washerman's dog: Mirza Ghalib

Showing posts with label Mirza Ghalib. Show all posts

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Standing up to God: Aziz Mian

Iqbal's famous couplet

The first bit of Ghalib I learned when I was studying in Lahore was typical of Urdu’s greatest poet. The couplet snapped with the arrogant self-belief that is the wont of all geniuses.

Na thaa kuch to khuda thaa/ kuch na hota to khuda hota (When there was nothing, God was there/If there is nothing, God is still there)

duboya mujhko hooney ney/ na hota main, toh kya hota? (My birth has been my death/If I wasn’t me, imagine what I could have been!)

This is a bit of mind twister and the interpretations of what Ghalib really meant are hotly debated. My translation captures the notion of the couplet that was communicated to me by the 80 year old calligrapher who taught me how to write Urdu. “Clearly, Shor sahib told me, Ghalib was saying to God, If I hadn’t been born perhaps I too could have been God!”

The concept of khudi (Self) in Urdu literature is a strong one. Another famous couplet by Allama Iqbal runs like this:

Khudi ko kar buland itna/ke har taqdeer se pehle

Khuda bande se khud puchhe/ bata, tera raza kya hai?

(Make your Self so grand/that before each creation

The Almighty himself asks Man/ Tell me, what is your desire?)

This amazing bit of philosophy was worked into the ghazal Hum Apni Shaam ko Jab Nazr-e-Jaam by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on last night’s post.

And tonight that musical genius and Commander in Chief Aziz Mian Qawwal has woven Ghalib’s stunning complaint to God in to his paen to the greatest of God’s creations: Adami Hai Be Nazir (Man is Without Peer). It’s a wonderful rendition in which Mian sahib riffs on the glory of Man and the relationship between the first man, Adam’s, name and the very breath of the Creator.

Islam, we all know means, submission to the Will of God. Listen to these poets and their qawwali interpreters and you’ll get a different take on that story!

Track Listing:

01 Allah hi Jaane Kaun Bashar Hai

02 Aadmi Hai Be Nazir

Listen here.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Hero of Hyderbad: C.H. Atma

C.H. Atma

Until very recently I had never heard the name, C.H. Atma. I’m so glad I discovered him because his singing comes from the exact place and time I was first becoming conscious of film music. I was young, perhaps not even 10, and I would listen to the songs on All India Radio that our cook tuned into as he prepared our lunch. Post colonial India was a bit older than me but unabashed hope and idealism still permeated the air. And though I cannot claim to recall any of Atma’s songs his rich, calming voice fits perfectly with those times.

Having an astonishingly deep and rich voice C.H. Atma as a singer is in a class by himself and is rightly known as the artiste with a golden voice.

He made his debut in the gramaphone world way back in 1945 with what is perhaps his best known song even today, namely Preetam Aan Milo. And it was this song which was responsible many years later for his entry into the film world and for skyrocketing him to fame. This was when the late Dalsukh Pancholi gave him a chance to sing in his film Nagina and Atma scored a big hit with the song Roun Main Sagar ke Kinare under the music direction of Shankar Jaikishen. Since then he has come a long way and has sung and acted in a number of films. In addition he is a much sought after concert singer and apart from travelling over the length and breadth of the country participating in concerts and music conferences, he has also visited East Africa on an extensive concert tour.

Born at Hyderbad, Sindh in what is now West Pakistan in 1923 and educated at Karachi, Atma took to singing whilst at College as a hobby. He started his working life as a Radio Officer in one of the internal Airways Lines but little did he realise in those far off days that his hobby would day become his career.

This gifted artiste’s soft and melodious voice is ideally suited to geets and ghazals of the romantic type and this record offers some of his most popular geets, ghazals, and also bhajans. A number of these selection have been tuned and orchestrated by such well known music directors of the film industry as O.P. Nayyar, Shankar Jaikishen, Khyyam and Bulo C. Rani and this issue will be a rare treat for lovers of good modern and melodious music.

(Liner notes)

C.H. Atma and Talat Mahmood

His style of singing is influenced heavily by K. Saigal, one of the greatest Indian singers of all time, and his unhurried, assured delivery is similar to that of Talat Mahmood and Hemant Kumar.

A very soothing way to end the week.

Track Listing:

01. Preetam Aan Milo (Geet)

02. Main Ghee ka Diya Jalaun (Geet)

03. Odh Chunariayan Taron ki (Geet)

04. Apna Aap Pahchan Re (Kabir-Bhajan)

05. Nainon Men Do Nain Samaye (Geet)

06. Hairan hun Dil ko Roun (Ghazal-Ghalib)

07. Hazaron Khwahisen Aise (Ghazal-Ghalib)

08. Chalo na Gori Machal Machal Kar (Geet)

09. Sham Bhayi Sakhi (Bhajan)

10. Aye Sakhi na Balama (Geet)

11. Main Nashe Men Hun (Ghazal-Meer)

12. Roun Main Sagar ke Kinare (film: Nagina)

Listen here.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Genius of Delhi: Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

Mirza Ghalib

Let me introduce tonight’s superstar line up.

Mirza Asadullah Khan ‘Ghalib’: South Asia’s greatest Urdu poet, chronicler of Delhi, public intellectual.

Mohammad Rafi: Indian cinema’s prolific golden voiced playback giant. Singer of 26,000 songs over 4 decades.

Begum Akhtar: Doyen of the thumri and ghazal. One of India’s greatest modern vocal artists.

Kaifi Azmi: Urdu poet, writer, actor, leftist intellectual. Father of Shabana Azmi.

Khayyam: Multi-awarded composer of Indian films and music.

1857 Attack on Delhi

The album: The Prose and Poetry of Ghalib, issued on the centenary of the great man’s death. Kaifi Azmi reads exerpts (some hilarious, some horrific, all very humane) from Ghalib’s letters. Rafi and Begum Akhtar sing his poetry set to music for the occasion by Khayyam. Side one is a general introduction to Ghalib’s wit and wisdom. Side two is played out against the tragic and painful destruction of Delhi, the city he so loved, by the English, during the 1857 First War of Independence.

Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869) who has been compared with Goethe is one of the most beloved and endearing of Indian poets.

The worldly glories of Ghalib’s ancestors (who proudly traced their descent from the ancient Kings of Iran) had departed long ago. The academic traditions of Avicenna had also vanished in preceding centuries. Therefore, Ghalib turned his pen into his personal heraldic banner. “The broken spears of the ancestors were transferred into a fiery quill.” His pen illumined the wasteland of his life. His courageous spirit led him by still waters and green pastures. This magnificent sweep of his creativeness enriched Urdu literature for all time. Ghalib was endowed with a rare intellect, transcidental vision and an outstanding and ingenious artistry.

Of an astonishingly catholic bent of mind, Ghalib did not differentiate between Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Jews. He never said his prayers, did not fast during the month of Ramzan and continued his love for drinking to the end of his days. He called himself a sinner and had an implicit faith in God, in the Prophet and in the religion of Islam. His appetite for the good things in life was enormous. He hungered after knowledge and also yearned for social position and worldly status. He loved good food, good wine, good music and pretty faces. Whenever he was in possession of some of those things, he fancied himself to be happier than kings.

Ghalib called himself “a rebel, irreverent to the polite rules of ghazal writing.” This non-conformist poet appeared on the literary scene as a novel and unique personality whose fiery assertion of self was tinged with a strange rebellion which expressed itself through scepticism, satire and romantic fancy. This mood made the poet laugh through his tears and gave a new grandeur and meaning to the human condition.

Ghalib’s popularity is due to the fact that apart from other qualities his poetic mood and temper is that of a modern man. This new emotion is also in harmony with the mood and character of a new, emergent India.

Today Ghalib’s poetry has dome to us as an interpreter of the past as well as a pointer to the present. It possesses the pleasing hangover of a bygone era and the exhilarating intoxication of the present times. It conveys to us the agony of the night that has fled and the joyful light of the sun that is newly risen.

Ghalib’s greatness lies in the fact that he not only encompassed the inner turmoil of his age, but also created new urges, inner agitations and demands. Breaking through the bonds of time his poetry reaches out into the past and into the future. (Ali Sardar Jafri, on the liner notes)

Some Ghalib-isms

He gave me heaven and earth, and assumed I'd be satisfied;

Actually I was too embarrassed to argue.

Oh, Lord, it is not the sins I have committed that I regret, but those which I have had no opportunity to commit