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Are we seeing a revival of classical music?
days when Karachi used to be an oasis of peace and harmony, when it played host to impressive cultural events in which even people from across the border participated. One recalls a number of music conferences held at Khayyam Theatre in Karachi in the early 1950s and other conferences at the Arts Council as well as regular stage plays at D. J. College, Katrak Hall and other locations in the city. Karachi was a culturally vibrant city before the onslaught of intolerance and insensitivity for art and culture, which came in the wake of ill-conceived cultural policies of successive military and civilian governments. Obviously, these policies were as bad for the rest of the country as they were for Karachi. Of course, there were little areas in Lahore and some other cities where lovers of classical music could quench their thirst. But the decline of art in Karachi and the passing away of the great masters living in this city, was as much Lahore's and Rawalpindi's loss as it was Karachi's. Though it appears to be a long time, these 10 years seem to have passed in a flash. For some, the decade might have been a quiet one, to others it might provide many unforgettable moments. As I look back over the years, some painful images flash through the mind - the passing away of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Nur Jehan, Malika Pukhraj and other artists, and the crippling ailment of Mehdi Hasan. We have also seen the coming into being of music clubs in Karachi - Amateurs' Melodies, Mauseeqar, Saaz-o-Awaz, Sampurna and others - and now, an All Pakistan Music Conference in the city. I suppose things take their own course and it would be wrong to say that if there has been a decline in art and culture, the human spirit would not rise again! My family made Karachi its home in the early 1950s. Middle class people lived modestly in those days. They could do without the modern comforts most of us today can't even think of living without. We did not have a gramophone in the house, but we greatly enjoyed listening to Radio Ceylon that broadcast Indian film songs. Those were the great days of film music. During this period the people of the subcontinent had the best composers, the best lyric writers and the best singers of the century. Punkaj Mullick, R.C. Boral, Anil Biswas, Naushad, S. D. Burman, Madan Mohan and others composed beautiful melodies, while K. L. Saigol, Jugmohan, Hemant Kumar, Khurshid Begum, Shamshad Begum, Lata Mangeshkar, Kanan Bala, Talat Mahmood, Mohammad Rafi, Manna Dey, Nur Jehan and Mukesh sang those lilting compositions in their melodious voices. These songs touch the strings of the heart even today. For me personally, the musical journey was one of great excitement and joy. I heard on the amateur stage of Karachi many young singers with lovely voices, some of whom became my friends. They were: Rahat Ghaznavi, Ahmad Rushdi, Ishoo Jagirdar, Deborah Daniel, Madhu Almas, Pervez Dastur, Dinaz Minwalla, Latif Kapadia, S. B. John, Patloo Sisters, M. Kalim and Habib Wali Mohammad. On a higher rung were Mehdi Hasan, Fareeda Khanum and Iqbal Bano. The two ladies frequently came to perform in Karachi and enthralled the listeners. Deboo Bhattacharya, Salamat Husain and Lal Mohammad Iqbal played enchanting flute and Bulbul Chaudhry, his wife Firoza and Ghanshyam taught classical dance at the schools run by them. Karachi bubbled with musical passion and people sang, smiled and made friends. Occasionally, artists from across the border came to perform. Talat Mahmood's visit in May 1961 sent us into ecstasy. The level of cultural harmony between India and Pakistan could be judged by the fact that a serving Air Force officer, Sqn Ldr Farooq Ansari in 1964 invited an Indian vocalist, Munira Khatoon, to sing at the Pakistan Air Force Academy at Risalpur. We were far from animosity and fear. On the highest pedestal was, of course, a long line of classical singers and instrumentalists in Karachi. They had migrated to the city from Delhi, Agra, Rampur and various Indian princely states. Though still recovering from the trauma of migration, they were making their presence felt in the new country -Ustad Habib Ali Khan beenkar, saranginawaz Ustad Bundoo Khan, his son Ustad Umrao Bundoo Khan, Ustad Zahoori Khan, Ustad Nathhoo Khan, sitarnawaz Ustad Macchoo Khan, Ustad Kabir Khan, Ustad Imdad Husain, vocalists Ustad Ramzan Khan, Ustad Asad Ali Khan, Nihal Abdullah, Habibuddin Khan, sarodnawaz Ustad Nazar Husain, tablanawaz Ustad Allah Ditta, Ustad Khurshid Khan, Ustad Wajid Khan and many others. These great artists sang and played exhilarating music and had attentive and informed listeners. There was cultural activity in Hyderabad as well. I can recall a well organized three-day All Pakistan Music Conference at Pucca Qila in March 1956, inaugurated by the then Minister for Information, Pir Ali Mohammad Rashdi. Hosted by Makhdoom Talibul Maula and other dignitaries of the province, the Conference had an impressive list of performers that included almost all the prominent musicians of the country. The music conferences were usually held at the Holmstead Hall in Hyderabad. Shikarpur, too, used to host such events. What, then, went wrong in the coming years? My analysis is that the first jolt to Karachi's cultural life came when, following the 1958 Martial Law, the country's capital was shifted to Islamabad. The atmosphere was also contaminated during Miss Fatima Jinnah's election campaign as the government whipped up the issue of eligibility of a "woman" to lead the nation. Furthermore, as music is a sublime thing, it can thrive only in a peaceful environment. But there was no peace. In 1965 India and Pakistan went to war. Indian films were at once banned in Pakistan and visits of poets and musicians forbidden. The military government looked for a "national culture" and set up a "Standing Committee on Art and Culture." Faiz Ahmad Faiz was the chairman of this committee and wrote an excellent report, "Problems of National Art and Culture," published in 1975. Six years later in 1971 there was another bloody war. The conflict was far more catastrophic this time and East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Many Pakistani singers and musicians - Shahnaz Begum, Firdausi Begum, Runa Laila, Deboo Bhattacharia, Firoza Bulbul, Robin Ghosh, Muslehuddin - became "foreigners" overnight. Karachi lost a large number of its artists who were an integral part of the city's cultural life. Perhaps this was the time when our musicians went into depression and gave up. The tea rooms of radio stations that had once hummed with lively discussions on the permissibility or otherwise of a particular sur in a raag, now had bored and dejected people remembering the grand old days of their gharanas. They were saddened by the lack of knowledge and taste for classical music in the so-called elite of the country. The years after the trauma of 1971 also saw an enthusiastic patronage of "West Pakistani" folk music on the electronic media. This genre of music is like a wild flower that blooms in its natural environment. Classical music, which needed to be patronized being a delicate and fastidious art, was left to fend for itself. A silver lining, however, did appear in the mid-seventies when the government once again asked Faiz Ahmad Faiz to set up a Music Research Cell in Lahore. Faiz, again, did valuable work, including setting up an archive, but after the take-over by General Zia in 1977 the MRC was unceremoniously disbanded. It found refuge in the damp basement of Lahore Radio Station. During General Zia's reign an environment of religious haughtiness was created. As in other departments of national life the General wanted to overhaul Pakistani culture as well! In 1983 he set up a committee of "noted intellectuals" to recommend to him what should be the culture of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan! What is amazing, the committee readily recommended that classical music, dance and sculpture were repugnant to Islamic culture! While these experiments with culture were taking place, we helplessly watched the passing away, one after another, of most of our great Ustads. With their exit, a number of major classical instruments, such as vichtrvina, sarod, shehnai and sarangi, became almost extinct in Pakistan. But all said and done, you cannot kill music. Music survives, in some form or the other. If there is no art music, you listen to whatever music is available. In the chaos of it all, new groups of musicians with electric guitars took to the musical stage of Pakistan and succeeded in creating a market for their product. The electronic media patronized them and made the young performers celebrities overnight. Some of them did quite well. Even the president of Pakistan acknowledged in his speech at the inaugural session of the All Pakistan Music Conference on February 13 that these young singers, instead of blindly following western pop music, have kept the indigenous folk and classical traditions in mind while composing their music. Life's ways are strange. Out of the blue, and after nearly half a century, the godfather of the All Pakistan Music Conference, Mr Hayat Ahmad Khan of Lahore asked Ayla Raza, a young architect of Karachi, to open the Karachi Chapter of the APMC. She responded whole-heartedly and formed the chapter. She also managed to gather a team and succeeded in holding the first three-day All Pakistan Music Conference in Karachi (February 13-15, 2004). The conference was a great success in which people saw an impressive assemblage of classical, light classical, ghazal, geet and folk artists. The second and third days of the conference at the Hindu Gymkhana attracted thousands of serious listeners of music who sat till dawn to enjoy what they had been deprived of for so many years. For me personally, who has watched the rise and fall of classical music in Karachi, it was like a dream - too good to be true. The opening day saw the country's president sitting till the end, enjoying the music of Naseeruddin Saami, Ustad Fateh Ali Khan and Farida Khanum, even sending across requests to the performers. The president also announced financial assistance to the APMC and senior artists and promised a National Academy of Performing Arts at Karachi. On the second day too, he turned up at 3am - though he missed the exquisite sitar recital of Ustad Rais Khan and his son Farhan who stole the show that night. On the third night of the Conference, the governor of Sindh came, sat on the floor like everybody else and enjoyed Ustad Fateh Ali Khan's performance. What a transformation! Does this mean we are witnessing the revival of classical music in our city? Have we finally realized that, like other progressive metropolitans who nurture, promote and cherish their arts in order to live a civilized life, we, too, are now ready to bring back the good old days of music, tolerance and friendship to Karachi? By
S.M. Shahid
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