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Posts Tagged ‘Music’
Let the cynics froth and fume
My piece published in The Friday Times
This is the magic of Lahore and its deep-rooted cultural mores. No other city can boast of such individuals, movements and trends. Hopefully, the music will live on. The interest of younger generations and their experiments with various forms of music hold great promise
Last week the breezy environs of the majestic Lawrence Gardens once again swayed to the tunes of Hindustani classical music. A week long music festival organised by the All Pakistan Music Conference attracted musicians, vocalists and enthusiasts from all parts the country, as well as from the imagined “enemy” India. How could it not be the case when musical traditions emerged out of a cultural synthesis of 700 years or more?
The leading light of APMC was Hayat Ahmad Khan, whose sad demise in 2005 was interpreted as an end to the glorious tradition of subcontinental streams of music in Pakistan. However, 83 years of hard work and philanthropic contributions was not in vain. He left behind a powerful institution and a network of committed individuals and aesthetes who have kept the torch ablaze. Not a small feat in the troubled waters of a Pakistani cultural landscape constantly under attack by nation-state ideology and extremism that consider music to be too “Indian” or, even worse, un-Islamic.
This is the greatest irony of our existence: the Muslims in India contributed to what is known today as Indian classical music and innovations such as the sitar and the tabla. The Qawwal bache trained at the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi under the tutelage of Amir Khusrau became the founders of what was to later evolve as the sophisticated Khayal style of music. In dire times of the Sultanate and Mughal periods, these musicians had to take refuge in the princely states, and this is how the various gharanas, or schools of music, originated. This loose network of musicians organised along the lines of kinship or teacher-pupil bonds, sustained by court patronage and eclectic and secular in appeal, led to some fine moments. Tansen at Akbar’s court, Mohammad Shah Rangeela’s patronage and later the Kingdom of Oudh defined the high-points of this fused and seamless culture beyond religion, communal and sectarian divides.
To keep this tradition alive in post-independence Pakistan was a Herculean task. Pakistan was a moth-eaten and truncated country in the words of its founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The psychological trauma and barbarity of the Partition had jolted everyone and the traditional patronage of the state was missing. It was under these circumstances that on September 15 1959, music-inspired citizens met at the famous Coffee House of Lahore and launched a voluntary organization called The All Pakistan Music Conference. Eminent personas such as Roshan Ara Begum were among the illustrious list of its founders.
It should be noted that this was also the age when the maestro Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan migrated to India and Roshan Ara Begum was almost about to give up the passion of her life. Thus Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: APMC, classical, conference, Gardens, Lahore, Lawrence, Music, pakistan
Amir Khusro’s lasting tryst with love
PRANAV KHULLAR writing here
At the heart of the Sufi mystical experience lies the Zikr or remembrance of God.
In its musical expression through the Qawwali , it has become synonymous with the name of Amir Khusro, whose musical idiom facilitated a unique synthesis of the Persian and Hindu-Braja cultures. His prodigious literary and musical experimentation is a unique effort at creating a universal Sufi language of Love and he forged a new mystical Sufi consciousness. This could have been a forerunner of the Nirguna Bhakti movement.
Khusro’s compositions are rooted in the theme of separation from the Beloved, a metaphor for the God within. His verses bring out the intense Sufi longing to merge into this state of mind. His Qawwali music touches that inner space in every listener, transporting him to a different dimension beyond the outer world of duality. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Amir, Delhi, India, Khusro, Music, sufi, zikr
Abida Parveen sings Faraz’s poem
Found this enchanting piece of music here:
In his latest double CD “Paigham-e-Muhabbat” composer Muzaffar Ali, who has brought so much pleasure to our lives in the last two decades, included ‘O des aane wale bata’. This nazm by Ahmed Faraz and Akhtar Sheerani is beautifully sung by Abida Parveen.
For those of us who migrated during Partition from India to Pakistan or vice versa and have memories of the old homeland. Also many who have lived overseas, away from our birthplace for several years, and yet have a deep felt love and nostalgia for what was left behind, it strikes a cord.
In memory of Ahmed Faraz who was one of the greatest contemporary Urdu poets…
Tags: Abida Parveen, Ahmad Faraz, Music, Muzaffar Ali, Paigham-e-Muhabbat, pakistan, Poetry, soulful, Southasian music
Sachal Sarmast’s sufi kalaam - live recording
Cross posted from here
I recorded a few bits of performances of sufi siant Hazrat Sachal Sarmast’s kalaam (poetry) at his tomb in Daraza Sharif, some 50 kms outside Khairpur Mirs.
A trip to Khairpur cannot be complete without exploring many of its spiritual treasures. Khairpur itself is a calm, quiet city. You can feel the stillness of the air.
The Dating Season
I have heard that this stillness becomes slightly oppressive at around this very time of the year - the hot summers - when the area transforms into a gigantic dates bazaar. In the heat and stillness, dates - the prime agricultural product of Khairpur - come to ripen. Temporary shack cities spring up in the area as pickers and traders come in droves. Many use the by-products of the dates industry - the barks and the gigantic leaves - to make woven baskets, sweepers, and other handcrafted products.
Sufi Music - Live Recording at the Tomb
But I digress. I recorded several bits of music and this one is my favorite. I used an iRiver MP3 player+radio+recorder to capture the music. The night was calm and beautiful, and our small circle sat with their heads one their knees and eyes closed - in a state of absorption. in our group was Sindh’s popular activist Amar Sindhu, her faithful friend the gentle-natured Arfana Mallah, my journalist friend Afia, and our kind hosts the Joyos.
The Real Sufi was Standing Up
I shouldn’t forget to mention that I went to the tomb to learn more about “sufis.” I found that we had a Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Music, pakistan, recording, Sachal Sarmast, Saint, Sindh, sufi, Urs
Beyond Borders - with Shubha Mudgal and Tina Sani
My article published in the Friday Times (Aug11-18)
Days after the recent skirmishes at the Line of Control, when the composite dialogue between India and Pakistan was threatened, an alternative reconciliation was underway in Lahore. Music became the metaphor of shared ground between the two countries, challenging divides between them that can become violent.
Lahore hosted the legendary vocalist Shubha Mudgal for a few days. The crusade launched by Beyond Borders Television, a production house and sister company of The Friday Times and Good Times, is a unique development in Pakistan’s media world. 
It is Beyond Borders’ mission statement to produce programming for regional channels that promotes understanding between peoples. Undaunted by visa restrictions and overcoming official barriers, Beyond Borders organised Mudgal’s visit to Lahore to record a tripartite discussion between Mudgal, Tina Sani and Jugnu Moshin, the compere.
The night before the recording, there was a get-together at the home of Jugnu Mohsin and Najam Sethi. It was a typical July evening, marked by the promising stillness of the monsoon. The fragrance of tuberoses, motia and lillies had made the atmosphere surreal and when the power breakdown happened, and candles were lit, it was like a slice out of some previous age. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Beyond Borders, classical music, Hidusthani, India, Lahore, Music, pakistan, Shubha Mudgal, South Asia, thumri, Tina Sani
Kabir, Bulleh and Lalon - Petals of a mystic lotus
Also published in the Weekly Friday Times July 24 issue
The subcontinent during the 15th century witnessed the coming of age of a process that started brewing with the arrival of Central Asian Sufis, those eternal travellers who arrived in India with a message of Islam and mystic love. When Sufi thought, an off-shore spiritual undercurrent to the rise of Islam, met its local hosts, the results were terrific. There was no shortage of fundamentalists and communalists in that cultural landscape; and the gulf between alien rulers and the native subjects was a stark reality as well.
Nevertheless, a synthesis of sorts was navigated by hundreds of yogis, Sufis and poets of South Asia. Very much a people’s movement from below, the Bhakti movement articulated a powerful vision of tolerance, amity and co-existence that remains relevant today. This is many centuries before the suave, Western-educated intelligentsia coined the “people-to-people” contact campaigns. Yes, much has been lost in the tumultuous 20th century and perhaps these histories are irreversible. But a vast and complex common ground was nurtured by mystic poets of northern India, now comprising India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Bengal, Bhakti, Buddhism, Bulleh Shah, Hindusim, Islam, Kabir, Kasur, Lalon Shah, lotus, Music, mystic, mystical, Mysticism, sufi, Sufism, Tagore
Three Melodies - the evergreen voice of Noor Jehan
I wish to apologise for those who may not be able to understand the lyrics - but I was most excited to find these videos on the internet.
Abhi Dhoond Rahi Thi Tumhe Yeh Nazar Hamari
Tags: Cinema, film, Lollywood, melodies, Music, Noor Jehan, pakistan, Pakistani
Galli mein Aaj Chand Nikla (The moon has re-appeared in my lane)
This is a great song from a brilliant, but less known film Zakhm (wound). The film dealt with the thorny issue of communalism during the Bombay riots of 1990s; and how the protagonists’ concurrently bear Hindu and Muslim identities making it difficult for them to side with one particular group. In the final analysis, the film turns the whole subject around and articulates a strong yet subtle message of humanism.
Galli mein aaj chand nikla (The moon has re-appeared in my lane) has an old-world feel about it; the composition invokes the age of early Bollywood music and the lyrics are quite moving as well.