Shanno Khurana

Renowned musician Shanno Khurana was born in 1927 in the princely state of Jodhpur where her father was posted as a railway engineer. She was one of eight siblings. Her mother died in a railway accident when Mrs. Khurana was about four years old. She was then raised by her paternal grandmother. The family soon discovered Mrs. Khurana's singing abilities and she began taking music lessons. Her first radio broadcast was from a radio station in Lahore in 1945. In the same year, she married a man who was a doctor in the air force. At the time of Partition, Mrs. Khurana and her husband were living in a house on Parliament Street in Delhi. There was news of rioting in Connaught Place which was near their house. Since her husband’s family was from Bannu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly Northwest Frontier Province), 40 of his relatives came from Bannu to live with them. With 40 people living in the house, Mrs. Khurana remembers that time as being one of great hardship. Organizing their stay along with food and other amenities was a challenge. At the height of the rioting, some of her family slept in the lawn due to lack of space inside the house. They kept guns under their pillows. Some relatives stayed in their house in Delhi for a year, until they were able to find their own homes.
After Partition, Mrs. Khurana worked to promote female musicians. In 1959, she began studying with Ustad Mushtaq Hussain Khan who remained her instructor until his passing in 1964. Mrs. Khurana received her PhD in music and musicology and conducted extensive studies on the folk music of Rajasthan. She has been awarded the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan awards in 1991 and 2006, respectively.