The Mind Creative March 2014
In 1980, while commuting in Mumbai, a lady fell down from a bus
and fractured her hip bone. Being a lonely person and living alone in
a flat in Mumbai, the only help she got was from one of the
neighbors. She got no assistance and no sympathy from the glitzy
world of Bollywood music. She passed away in anonymity at the age
of sixty eight. The lady was Saraswati Devi. She was the one of the
first two female music directors in Bollywood and was also one of the
pioneers of playback singing and the use of a title music score for
films in Mumbai.
Kaikhasroo Navroji Kabraji established the first music school in
Mumbai (1871) that set the trend away from music education in the
traditional “gharanas” or families in classical music. Khorshed’s
mother worked as a secretary at this institute (called the Parsi Gayan
Uttejak Mandali) and at the behest of her husband, the gifted
Khorshed was admitted to this institute of her initial education in
music. -