In harmony, beyond words
[February 15, 2005]

Topping the Indian pop charts consistently since I returned over a year ago, are Pakistani rock musicians and lately Sufiana pop, with Rabbi Shergill leading the pack. Cricket has been the spoilt centre-stage player in the on-off, love-hate drama of the Indian-Pakistani relationship, but the arts have written the script, painted the sets, made the costumes and constituted the band and chorus. The show still goes on when the cricket stops for a break.

Self-Consciously, Subconsciously, Subcontinental by Swarna Rajagopalan

Indian pop, I hear someone ask? Yes, Indian pop. While Indian film music is really the most popular genre in post-independence India, there is a place for non-film, non-traditional music as well, and has been at least since the 1960s. However, band performances featured in the movies of the late 1950s-early-1960s suggest that bands, night-clubs, cabaret and rock musicians were not unheard of. Three instances come to mind: "Hai hai hai yeh nigahen" from Paying Guest; "Baar baar dekho" from China Town and the whole Rocky and his band story-lie from Teesri Manzil. The 1960s in Bombay saw performers like Louis Banks, Usha Iyer and Nandu Bhende, and the big musical productions of the 1970s—Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, for instance--took up where these left off. The singers sang in English and they usually sang the compositions of Western song-writers. Some of Usha's songs like "Bambai meri hai" were exceptions. The appeal of these artists was restricted to a very small, urban English-speaking class. And I do not use the word elite, because while the truly westernized listened to Western pop, to the not-so-westernized Indian elite, Indian classical music remained the hallmark of high culture.

But although they were featured in films, it was really Nazia Hassan that marked what I am going to call the second generation of subcontinental pop. Nazia and her brother Zoheb were young Britons of Pakistani origin, and their Disco Deewane remains a landmark album in the evolution of this sound. In the 1980s, even as the steady traffic of pirated videotapes made Pakistan's wonderful teleserials accessible to the middle class north of the Vindhyas and opportunities to listen to the music of Mehdi Hasan and Ghulam Ali became available, the audiocassette revolution took the joyous sound of Hasan Jehangir to every street corner and to many dance floors.

"Hawa Hawa" blew in a new age, and Junoon's "Sayonee" was one of its first anthems. The same album also features an extract from Iqbal's Jawab-I-Shikwa that haunts me for days once I think of it. Following Junoon's success, performers from both India and Pakistan saw the same kind of popularity—Colonial Cousins, Alisha, Mehnaz, Euphoria and Silk Route are some of the earlier successes in this genre. Closely related and featuring on the same shelves were two variants: the very Indian sound of singers like Daler Mehndi and Shubha Mudgal and Indian film remixes.

In the last year, two Pakistani bands have underscored what is special about their sound—it seems to come recognizably from the subcontinental storehouse. Fuzon's lead singer is a scion of the Patiala gharana and one can hear it in his voice, its range and their choice of songs which are traditional classical compositions or folk-songs that are sung in a new style. As much as you can hear the rain in a Pandit Jasraj Megh Malhar or feel the rising monsoon wind in Hridaynath Mangeshkar's "Aala aala vara," you can feel the exuberant energy of the season's first showers in "Jhoom Jhoom." Fuzon's video for "More Saiyan" is inspired by Kagaz ke Phool, and between the simplicity of the lyrics, the familiar sweetness of the melody and the very understated passion in the video, it would take a very stony heart to not be moved.

More westernized but still sounding distinctively subcontinental are Strings. The western pop sound is offset by lyrics that have a very regional sensibility, and the videos underscore that. "Dhaani" for instance shows women doing things men traditionally do but the things they do include running a paan shop and driving a long-distance truck. Both of these instantly locate the video in our part of the world. "Bolo Bolo," which also features Hariharan, is closer to Fuzon's and Colonial Cousins' sound—light classical meets pop or jazz rhythm.

As I write this, I am trying to pin down what it is that makes Strings' sound 'subcontinental'. They use guitars, and it is clear they grew up listening to the same rock bands of the 1960s-1970s as many other middle-class, urban South Asian children did. I wonder if it is their lyrics that have a delicacy more reminiscent of ghazals and old Hindi songs, than today's more lurid subcontinental productions and more violent western ones.

Take Adnan Sami's songs: they have that delicacy and that homespun quality I am trying to describe. "Yeh zameen ruk jaaye, aasman jhuk jaaye, tera chehra har nazar aaye" works better than "Teri kurti hai sexy" for most of us (and not just because we are graying rapidly)! On the other hand, his tongue in cheek "Lift kara de" (with Govinda in the video) and "Kabhi nahin" (sung and performed with Amitabh Bachchan) signal our own regional hypocrisies and superstitions in ways that we instantly identify with. In the latter, Sami and Bachchan go through this litany of mutual accusations, all vehemently denied, and the refrain is, "Tere dar pe andhera—kabhi nahin!" We are all those reprobates, making light of our transgressions while pleading our cause in higher courts!

Rabbi Shergill reverses the Pakistan-to-India trend. This Delhi-born singer is currently the rage in India, at least. His chart-topping song, 'Bulla ki jana main kaun' was written by Sufi poet Bulle Shah (1680-1758) and is frequently performed by singers on both sides of the border. Shergil has a great voice, and the video for this song is beautiful as it is simple. But the ultimate appeal of this song lies in its lyrics, I think, which are thoughtfully translated on the video and the CD jacket. Their truth and their appeal transcend every faith in the subcontinent: "Nor did I create the difference of faith/Nor did I create Adam-Eve/Nor did I name myself/Beginning or end I know just the self/…" (Shergill's translation). Compare this to the Rig Vedic verse:

Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?

He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not."

And when he sings, "Bulla Shah khada hai kaun?" it resonates with one's own existential anxieties. "Who am I?"—every spiritual teacher tells you that this is the only question you need meditate on.

When one reflects on the success of Pakistani performers in India, one is able to identify two possible explanations. First, those whose success is most lasting are those—like their Indian colleagues—whose music is rooted in our own literary and performance traditions. As a consequence, they are less derivative. After all, in this age of cultural globalization, you may as well listen to the original European or Latin band as its South Asian clone. Second, where many Indian pop musicians seem to be stuck in a Hindi film remix groove, relying on semi-pornographic videos to disguise the mediocrity of the performance, Pakistani musicians are writing original music. It should be pointed out that some remixes do work well musically and occasionally actually improve the original song (Nitin Bali's "Neele neele ambar mein" is an example); nevertheless, they are only remixes at the end of the day.

These border crossings are hardly unidirectional. In 1996, in Colombo, I was asked to translate the lyrics of the songs from Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Khamoshi for a young Sinhala-speaking girl. I got requests for Indian pop cassettes. And of course, since being single is an unnatural state for South Asian women and worthy of the commentary of strangers, people would remark that since I did not seem to find Sri Lankan men attractive, I must be thinking "Dil chahiye that's made in India." I had not even heard that song carefully until then! The popular ‘Binaca Geet Mala' was broadcast on Rupavahini, Sri Lankan state-run radio, and had listeners around the subcontinent tune in to hear the week's top ten Hindi film hits. My Pakistani friend once sent a request or message for me on this show, but I could not hear it in Bombay—this was in the early 1980s when picking up my cell-phone to call him was not an option.

Similarly, the effervescent Runa Laila livened up state-owned Indian TV by singing a Sufi anthem in Sindhi, "Dumadum mast qalandar." Her joyful rendition brought the song to people around the country who would have no idea of its language, meaning or context. We could understand her joy and delight in her singing long before we understood the devotional import of the song. Also, on 1970s Indian TV, I do believe that one choral favorite performed in Bangla, Hindi and Malayalam was originally written by Bangladesh's national poet, Kazi Nazrul Islam: Amar Janmabhoomi. (I was unable to confirm Nazrul's authorship of this song; perhaps a reader would confirm or correct this information?)

Runa Laila

In speech, there is discord. In music, there is harmony. As a political scientist whose occupational karma forces her to attend more conferences and seminars than she would like, I have often reflected that our time would be better spent listening to music. Someday when I am famous and feted, I will sing a song in lieu of giving a talk and earn the eternal gratitude of my captive audience. As my colleagues and other experts talk at length about confidence-building measures and peace processes, it appears simplistic to say, "How intractable can our differences be when the same spirit pervades our music and our poetry?"

Two final anecdotes underscore this point and this fortnight's story of musical border crossings, both dating to my first trip to Pakistan in 1993.

My Pakistani family came up to visit me at the resort where our workshop was being held. I asked the fifteen year old girl what she did for fun and she said she watched Zee TV and that she liked music. Who was her favourite singer? S.P. Balasubramaniam. As someone who grew up in an India where north Indian acquaintances could not pronounce Subbalakshmi, I was stunned. And delighted at this evidence of disappearing distances.

Later in the week, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan performed at our hotel and we were all invited. All my life, I will carry the experience of listening to him sing ‘Allahu' in the open air coliseum like theatre, surrounded by the deep dark night and the still peaks of the Kashmir hills, with the rain coming down, first as a mist and then as a downpour. Language, culture and religion are no bar to the experience of that mystical moment.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." (King James Bible, Psalms 121.1)

The rain forced us to move to a banquet hall, where I found my self less than thirty feet from the dais. We listened until 4 a.m. as he and his family performed, ecstatic and moved—from the confines of our consciousness to an awareness of something far more profound.

Postscript
Any article I write is replete with omissions, owing largely to my limitless ignorance. In this article, for instance, prominent performers hugely popular on either side of the India-Pakistan border are omitted because they do not sing in the ‘Indipop' genre: Noor Jehan, Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hasan and Reshma from Pakistan and the host of Indian playback singers. I invite readers to use the comments section to add instances they know to the ones listed here. Tell us about other subcontinental musicians who have fans in South Asian countries apart from their own. I also urge you to listen to some of the music discussed here—there is something for every taste—and add your own suggestions in the comments section.

Swarna Rajagopalan lives in Madras but spends a great deal of time in cyberspace at www.musicindiaonline.com, following whose Indipop links you can listen to most of this music as you work. This article was begun as she listened to Rabbi Shergill perform ‘Bulla ki Jana' and Strings perform ‘Duur' on a telethon to raise funds for tsunami victims. It was finished in a coffee shop listening to remixes where English lyrics replaced the Hindi. She makes a living as a political scientist.

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