The voice that dominates the soundtrack of Kadi Aao Ni on Pakistan Coke Studio is folk singer Mai Dhai’s. The soft notes of the mesmerising Sindhi ballad between the 96-year-old and Atif Aslam all come from Aslam, a third her age. Her singing reminded me of songs I heard as a schoolboy in Rajasthan. Mai Dhai’s mother grew up in the area around Barmer, near Jodhpur. She is from the Manganiyar tribe of Rajasthan but lives in Sindh. Saif Samejo, the leader of the musicians who collaborated with her on Coke Studio, has said that his band “tried to retain (her) original Rajasthani flavour while sounding like a dialogue between us.”
In these times when Pakistani actors have become collateral damage because of their military’s support of terrorism and have been drawn into the infighting of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, it is important to remember that musicians, actors and novelists contribute to a dialogue between India and Pakistan. The reason why Pakistanis adore Bollywood films and turn nostalgic when talking about the songs of Kishore Kumar and so many millions of Indians became addicted to Zindagi Gulzar Hai is that in our shared culture we see reflections of ourselves.
A deracinated South Indian who grew up in Kolkata, I became more culturally in tune with India listening to Pakistan Coke Studio and laughing at the antics of Butterfly, the Wodehousian heroine of Moni Mohsin’s novels set in Lahore, but also a parody of south Delhi. Until two years ago, Rabbi’s Bullah ki Jaana was the only Punjabi song I could name, but in quick succession I have become addicted to the singing in Punjabi of Arif Lohar, Meesha Shafi and Ali Zafar. It’s a beautiful language, peculiarly suited to the lyrics of Sufi songs. From there, it was a short step to discovering the very contemporary concerns of Bulleh Shah. The great humanist and 18th century poet was likely illiterate, making the survival – let alone the rock-star popularity of his lyrics when sung by Abida Parveen and others – seem like a miracle in itself.
Even though Subhash Chandra has now sworn he will not use Pakistani soaps after profiting from a channel known for them, it is he who committed the original sin by transporting the superbly acted Zindagi Gulzar Hai to Indian viewers. Surely someone should be taking the media oligarch to task for having created an absurd situation where a good proportion of India swoons over Fawad Khan and another slice of it is bewitched by the beauty of Mahira Khan in Humsafar?
Khair, watch Fawad Khan trying to look dignified amid the idiotic hijinks of Sonam Kapoor in Khoobsurat and you will likely conclude that we are all better off if Pakistani actors are left unharmed by the haute melodrama of mainstream Bollywood. Kapoor acts as a physiotherapist who coaxes an aging Rajasthani princely type to walk again by hurling his wheelchair around at such dangerous speeds that he sees the folly of mourning his dead son indefinitely. In both Khoobsurat and the almost equally implausible Kapoor and Sons, Khan is reduced to a mobile mannequin. By contrast, women directors such as Sultana Siddiqui in Zindagi Gulzar Hai and writers such as Farhat Ishtiaq in Humsafar brought out his best.
In the closing scenes of Humsafar, when Fawad Khan as Ashar discovers he has been tricked by his mother into banishing his wife because he thought her unfaithful and his daughter not his own, his controlled rage alternates between self-loathing and a fierce indictment of the double standards South Asian women are routinely subjected to. When Ashar says that if he had been asked to choose between his mother and his wife early on, he would have sided with his mother, we recognise that this declaration would only sound credible in India or Pakistan. What Sudhir Kakar once described as the overheated Indian mother-son relationship becomes the stuff of subcontinental Shakespeare, akin to Hamlet’s denunciation of Gertrude. Mahira Khan acts brilliantly as Khirad, caught between gratitude for the force with which her husband is standing up for her and – to her (and our) surprise – fleeting pity for her mother-in-law. It is painful to watch.We can only guess at what the mega saccharine confectionery that is Karan Johar will have done to Khan in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. It will be akin to watching Arnab Goswami shouting down a retired Pakistani colonel, but in the face of bans and threats, many of us will feel we must watch it when it is released on October 28.
Scan the comments on You Tube below Meesha Shafi and Arif Lohar’s Jugni or Hor Vi Neevan Ho by Noori and it becomes apparent that half the fans of Pakistan Coke Studio are Indian. The inhabitants of this Neverland would sympathise with Butterfly who, in a chapter titled “August 2002: Indian Air force bombs LoC”, is desperately seeking a pass to a reading by ‘that small god ArunaDhati’ because all of Lahore, including Bobo, Bobby, Fluffy and Flopsy, will be there. She fantasises about India and Pakistan becoming friendly and a life of being able to hop across to Delhi and Mysore to shop and partying in Mumbai: “Imagine being invited to the Tatas and the Godrejs and ringing up Shobha Day for hello-hi whenever I want. Uff, mazzay.” Today, this seems as implausible as science-fiction.
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