HYDERABAD: On the birth anniversary of one of the most revered exponents of Hindustani music, Padma Bhushan Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, the city remembers him again.

Born in Kasur, Punjab (Pakistan) on April 2, 1902, after a prolonged illness, died on April 25, 1968, at Basheerbagh Palace, Hyderabad.

The birth anniversary of legendary singer Bade Ghulam Ali Khan at his grave inside the Daira Hazrath Mir Mohammed Momin sultan shahi on Friday. The grave enclosure has been recently refurbished by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC)

“It is a good thing that the GHMC has thought about preserving this grave which is visited by several people who love music and the heritage of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Saab,” said Samina Raza Ali Khan, scion of Paigah family and married to the grandson of Ghulam Ali Khan. “But the family should have been consulted. They added a genealogy table to the grave that was not necessary. They had to hurriedly remove it after we objected,” she added.

Bade Ghulam Ali Khan who sang the ‘Prem Jogan Ban Ja’ in Mughal-e-Azam among many other classical gems spent a lot of time in Hyderabad and passed away in the city at the Basheerbagh Palace in 1968. “It is time Hyderabad starts sensitively treating heritage without resorting to heavy-handed measures. We should conserve and preserve heritage, not renovate and remodel it,” said the INTACH convener Anuradha Reddy.