – ‘Vaishnav Jan To’ recorded in her voice was the favourite of Mahatma Gandhi. She belonged to Karnataka and was also known by the name, Kannada Kokila.

Amirbai was born in Bilgi of Bijapur Karnataka into a middle class family. She had 5 sisters. She reached Mumbai after matriculation. Her elder sister, Gauharbai earned fame in the film industry. She was only 15 when she reached Mumbai and got offer to sing a Qawwali for HMV music. Amirbai get a role in the film Vishnu Bhakti in 1934 with the help of her sister. Though she was a singing star in the first phase of her career, her initial songs went unnoticed and it took about a decade to get her songs noticed. 1943 blockbuster social drama Kismat was her career turning point. All the songs sung by her became popular cementing her position among her contemporaries. Anil Biswas was the music director of Kismat who gave the major songs to Amirbhai - Dheere Dheere Aa, Ghar Ghar Me Diwali Hai, Ham Aisi Qisamat Ko and Door Hato Ai Duniya Walo to name a few.

Amirbhai was at her career peak in 1947 and she declined acting roles. But with early 1950s with the rise of new stars like Lata mangeshkar, she started accepting acting roles. She was married to film editor - Badri Kaanchwala. She couldn’t survive a paralytic attack in 1965 and died 4 days later.

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Updated: October 09, 2014