PESHAWAR: The miseries of noted Pashto folksinger Gulzari alias Wagma, who had been suffering from poverty for the past eight years, have increased after the popular singer was recently diagnosed with stomach cancer.

She was born in Menai village of Swabi district and shifted to Peshawar in 1995 when she married Liaquat Ali Khan Yousafzai, a local stage shows producer and art promoter. Wagma has 2,500 albums to her credit and is recipient of 200 local awards. She has represented Pakistan in China, Syria, Qatar, Dubai, Iran and Afghanistan. She earned the title of second Gulnar Begum, a top folksinger of the yore days.

Wagma shot to fame when she sang a Pashto ghazal ‘Na May Dalbari Na Daldari Okra -- Hasay May Da Jwand Sara Khwari Okra’ (Neither I became a diehard lover nor a darling /My struggle in life proved a futile exercise), according to a Dawn Newspaper report published earlier in March this year.

"My elder 19-year-old daughter Sumbal Wagma is disabled. My husband has sold out our two houses to meet our daily expenses. We live at a two-room dingy rented home on Dalazak Road near City railway station.”

"I served the nation and portrayed a soft image of Pakistan, I was honored with awards when i did not need them but now when I need it no one comes to my aid," Gulzari says.

Wagma, mother of six, was diagnosed with cancer at the Hayatabad Medical Complex and doctors suggested an early operation as the cancer tumor had affected 40 per cent of her stomach.

"We have been in a financial crisis for the past 8 years, but now the situation has worsened and we have spent Rs60,000 during the past three days on tests and medicines," Liaquat said.