Jagjit Kaur, the veteran playback singer and wife of late music director Mohammed Zahur Khayyam, died on Sunday morning. She was 93.
According to a report in ANI, she breathed her last around 6 am on Sunday at her residence in Mumbai.
The late artist’s spokesperson told ANI that Kaur’s last rites were performed at Pawan Hans Crematorium, SV Road Vile Parle in Mumbai on the same day.
According to a report in The Times of India, she had been hospitalised for the last 15 days following a dip in her oxygen levels. Khayyam’s former manager Raj Sharma, who performed her last rites, told the daily, “She was not keeping well for the last 15 days. Her oxygen level had dropped and her organs were also giving up, so we had to admit her to the hospital.”
The report also states that singer Anup Jalota and composer Uttam Singh, along with other residents from the housing society, attended the funeral.
Kaur has several popular songs to her credit, including the ones composed by her late husband such as Dekh Lo Aaj Humko Jee Bharke from Bazaar, the 1982 film featuring Supriya Pathak Kapur and Farooq Shaikh; Pehle To Aankh Milana from 1961’s Shola Aur Shabnam, starring Dharmendra; and Tum Apna Ranjo Gum-Apni Pareshani from the 1964 Waheeda Rehman-starrer Shagoon.
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Kaur started her career in the early 50s, singing songs in films like Posti (Punjabi language) and Dil-e-Nadan, starring Talat Mehmood and Shyama.
She got married to Khayyam in 1954.
In 2016, Kaur and her husband started the Khayyam Jagjit Kaur KPG Charitable Trust to support budding artists and technicians in the country.
In August 2019, Khayyam died in a Mumbai hospital at the age of 92. The couple’s only son Pradeep Khayyam had earlier died in 2012 after a cardiac arrest.
According to the TOI report, the house in which Kaur lived will be given over to the trust.