Mohammed Zahur Khayyam Hashmi was an Indian music director and background score composer whose career spanned for a few decades he is better recognized magnanimously as Khayyam.
He has been awarded three Filmfare Awards: Best Music for Kabhi Kabhie in 1977 and Umrao Jaan in 1982 and a lifetime achievement award in 2010. He was granted the 2007 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in Creative Music by the National Academy of Music, Dance and Theatre, Sangeet Natak Akademi.
He received the third highest civilian honor from the Government of India in 2011, Padma Bhushan, which was given by Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil at Investiture Ceremony, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi on March 24, 2011.
In 1954, Khayyam married Jagjit Kaur in one of the Indian movie industry’s first inter-communal marriages. They had a son, Pradeep, who died in 2012 from a heart attack. Inspired by the helpful nature of their son, they began “Khayyam Jagjit Kaur Charitable Trust,” to assist artists and engineers in need.
Khayyam suffered from multiple age-related illnesses in his last days. On July 28, 2019, owing to lung infection, Khayyam was admitted to Sujay Hospital in Juhu, Mumbai. He died on August 19, 2019 of a cardiac arrest at age of 92-year. He was buried with complete government honors the next day.
