KARACHI CHRONICLE: The sound of music

Audiences are so focused on berating TV channels for their scandal mongering, disinformation and verbal wrestling bouts in the talk shows that their greatest, daring and positive contribution is not noted, or at least, they are not given credit for the revival of music.
It is most satisfying to listen to Coke Studio and the newest hit programme Pepsi Battle of the Bands. Equally popular are channels showing film songs from yesteryear and the present both Pakistani and Indian. Ghazals and Classical music are regularly telecast. The music channels as well as the song spot telecasts as advertisements for Coca Cola and Pepsi, are as popular as the sentimental local and foreign TV drama serials. No talk show could generate the kind of profitability from advertisements as these entertaining features. It can be tedious to spend time listening to something like fifteen, twenty and twenty-five add spots interrupting an hour's programme. You may run to the toilet in the interim, or make popcorn in the microwave oven, or slice an apple to much during the programme, but few desert the TV for the whole time the advertisements are on for fear they might miss out the real show. In short, both channel and audience benefit.
Classical training is evident in the younger generation singing pop or Sufi kalam or even film songs and famous ghazals. Their voice, pitch and rendering of every note and nuance of sound is steeped in the classical tradition. Not all of them are scions of the famous Raga gharanas. Some of the very talented are not, but have trained in the classical style. To some purest Raga lovers it seems a pity the youngsters instead of singing ragas are singing pop or ghazals. But when music is your livelihood you will adopt what will draw audiences and make money. So who are the purists to criticise them? There is no state sponsorship of raga singers nor do we have the old Raja and Nawab patronage in this country as in India and Bangladesh.
Nevertheless, good music is now available aplenty and the joyless days of sterile culture are dead. One thing still remains to make revival complete: Street music shows. In Karachi there was such a tradition. Qawwals and pop singers would hold concerts on the street. Anybody could stand or sit on the road to listen. Very popular used to be the Boat Basin bash, while roadside qawwali is an old tradition. So while good music has entered homes via television, the street shows have still to come. At best, in some congested areas like Saddar residential blocks, wedding music programmes are held on the street on a stage, but that too has been discouraged by the growing conservative attitude of elders in the family. I am told even TV was banned in such homes and young people humming or singing in the bathroom got a thrashing.
But last Sunday the taboo was broken at last when the Pakistan Chowk Community Centre (PCCC) held a qawwali night on the crossroads, or rather where two Saddar roads meet near Frere Road (nobody calls it by its new name Shahrah-i-Liaquat) which has been popularly dubbed Pakistan Chowk.
Subhan Ahmad Nizami and his team sang through the night. At first just a few people hesitatingly ventured out to listen, then a large crowd of listeners of all ages (all male however) gathered. A beginning has been made and one hopes this will become a common weekend feature, not just on Pakistan Chowk but everywhere else in the city too.
They used to say 'Karachi never sleeps'. It was said in the praise of the highly active night life of the city. But with the dominance of bandits, thugs, terrorists and, not least, conservative zealots, street life gradually dwindled. By one in the morning everyone, it seemed, were in bed. Now it feels good to hear the sound of tabla, harmonium and the dholak instead of the sound of gunfire. Hope normalcy returns fully to our beloved city.