Pakistani singer-guitarist Salman Ahmad of Junoon fame who in the 90s was labeled a traitor for advocating cultural fusion between Pakistan and India and not nuclear fusion says music across generations and barbed wire borders has great power and no barriers can stop it.
With a guitar slung over his shoulder, a microphone clutched in his fist and his very rockstar-ish ponytail, Ahmed is dubbed as the Bono of Pakistan and his relentless chase for peace and harmony through music has become an act of defiance against the junta.
Junoonis (as the Sufi rock band diehard fans are known) continue to seek inspiration from the band's songs.
"In February, at our recent concert in Delhi for UNESCO, an Indian mother brought her daughter, a vibrant teenager, to the show. She named her daughter 'Sayonee' after one of our songs 'because I OD'd on Junoon's music during the 90s,' she exclaimed.
"When I met the Junooni teenager and her mom after the concert, Sayonee told me that she is now learning to play the guitar just like me. That is the power of music across generations and barbed wire borders. No barriers can stop it," says the singer in an interview published in the latest issue of Equator Line, which is dedicated to writings from Pakistan.
"In August we are celebrating 25 years of Junoon. Over the last quarter century, Junoon's music has been inextricably entwined with Pakistani culture, spirituality and politics.
Ahmed says he always believed that there should be cultural fusion between Pakistan and India, not nuclear fusion.
"I was labeled a traitor for saying this back in 1998 but now I'm called a peace ambassador by the same Nawaz Sharif government which banned Junoon during the '90s. Junoon is also the first and only Pakistani rock band to have performed in Kashmir (May, 2008) at the edge of Dal Lake for thousands of Kashmiri college students and the South Asian leadership," he says.
Ahmed dubs this concert as one of his most memorable life
experiences because it "revealed a glimpse of peace and harmony in a subcontinent divided by hate and violence".
Terming youths as future of South Asia, he says peace is the only way forward for the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
"Social justice, tolerance and peace have been the common thread in all my creative work."
Asked whether music can substitute intolerance with pluralism, he says, "Pakistani music, poetry, literature have acted as a bridge between generations, between tradition and modernity, across cultures and nations. From Madam Nur Jehan to Abida Parveen, from Mehdi Hasan to Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, from Nazia Hasan to Junoon to the present generation, artists have courageously continued to provide a mosaic of cultural spaces which illuminate the rich tapestry of artistic expression within Pakistan."
"There is a fierce individualism and a fire for freedom that burns within the hearts of Pakistani artists and it will never be extinguished by hate and division. Extremism in all forms cannot muzzle the voices of Pakistani artists. Culture humanises what politics demonises," he says.
On his musical journey, he says, "I grew up in the US; apart from classical rock and pop I studied Western music theory, arrangement and orchestration, and played in various rock bands before returning to Pakistan to train as a doctor in my home town, Lahore, at King Edward Medical College.
"I was a restless child who loved the rich diversity of the subcontinent's musical genres - qawwali, folk, classical, ghazal and also, the best of Bollywood. All of these musical influences have naturally seeped into my compositions and Junoon's sound is a colourful kaleidoscope of these influences.
