Gurmeet Bawaਗੁਰਮੀਤ ਬਾਵਾ

Gurmeet Bawa (1944-2021) was a Punjabi folk singer from Kothe village in Gurdaspur district, celebrated as "Lambi Hek Di Malika", the queen of the long hek. She sang wedding songs, ghorian and Jugni with the alghoza and chimta, represented India at festivals abroad, and received the Padma Bhushan after her death.

Early life

Gurmeet Kaur was born in 1944 to Uttam Singh and Ram Kaur in Kothe, a village near Batala in Gurdaspur district. Her mother died when she was two. At a time when girls were rarely allowed to study or step out alone, she passed the Junior Basic Training exam and became the first woman in her area to work as a teacher, according to Hindustan Times.

She married the folk singer Kirpal Bawa, who comes from Dera Baba Nanak. He later said he wanted to see her become the brightest singer in the world, and it was with his encouragement that she moved from the classroom to professional singing.

Career

Bawa began singing professionally in 1968. She performed with the instruments of rural Punjab, among them the alghoza, chimta, dholki and tumbi, and was often accompanied on stage by a chimta player known as Chacha Chimtey Wala. Dr Ravjot Kaur, who wrote a doctoral thesis on her songs, told the Indian Express that Bawa was probably the first artist to go from village to village collecting and preserving folk songs.

Her signature was the hek, the long, unbroken opening call of a Punjabi folk song. Kirpal Bawa recalled that she held it for 45 seconds at the 1987 International Art Festival in Tbilisi, Georgia, where artists from 18 countries performed. Newspapers have called it the longest hek by any Punjabi folk singer, and it gave her the title Lambi Hek Di Malika.

She was among the first Punjabi women to sing on Doordarshan, and Wikipedia and several obituaries call her the first. Her rendition of Jugni, sung after the tradition of Alam Lohar, made her widely known. Among her best-loved numbers are the bidai song "Kaharo Doli Na Chayo" and the wedding songs "Ghorian" and "Mirza".

She represented India abroad: the Soviet Union (1987), Japan (1988), Thailand, Libya and Syria, and later Malaysia and France, and she sang in Lahore in 2003. A Japanese company recorded her in Osaka and released "The Love and Life in Punjab" in 1988.

Honours include the Punjab government's State Award (1991), the Sangeet Puraskar, the national Devi Ahilya Award from Madhya Pradesh (2002), the Shiromani Gayika Award from the Punjabi Language Department (2008) and a Rashtrapati Puraskar from the Sangeet Natak Akademi.

Personal life

Bawa and Kirpal Bawa had three daughters. Lachi, a folk singer, died of cancer in February 2020, and Glory also sings. She kept performing at weddings with Glory and had sung at a sangeet only three days before she died.

Legacy

Bawa died at a hospital in Amritsar on 21 November 2021, aged 77, after a short illness. Governor Banwarilal Purohit called her the "Nightingale of Punjab", and Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said her contribution to Punjabi folk music was indelible.

In January 2022 she was named for the Padma Bhushan, one of four Punjab recipients that year. Her daughter Glory told the Indian Express the family would have been doubly happy had the honour come in her lifetime.

Why does Gurmeet Bawa matter to Punjabis?

She carried the songs women sang at weddings and farewells onto radio, television and international stages without losing their village sound. Her hek became a measure that later folk singers are still compared with.

Where was Gurmeet Bawa from?

She was born in Kothe village, now in Gurdaspur district, Punjab. She later lived in Amritsar, where she died in 2021.

Why was she called Lambi Hek Di Malika?

The title means queen of the long hek. She held the opening call of her songs for about 45 seconds, a feat recorded at the Tbilisi festival in 1987.

Did Gurmeet Bawa win the Padma Bhushan?

Yes. She was named for the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian honour, in January 2022, two months after her death.