Lalan maestro Farida Parveen passes away
The air in Bangladesh grew quieter on Saturday night.
At 10:15 pm, as the last light of dusk surrendered to the hush of twilight, Farida Parveen, the woman whose voice carried the whispers of Lalan’s mystic poetry, the sighs of rural fields, and the tears of a thousand unsung hearts, took her final breath.
She was surrounded by silence then, but not alone. Her sons held her hands. Her songs filled the room.
Her eldest son, Imam Nimeri Upal, his voice trembling like a plucked esraj string, whispered to Jago News: “Amma passed away today at 10:15 pm.”
Those three words “Amma passed away” felt less like news, and more like the closing of a sacred chapter.
Farida Parveen had been fighting for months – quietly, bravely, with the same dignity she brought to every note she sang. Kidney failure had stolen her strength, but never her spirit. Twice a week, she endured dialysis, enduring pain so others could still hear beauty. On September 2, she was admitted to Universal Medical College Hospital in Mohakhali for routine treatment. But the body, tired from decades of singing truth into the world, began to surrender.
By Wednesday, September 10, her lungs faltered. The machines hummed. The ventilator breathed for her, but her soul? Her soul had already begun its journey back to the fields where Lalan walked, where the wind carried verses of love, loss, and liberation.
And so, on the eve of a new moon, Farida Parveen left us, not with a bang, but with the softest of endings… like a fading echo of a folk tune sung beneath a banyan tree.
A voice born from the Soil
Born not for stages, but for souls, Farida began her journey in 1968 as a listed artist of Rajshahi Betar, singing Nazrul Sangeet with a devotion that made even the radio weep. By 1973, she had become the voice of the Bengali countryside, her renditions of Baul, Lalan, and folk ballads weren’t performances. They were prayers.
She didn’t just sing songs, she resurrected them.
In 1987, the nation honoured her with the Ekushey Padak, not merely for artistry, but for preserving the soul of a people through music. In 1993, she won the National Film Award for her hauntingly beautiful film songs, melodies that still linger in the minds of those who heard them, long after the credits rolled.
And in 2008, Japan bowed before her awarding her the prestigious Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize, recognizing her not as a singer, but as a living bridge between cultures, carrying the spiritual essence of Bengal to the farthest corners of Asia.
She sang with her heart and we all listened with ours
To know Farida Parveen was to know that true art is not performed, it is lived.
She sang of lovers parted by caste, of mothers mourning sons lost to war, of peasants dancing in rain-soaked fields and each time, you didn’t just hear the song. You felt it. In your bones. In your chest. In the quiet spaces between your breaths.
Even in her final days, when her voice could no longer rise above the hum of machines, her family say she would softly hum fragments of Lalan’s verses, as if the lyrics were her last prayer.
The world is dimmer now
Farida Parveen leaves behind her sons, grandchildren, countless disciples, and a nation that loved her more than it ever said.
Her funeral will be held Sunday, with thousands expected to line the streets, not just as mourners, but as listeners. Because in her passing, we are reminded: the greatest artists don’t die. They dissolve into the wind… and continue to sing.
So tonight, when the stars blink awake over Kushatia, Dhaka, Rajshahi, Chattogram, and beyond, listen closely.
If you hear a faint, trembling melody drifting through the trees…
That’s not the wind.
That’s Farida.
Still singing.