At the outset, let me admit I enjoyed reading the book: it makes for a pleasant change from the weakly researched but pretentious High-Church-academic treatises on music it has been my lot to review recently. Much of its content conveys the impression of being honestly felt, which makes even its many shortcomings relatable. That said, it is not an easy book to categorize.
The term ‘anthology’ comes close but does not do justice to its sheer scale and diversity. Its two hundred and forty-three pages span no less than forty-seven separate essays of varying lengths and perspectives. The volume is divided into four parts. The first is captioned ‘Reflections on her Life and Music’ and consists of seventeen chapters; the second titled ‘Memories, Mentions, Reminiscences’ contains twenty-six. The introduction describes it as a ‘humble effort to understand Begum Akhtar’ and to ‘know the small, personal details of her daily life’. While it does tend to emphasize the personal a little more than the first does, the distinction is fleeting. Sheila Dhar’s essay (p. 17) is deeply personal and rich in anecdotage and yet situates in the first part; Yatindra Mishra (p. 163) locates in the second but is based entirely on secondary sources. For these reasons I discuss these two parts together.