Nawab of Nautanki: Alam Lohar

Before the internet, before TV, before films and before radio the most popular form of entertainment for the people across northern India and Pakistan was a raucous form of folk theatre known as nautanki. Troupes, sometimes called akharas, and other times, mandalis, toured the countryside (and crowded urban neighborhoods) providing entertainment by singing, dancing, choreographed fighting and storytelling. Sort of like the travelling tent shows or a mini-carnival in the West, the mandalis would start their shows in the late evening and play non-stop for up to 8 hours and the sun was well above the horizon.

This form of theatre, while not completely extinct, is less and less of a crowd-puller in South Asia today.  TV, film, video games and the internet have all had a perilous impact on the livelihoods of musicians, actors and acrobats who relied on this colourful form of theatre for their living.

Tonight I share with you a great collection of Punjabi songs by the great nautanki performer Alam Lohar. (A biography of Lohar is available in an earlier post). Lohar remains one of north India’s and especially Punjab’s iconic folk cultural heroes.  With a high pitched voice he recited in music, the many love songs of Punjab and regaled audiences with his renditions of sufi poetry.  He kept beat and led his accompanists with the incessant rhythmic clicking of his chimta (ironsmith’s tongs) to which were attached small cymbals.  The simplest of rural instruments but one that Lohar played so effectively he and the instrument are nearly synonymous.

Picture of Alam Lohar and Bollywood flame Rekha at a nautanki show in Pakistan

Though almost all nautanki akharas were run by men women singers and performers were not entirely unheard of.  Indeed, in the 1960s Alam Lohar vied with the voice and talents of probably Punjab’s greatest female nautanki artist, Bali Jaggi. On tonight’s selection she can be heard on several tracks singing with Lohar.  The feel of the late night performance comes through on many of these songs which are wonderful folk tales and dramatic retellings of romances familiar to the audience.  One of the duets in particular Sehti Te Ranjha Di Mulaqaat (Sehti meets Ranjha), the good natured rivalry between Lohar and Jaggi is palpable and infectious.  It is a delight to listen to and if you’ve ever been to village mela or fair anywhere on the sub-continent you will be transported quickly back to the scene.

I hope you’ll enjoy this music. It is unique and fun and playful. 

           

            Track Listing:

            Allah Bismillah Teri Jugni

Ashiq Mar Mar Jaan

Baag Baharan Te Gulzaran

Beparwah Nu Dil Deke

Bol Mitti Deya Baweya

Dil Wala Dukhda

Eh Duniya

Ek Roz Niyaz

Ghund Utaar Deedar Wikhavin

Has Ke Nazara Dena Chhad De

Heer Te Ranjhe Di Mulaqaat

Mahiya

Main Gawan Jugni

Meet Mera

Meri Ghodi Kar Tyar

Mirza

Modha Maar Ke

Naal Mohabbat Masjid Ander

Pa Gayi Sanu Umran Da Rona

Qissa Hirni

Qissa Laila Da

Rehmat Da Darwaza

Saari Raat Tadapdeyan Lang Jaandi

Sehti Te Ranjhe Di Mulaqaat

Son Ja Naal Yakeen De (Mirza)

Tu Gabru Jatt Punjab Da

Tu Rehna Na Main Rehna

Ve Toteya

Wajan Mariyan Bulaya Kayi Vaar

here

A Good and Strong Heart: The Wadali Brothers

Maulana Rumi

Growing up, the world was full of rigid boxes upon which labels were plastered like baggage tags.  Hindu! Muslim! Sikh! Christian! The labels were used threateningly or apologetically or defensively.

The first inkling that the boxes were not as rigid as I perceived them to be came on a visit to Agra in the early 80s. In one of those absolutely unremarkable encounters that should be long erased from the memory, I found myself in the room of a cheap hotel. Sharing the room were a bunch of local people who I seem to remember as being our auto-rickshaw driver, his sidekick and a bearer from the hotel who had decided to hang out with us after delivering a pot of tea and some TBJ (toast butter jam, that staple of western breakfasts in India).

At some point the auto-rickshaw driver (or his sidekick, I’m not sure) proudly pulled out a picture of an elderly man with slightly closed eyes. “This is my guru,” he told me. He told me his name, “Pir So and so”.

“Are you Muslim?” I asked

“Hindu,” came the reply, “but it doesn’t matter. Pir baba has a very good and strong heart. Everyone comes to him for blessings. You come too! Many Christians follow him as well.”

His heart is good and strong! 

I love that.

As I write I’m listening to the Wadali Brothers sing some poetry of Ghulam Farid that great poet of the Punjabi soul.  His heart was strong and good too! For Punjabis, regardless of their religious allegiance revere him and hold his mystical poetry true to their own hearts.

The Wadalis are siblings. Puranchand, the elder was a wrestler who also had some talent as a singer even studying at the feet of the giant Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan for some time. Pyarelal, the younger brother, was famous in the districts surrounding Amritsar where they lived, for playing Lord Krishna in the annual folk retelling of his birth, known as the Rasleela.

But so deep and mixed up are the folk traditions of Punjab that when it came to pursuing a singing career they gravitated immediately to qawwali the distinctly Islamic musical form of northern India.  Their career did not start well. They were rejected from appearing on stage at local musical jamboree apparently, because they didn’t ‘look right’.   Whatever that means I don’t know, perhaps the organisers of the festival themselves were not used to Hindus singing Muslim music. The Wadalis probably didn’t have beards or wear topis.  Who knows?

But a few decades on, and now moving toward the latter end of their lives, they are well established and loved for their kafi and qawwali singing. Carrying on the fine tradition of listening to and searching for the good and strong heart whatsoever body it happens to beat within.

            Track Listing:

            01 Tere Ishq Nachaya (Baba Bulleh Shah)

02 Aa Mil Yaar (Baba Bulleh Shah)

03 Sone Yaar (Ghulam Farid)

04 Ni Main Hune Suneya (Baba Bulleh Shah)

05 Bulleya Ki Jana Main Kaun (Baba Bulleh Shah)

06 Saval Morh Moharan (Baba Bulleh Shah)

07 Alaf Allah (Baba Sultan Bahoo)

here

New Folk Movement in India: Swarn Noora

One of the exciting things happening in Indian music at the moment is a resurgence in genuine folk music.  Everyone knows about classical and Bollywood and qawwali but there are dozens if not hundreds of other regional and local musical styles and forms that are rarely heard in other parts India let alone the world. 

Young music lovers and entrepreneurs are starting to use modern technologies and sensibilities to produce this ‘authentic’ folk and promote it to new audiences.  It is an exciting time, indeed!

One of the recent discoveries I’ve been enjoying immensely of late is Noora.

Her family belonged to Lyallpur (Faisalabad) in present day Pakistan but the moved to India at the time of the Partition and Swarn Noora was born close to Amritsar.  Her musical training came by default from her mother Bibi Noora, a nationally acclaimed singer of sufiana kalam, though she regards her later husband Sohan Lal to be her true guru.

Noora was interested in singing even as a little girl, but her mother did not consider it a  fit line for her daughter and didn’t encourage her to train professionally.  She was married at the age of 21, and though her husband also belonged to a family of singers who regularly did perform professional, mostly qawwali programs, she would never accompany them. Noora says she fell seriously ill with an inexplicable illness and it is then that her husband, having tried all kinds of medicines and failed, asked her what she was really sad about. She then expressed her desire to sing professionally. He immediately agreed and began to train her to sing with a dholak and tabla, to prepare her to perform in front of audiences. That was her journey into professional singing and she hasn’t looked back since. Her husband passed away a few years ago, she now sings with her son Dilbahar, who accompanies her on vocals and harmonium. Her eldest son, Gulshan, is a composer and has set many of the compositions she sings to tune, and the second son, Gulzar, is a dholak player.

(Liner Notes)

This is a family affair. Noora’s voice is powerful and commands instant respect and attention. The rhythms kept by the dholak and harmonium are absolutely pristine. Unpretentious but gloriously Punjabi. The songs cover spiritual themes, folklore and love stories. The highpoint for me is O Mere Dataji a 12 minute paean to one of Punjab’s great sufi masters, Datasahib Ganj-e-Shakar, to bring blessings and transformation. 

            Track Listing:

01 Bahana Tera Tak Len De

02 Mera Ranjha Palle Vich Pa De

03 Jee Ve Soneya Jee

04 Kaccha Vekh Na Leya

05 Tumba Vajda Na

06 Bue Khushiyan Ne Dhole De

07 O Mere Dataji

08 Jugni

here

Modern Ancient Music from Punjab: Rabba Mereya

پنجاب

ਪੰਜਾਬ

पंजाब

Punjab

Five rivers flow through the land. These waterways make the soil dark, moist and fertile. Warlords who gaze down on them from the Khyber lust for those lands and for the riches the ancients assured them were their’s when they crossed the final river.

Between the rivers men and women struck mad by the One Divine told stories and sang songs to and of the gods and saints.  Their tombs bake and crumble in the unrelenting heat but then come the rains. The five rivers swell and flood. Dust turns to mud, desperation to dance. Fresh songs are composed. The land and parched people are baptised in the currents. Rab, Sahib, Guru, Bhagwan, Lord, and Malik receive their gratitude.

Blood, bravery, and bones make the earth rich in the Land of Five rivers. No one who comes here and settles wants to leave. The land and water grip the heart. People fight to stay. They kill to claim the right to control the rivers.   

Punjab is the door to Hindustan that had to be stormed. That was rammed open and slammed shut thousands of times.  If you visit this place, this land of arrogance and fun, of cruelty and of the highest sublime graces and you place your heart close to ground you will hear music like this.

There is nothing like it elsewhere. Raw, fresh, pure, intoxicating. Nothing can stand before this.

            Track Listing:

            01 Mulla Band Kar [Gurmej Raja]

02 Dum Dhola [Saida Begum Sufi]

03 Sade Val Mukhda Mod [Akhtar Ali]

04 Rab Kedia Gallan [Narata Ram]

05 Pehla Naam Us Rab Da [Dalbar Singh]

06 Bhajan Kar Rab Da [Sardar Surjeet Singh]

Listen here.