Laila was born on 17 November 1952 in Sylhet, East Bengal, Dominion of Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) to Syed Mohammed Imdad Ali, a civil servant from Rajshahi posted in Karachi, and Amina Laila (née Anita Sen), a musical artist.[8][9][10] Her maternal uncle, Subir Sen, was a notable Indian playback singer. She started taking dance lessons of Kathak and Bharatanatyam genre. In those days, Ahmed Rushdi was the leading film singer who introduced rock n roll, disco and other modern genres to South Asian music. Following Rushdi's success, Christian bands specialising in jazz started performing at various night clubs and hotel lobbies[11] in Karachi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Dhaka and Lahore. Laila became a fan of singer Ahmed Rushdi whom she considered her guru (teacher), and tried to emulate not only his singing style but also the way he used to perform on the stage.[3] She then learned classical music with her elder sister Dina Laila (d. 1976).[3][12][13]
While she was a student of Saint Lawrence Convent, she won an inter-school singing competition in Karachi in the then West Pakistan.[14] She, along with her sister, were trained by Ustad Abdul Kader Peyarang and Ustad Habibuddin Ahmed.[14] Her cousin, Anjumara Begum, had already been a known singer.[14] When Laila was 12, she performed as a playback singer for a male child actor in the Urdu language film Jugnu.[14] The song was titled Gudia Si Munni Meri.[15]
Career
In 1966, Laila made her breakthrough in the Pakistani film industry with the song Unki Nazron Sey Mohabbat Ka Jo Paigham Mila for the Urdu film Hum Dono.[16][17] She used to perform on PTV.[18] In PTV, she had a show called Bazm E Laila.[14] She started appearing on the Zia Mohyuddin Show (1972–74) and later sang songs for films in the 1970s such as the film Umrao Jaan Ada (1972).
Laila moved to Bangladesh along with her family in 1974.[14] Her first Bengali song was O Amar Jibon Shathi for the film Jibon Shathi (1976), composed by Satya Saha.[14] Shortly after had her first concert in India in 1974 in Mumbai.[19] She started in Bollywood with director Jaidev, whom she met in Delhi, got her the chance to play at the inauguration of Doordarshan.[3] She first worked with the music composer Kalyanji-Anandji for the title song of a film called Ek Se Badhkar Ek (1976).[20] She gained popularity in India with the songs O Mera Babu Chail Chabila and Dama Dam Mast Qalandar.[21] In 1974, she recorded Shaadher Lau in Kolkata.[22] Laila's name has been written on the Guinness World Records for recording 30 songs within 3 days.[15] In 1982, she won Golden Disk Award as her album Superuna composed by Bappi Lahiri was sold over 1 lakh copies on the first day of its release.[15]
In October 2009, Laila released Kala Sha Kala, a collection of Punjabi wedding songs, in India.[23] In 2012, Laila served as a judge on the show Sur Kshetra, an Indian television contest show for amateur singers.[24] She described her relationship with fellow judge Asha Bhosle as that of sisters.[25] In 2014, she collaborated with Sabina Yasmin on a song for a television play "Dalchhut Projapoti", the first time they worked on a song together.[26][27] Laila has sung in seventeen languages including her native Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Pashto, Baluchi, Arabic, Persian, Malay, Nepalese, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French and English.[4]
Personal life
Laila has been married three times. She first married Khawaja Javed Kaiser, secondly a Swiss citizen named Ron Daniel and then actor Alamgir. She has a daughter Tani.[3] Her grandson Zain Islam had been selected for the Arsenal progression center in 2012 when he was eight. Her other grandson Aaron Islam is also there.[28]
Charity
After her sister died in 1976 from cancer, Laila held several charity concerts in Dhaka. The money raised was used to build a cancer hospital in Dhaka.[3][4] Laila was named a SAARC Goodwill Ambassador for HIV/AIDS.[29] She is the first Bangladeshi to hold this post.[30] She visited New Delhi in 2013 on her first trip as the SAARC ambassador. She met India's External and Health ministers.[31]
^ abcSanskriti Website. "Runa Laila". KOA Music Section. Kashmiri Overseas Association (KOA). Archived from the original on 18 April 2015. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
^Arnold, Alison (2000). The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Taylor & Francis. pp. 420–421. ISBN0-8240-4946-2.
^Gulzar; Nihalani, Govind; Chatterji, Saibal (2003). Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema. Popular Prakashan. pp. 532–533. ISBN81-7991-066-0.
^ abcdeTasbir Iftekhar (6 October 2018). "Saga of the Melody Queen". The Daily Star. Archived from the original on 16 October 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
^Jamil, Syed Maqsud. "Songs of the Sixties". The Daily Star. Archived from the original on 17 June 2015. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
^Wahid, Shahnoor. "Runa Laila". The Daily Star. Archived from the original on 17 June 2015. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
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