Dhaka, Sept. 19 -- The one person, the one voice which had come to symbolize Lalon music in Bangladesh is gone. Farida Parveen had become the voice that mattered when singing Lalon songs. In fact she had brought this particular genre of music to the crowd the post 1971 Bangladesh in a way none had. It rose with her, her popularity surging as Bangladesh grew, breeding a new culture that was willing to embrace much because so much was available to do so with no restrictions on for the moment.

It was a time when various media were emerging and music had for the first time a chance to really become popular thanks to television at first and then later other media. What seventy five years back was very rural and very niche too had begun to ent...