Top Ten South Asian Pieces of Music

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SameerJB: Thanks for the info on A.K. Niazi. Seems like he has lived quite a life. Interestingly, it is very difficult to find any real audio sites on the Internet with his songs. I haven`t seen him much on television either. This shows that the educated Pakistani community hasn`t really picked up on him. On the other hand, the bus drivers and truck drivers seem to love him. It is also interesting that he includes the name of his tiny village in his own name. I heard him sing, ``balo battian`` and have been hooked ever since.

Ref Dulla Bhatti #68:

Thanks for the post. It is indeed a beautiful poem. I wonder if you have a book that you looked up in or just have a great memory. Anyway you are a scholar and a gentleman.

ManeshG,

Thank you for the info. I absolutely love the voice and the lyrics.

Aisha :)

Kabuliwala, that is a movie?

Ref Dulla Bhatti #68:

Thanks for the post. It is indeed a beautiful poem. I wonder if you have a book that you looked up in or just have a great memory. Anyway you are a scholar and a gentleman.

Sarwari 73?

I just found your list to be totally amazing... it is so amazingly similar to mine (the real one not the one I put up here) ... :) lol

-YLH

temporal: Thanks for mentioning S. B. John, Surraiya Multanikar and Iqbal Bano. The songs you mentioned were indeed superb. I need to buy CDs of Pakistani oldies. Another good one, I remember, was Salim Raza. I jhave made note of Rekha Surya and would look for her CDs once they come out.

Sarwar: ``Deewana banana hey to deewana bana dey`` was one of Begum Akhtar`s best rendition, particularly when she repeats ``ae dekhney walo mujhey hans hans key na dekho`` and her voice cracks repeatedly in this line.

Soysauce: I am still a child of classical music. My interest in music has definitely shifted to Punjabi with age, in USA. I had no interest in Punjabi music, culture or Punjabiat while growing up in Pakistan-a product of indoctrination throgh education and media blitz in Pakistan. My interest in classical music is three years old only and I am trying to learn through reading about classical music and different ragas. My interest in movie songs and Junoon shunoon is probably over for good.

dost-mittar: Thanks for pointing out my errors in my previous post. I have been writing thes posts based on memory only and some of the songs I have not listened to in more than ten years. Yes, it is Zaban and not dua or dawa; it is Nerendar Chanchal and not Chanchal Singh. [Pakistan/ India maiN, kuch bhee na zubaN se kaam liya but USA is different. At Chowk, aahaiN bhi bhareeN, Shikwey bhi kiye aur khobb zubaaN se kaam liya-two years at chowk and counting]

Truth: Could you write more about your experience at Rehmat NFAK concert in NY. I think he NFAK`s nephew and grromed to be gaddi nasheen of NFAK.

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i agree with all those who say junoon`s over rated..their first few albums were good.really good..but now theyre churning out fazool third rate music anyone can..theres nothing new in their last album...but *sigh * `neend atee nahin` still breaks my heart into itty bitty little pieces..so what if its pink bubble gum music at its peak..?:)..billo kikzazz..even daler mehendi`s but his egos way too inflated...

aisha your list was nice...i love that song too..`mujhae tumn nazar sae`..and how come no on mentioned that song with shabana azmi `tumn itna jo muskura rahae ho`? maybe i missed it since i just barely skimmed the replies...and as for he/she who put up an angraezi list...u forgot `anNys song` by jonn denver? have u no taste chiiiiiild?????????

Ten best songs related to cities, that I have heard (I am not too upto date on the various Indian songs relating to cities):

Mera sohna shehar kasur (Noor Jehan/Kasur)

An evening in Paris (Rafi/Paris)

Yeh hay Bambai (Rafi/Mumbai)

Bambai Nagaria (Lucky Ali/Mumbai)

Balo Battian (Ataullah Niazi/various punjab cities)

Lhore Lhore aay (Tariq Tafu/Lahore)

Rasha Pekhawarta (Mehjabeen Qazalbash/Peshawar)

Sanwali saloni si mehbooba (Vital Signs/Multan)

Kuriyan Lahore Diyan (Abrar/Lahore)

Mundiya Sialkotia (Noor Jehan/Sialkot)

Re: dost-mittar #88

‘ The next filmi qawaali that became popular was sung by a real qawaal in the film Azaad. It was ``Marna bhi mohabbat mein kisi kaam na aaya``. ‘

Glad you thought of this particular qawaali. The ‘real qawaal’ you refer to was none other than Chitalkar. He also used the pseudonym “C. Ramchandra”, as a music director. Apart from the qawaali, Chitlkar also provided the male voice in the famous romantic duet with Lata in Azaad - “Kitna haseeN hai mausam”. He sang several other songs in C. Ramchandra movies, and also acted the middle aged male lead in a regional whodunnit, based on a famous (fictional, Bombay based) detective character of the fifties. As to C. Ramchandra movies, who can forget Anarkali, every single song of which is unforgettable..

Regards,

As there are many posters here who undoubtedly have good collections and wonderful memories(and good taste :)), may I ask whether anyone has information on how to get hold of more of DV Paluskar`s bhajans?

HMV India has been marketing a some of them in 2 cassettes, but I remember I have heard many more, notably `Hari-hari chuDiyaa`n`

The same with Juthika Roy with Hindi geets and bhajans. Whats on the market currently are just a few wellknown ones. The ones I am looking for are `boli re madhuban me muraliyaa`, another is `paschim se poorab aake megh gaye ghoom ke`

Thanks.

PS: If anyone from AIR archives or HMV India is here, please guys blow off the dust and PUBLISH!

ajnabi:

...may i?...this may interest some here...a write up on inimitable zohra sehgal...we have seen her in dil se, masala, bhaji on the beach and mumerous other movies...

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The art and adventures of Zohra Segal

By Kaleem Omar

I have finally managed to get hold of a copy of famed Indian dancer and actress Zohra Segal`s fascinating memoirs, `Stages: The Art and Adventures of Zohra Segal`, courtesy of Khawar Mumtaz, aka Rani, a specialist in women`s studies and international relations who heads the Shirkatgah office in Lahore and who is herself the author of several scholarly books, including a seminal work on Muslim women in politics in South Asia, which she co-authored with Farida Shaheed.

Rani, who lives in Lahore and spends much of her time travelling around the world attending conferences on women`s issues, is married to my first cousin Kamil Khan Mumtaz, one of Pakistan`s leading architects and the author of two works on Pakistani architecture: `Architecture in Pakistan` (published by Concept Media/Mimar in 1987) and `Modernity and Tradition` (published by Oxford University Press in 1999).

Kamil`s father, the late Zakaullah Khan (the son of Mumtazullah Khan, who belonged to a Pathan family that had settled in Rampur) was married to my aunt Khadija Omar, a painter, sculptor and one of the first Pakistani women to set up a boutique to make children`s clothes. Khadija, who lived in Karachi for many years before moving to Lahore in the late 1970s, died a decade ago. She was one of my late father Shaukat Omar`s five sisters. Khadija`s first husband, Zakaullah Khan, who was educated at the Aligarh University and later in London, was an engineer by profession and Zohra Segal`s elder brother.

Born on April 29, 1909, Zakaullah Khan was exactly three years older than Zohra. Next in line after Zakaullah in the Mumtazullah Khan brood was Hajrah (born on December 22, 1910), followed by Zohra (born on April 27, 1912), Ikramullah Khan (born on April 3, 1915), Uzra (born on May 22, 1917) (who was later to become well-known in her own right as the television actress, Uzra Butt), Amina (born on August 1, 1919), and Sabra (born on November 26, 1920).

This family connection between Zohra Segal`s family and my father`s family was one of the reasons why I was so keen to get hold of a copy of her memoirs ever since they were first published in India in 1997, but there was also another reason. This reason had to do with the fact that the book`s co-author is an American lady named Joan L. Erdman, whom I had met in Chicago on a trip to America in 1989.

Joan Erdman worked at a research institute in Chicago, and it was in her capacity as a scholar that I had gone to see her (our meeting was arranged by the United States Information Service), without having the slightest idea that she knew Zohra Segal. During my meeting with Ms Erdman, we chatted about this, that and the other. Then, at one point in the conversation, she asked me where I was from. I told her I was a Pakistani, but that my father`s family had lived in Aligarh before partition. `You mean, you`re from that Omar family,` she said, and proceeded to tell me all about them.

Well, you could have bowled me over with the proverbial feather! I mean, it`s not every day that you come across a total stranger in Chicago, an American you`ve never heard of, who then proceeds to tell you all about your family antecedents. `How on earth do you know all this?` I spluttered, astonishment writ large on my face. Ms Erdman chuckled, hugely amused at my amazement. `Well, it`s like this,` she drawled. `Do you know Zohra Segal?` `Yes, of course I do,` I replied. `She is my Uncle Zakaullah`s sister, and a famous dancer, and a movie, television and stage actress. But how do you know her?`

`I`m helping her write her memoirs,` Ms Erdman said. This revelation led to more expressions of astonishment on my part, because that was the first I`d heard that Zohra Segal was writing her memoirs.

Ms Erdman then explained that in 1983, in connection with her own research on famed dancer-choreographer Uday Shankar and the new tradition her created in Indian modern dance, she had met Zohra`s elder sister Hajrah, and then Zohra herself, in New Delhi. The occasion was the first Uday Ustav, a festival organised by sitar maestro Ravi Shankar (Uday Shankar`s brother) and other family members in honour of their elder brother who had died in 1977.

Zohra was asked to conduct dance workshops for troupe members in various Shankar groups and present a recitation at the festivities, which Ms Erdman said she did to great compliments and praise. Showing her slightly ribald sense of humour over lunch a few days later, Zohra offered Ms Erdman her manuscript to read and Ms Erdman accepted, `largely`, she says, `to learn about her role in the Uday Shankar India Culture Centre at Almora` (a town in UP in the foothills of the Himalayas), which Ms Erdman suspected was crucial to the centre`s organisation and syllabus.

`What I found`, writes Ms Erdman in her foreword to Zohra Segal`s memoirs, a life which deserved attention for a number of good reasons. First, Zohra had made, in 1930, the crucial decision to pursue a career rather than get married. In its time this decision was a heresy for a properly raised girl of her aristocratic birth. Yet she managed to gain family support for her plans and avoided marriage until she herself made the choice and commitment.

And what a career she chose! Based on carefree triumphs in school plays (she completed her studies in 1929), she decided to be an actress, but veered off into dance on her way to Europe. To be a dancer and female in the 1930s in India meant to subject oneself to denunciation as licentious, immoral and impure. No doubt, I thought, this courageous decision had some background in Zohra`s family, upbringing and schooling, as well as in her determination, seen in retrospect, to do as she pleased. Was there a model for rebellion in her family?

Secondly, Zohra`s career is impressively successful, albeit with oscillations between privilege and hardship along the way. Her mother died when she was young, and she was educated at Queen Mary`s College in Lahore (in those days a school for the daughters of aristocrats). Never having studied German, she decided to study dance in Dresden (a city in eastern Germany that was flattened by Allied bombers during World War II) at Mary Wigman`s studio. She married one of her students who was younger than her, and their first school in Lahore failed due to political turmoil during its early years. Her husband, loving and empathetic, never fully found his own artistic career and committed suicide, leaving her with two young children to raise ( one of her daughters is the famed Indian Odissi dancer Kiran Segal). She came alone to England to study acting, and stayed to struggle to support herself and her children there.

Twice she tried to establish herself in Delhi and through circumstances not of her making, was unable to do so. Finding suitable and affordable places to live in London proved difficult, and when she finally accomplished this, her children had left, so she returned to India to be with the next generation in her homeland. Yet, throughout, Zohra has had a successful and wonderful career, and today (she is now nearly 90) maintains a spirit which can only be called `youthful`.

Thirdly, says Ms Erdman, `Zohra extended the frontiers for proper women in the 1930s and became a model for her male and female relatives and students. By managing to establish a successful household and a productive career, her life has become an inspiration for Indian women, even today, who find it difficult to break the bonds of service and subservience, but also to live as professional women dedicated to a career and artistic fulfillment. Beyond India, Zohra`s story is a model and a challenge for women in the performing arts`.

Finally, says Ms Erdman, `Zohra`s wit, humour, intelligence, cosmopolitanism and occasional delightfully shocking lewdness, which mark her as an artist, an actress and a worldly woman, come from a lifetime of experiences and circumstances. Often in tension with each other yet kept in balance, these events endow her with a depth and emotional capacity that infuse her voice at every turn. Ever resourceful, in her late 70s she discovered she had more acting offers than before retirement`.

Audiences around the world have seen her as Lady Chatterjee in the 1980s television production of Paul Scott`s novel `Jewel in the Crown`, in Merchant-Ivory`s film `The Courtesan`, in the British television soap opera series `Parosi` and `Tandoori Nights`, in a Channel 4 production of famed Urdu writer Saadat Hassan Manto`s story, `Toba Tek Singh`, called `Partition`, in Srivinas Krishna`s `Masal`, or in `Bhaji on the Beach`.

Her roles are not those of leading ladies or famous stars; they are well honed, professionally sculpted portrayals which make what is known the world over as a `fine actor`. As Joan Erdman notes, `There are few awards for an Indian actress who looks Chinese, playing in English-language dramas, but whatever is out there, Zohra deserves`.

Romair, let me add few more to your list.

- Galliyan Lahore dian (Shaukat Ali)

- ki hoyea je tooN kuRi Dilli shehar di main vi jatt Ludhianay da

- Chandigarh rehan waliye, asin paindoo nai dillaN de maaRhay.

- Ambarsariya mundeya ve kachiaN kalliaN na torh

MannyD: scholar and me? jaan diyO baadshaO. maiN pakka paindoo je. I have many famous Punjabi poems transcribed into roman over time and when someone asks I just pull that from my folder and cut and paste:-). Here is one from Shiv Batalvi for you.

lokiN poojan Rabb, mein tera biRhaRa(birhoN)...

saanu sau makkeyaN da hajj, ve tera biRhaRa...

lok kehan mein suraj banniya,

lok kehan mein roshan hoiya,

saanu kehi la giya ugg...ve tera biRhaRa...

na iss vich kisey tan(body) di mitti,

na iss vich kisey mann(mind) da kooRha,

asaN(we) chaaRh chhattaiya chhajj.....ve tera biRhaRa...

jad peeRhaN(pains) mere paireN(feet) paiyeaN,

sidak(sabber) mere de sadkey gaiyeaN,

taaN vekhan ayea jag...ve tera biRhaRa...

asaN jaN ishaqoN rutba paiyea,

lok vadhaiyeaN devan ayea,

saadey roiyea gall nooN lagg...ve tera biRhara...

mainu taN kujh akal na kai,

duniya mainu dassan aie,

saanu takhat bitha giya ajj...ve tera biRhaRa...

lokiN poojan Rabb, mein tera biRhaRa....

saanu sau makkeyaN da hajj ve tera biRhaRa...

.. a different take on musical experiences, in no particular order:-

1/ the chorus of red-border sareed/`panjaabi` clad girls/ boys sing Rabindrasangeet under Santiniketan`s famed amrakunju mango-groves, with no accompanying music :` ami cheenigo cheeni tomake ogo bideshini`

2/ yesudas` `Ramakadha`, while *watching * the national-award winning malayalam movie `Bharatham`

3/ the folk-rock scene in bengali reflecting the chaos of calcutta and urban living, which i think is unique in india- nachiketa, anjan dutta and the more intellectual dylanesque Suman

4/ Bhupinder`s lonely singing in several of Amol palekar movies

5/ sitting backstage hearing amjad ali khan`s fluid sarod, when you`ve just finished a reefer of his..

6/ MS Subbalakshmi chanting mesmerisingly across the ship`s PA system, as you stand a bit sleepy on the deck feeling the salty early morning breeze over your ears...

7/..the solemnity of Silent Night in malayalam, when its that time of the year..

8/ Silk Route`s `boondein`, which gives `the feel of mountains, valleys and open spaces`(as they explain their name)- inspite of the slight pop-ishness, when you sip your weekend beer..

9/ jagjit singh`s Woh kaagaz ki kashti evoking sentiments the author mentions, and many others that his several other songs do

10/ john lennon- the only guy who rocked-`s `Imagine`, which should be made the world anthem...

...the title of this article reminds me of the only stupid thing Rushdie has done in his career- title his anthology with elizabeth West `The Vintage book of *Indian * Writing` and putting in just a token non-IndoAnglian piece!...i think the uproar that followed it within and outside india has done more damage to his reputation than anybody`s fatwa...and this title uses the more expansive `south asian` and indulges in similar glibness..

..there exists such tremendous variety within india itself, not to speak of south asia, that such titles are better avoided...

..on another note i have always wondered why it was kishore (or rafi or mukesh etc.) who got most of the credit...i always found the lyrics of their better songs to be more inspiring than the singing (which is definitely good, but as the popularity of the several clones show, not essential)...