Pak entertainment | despardes.com

ISLAMABAD, Nov 27: Shahanshah-e-Ghazal Mehdi Hassan who had ruled the world of music for half a century is losing speaking power fast, according to a private TV channel report on Saturday.

His voice and unique performance skills in 'Ghazal gaiki' were unmatched in world of music. This great icon of music world being caught in the midst of inevitable aging afflictions is reported to be fast losing his voice.

The 60s and 70s could be justifiably named to be Mehdi Hassan's decades, as hardly there was one hero of the cine-world on whom Mehdi Hassan's song was not filmed.

The maestro, who kept the music lovers captivated with thousands of geets and ghazals and captured the imagination of listeners world-wide, was born in Jaipur, Rajasthan.

The King of Ghazal started his career from Radio Pakistan in 1952 by singing the hit ghazal "Gulo may rang bharay bad-e-nau bahar chalay". And, thereafter, he never looked behind but went on singing one hit after the other over a span of 50 years totaling over 30,000 geets and ghazals, whose popularity among the masses shot him to pinnacles of glory and made him Pakistan's supreme vocalist.

Mehdi Hassan has now made Karachi his permanent residence and whenever he visits Lahore he spends most of his time with his children and other family members.

Mehdi Hassan�s voice and unique performance skills in ghazal singing were unmatched in the world of music. The 60s and 70s can be named Mehdi Hassan�s decades�, as there was hardly any hero of the cine-world on whom Mehdi Hassan�s song was not filmed, a private television channel reported.

Strings does song for Bollywood flick

KARACHI: Pop duo Strings (Bilal Maqsood and Faisal Kapadia) have added another feather to their cap by recently producing a song for Indian movie director Sanjay Gupta�s latest film �Zinda,� Daily Times learnt on Saturday.

The video for this song �Zinda hoon� (Yeh hai meri kahani) (I�m alive; This is my story) has also been directed by Gupta and in addition to the Strings, features the film�s actors Sanjay Dutt and John Abraham. As with most of their songs, the lyrics of Zinda Hoon have also been penned by Bilal�s father Anwar Maqsood. MTV launched the video on November 20, according to the band�s newsletter. �Zinda� (the movie) stars Sunjay Dutt, John Abraham, Lara Dutta, Celina Jaitley and Mahesh Manjrekar and will be released on January 13.

The Strings� latest outing will also be launched at the International Film Festival of India in Goa. Both Maqsood (Jr) and Kapadia will be performing at the launch and the music for the movie Zinda will be launched on December 4. The Strings has had a good year. They were selected as Pakistan UNICEF National Ambassadors for HIV and AIDS inspectors when they put up a performance at the United Nations Secretariat in New York.

In February, the group was called to New Delhi where they participated in a charity function for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh�s fund for tsunami victims. The duo�s unplugged performance of �Naa Jaaney Kyun� was dedicated to the tsunami victims.