Harking back: The fateful twists to Lahore’s classical music tradition

Lahore without doubt was, before 1947, the most important cultural centre of the sub-continent’s vast north. Though it retains that status still in Pakistan, but the damage of the Partition cuts deep. The city is still associated with the pioneering names in modern classical, film and popular music.

Nearly all musical activity in Lahore before the Partition was associated with ‘baithaks’ and ‘takkiyahs’ where leading musicians of their days could be seen. These were places of immense social and cultural importance for Lahore. Just to

clarify the words, ‘baithak’ means a place to sit, while a ‘takkiyah’ was a sort of café, a place to relax on a ‘charpai’ with a ‘takkiyah’ (pillow). As one walks around the old walled city you notice that the ‘baithaks’ are inside the old city, while the ‘takkiyahs’ are outside, most of them to the south, There is a logic to this.

The ‘baithaks’ located inside the walled city belonged to the elite, strangely a lot of them were in the front lounge areas of huge ‘havelis’, or in many cases in specially built sections on the roofs, where neighbours were not disturbed. The elite used these ‘baithaks’ for literary pursuits too, what to speak of social and political discussions. Almost every classical musician had his own unique ‘baithak’. In my youth I remember visiting with my father the ‘baithak’ of Ustad Akhtar Hussain Khan, the father of Ustads Amanat Ali, Fateh Ali and Hamid Ali where today is the Food Street opposite the Lahore Fort.

Sadly, this family was virtually forced to leave their famous old house for this ‘food’ project. At the opening ceremony of this ‘food’ street, Ustad Hamid Ali Khan sat next to me, sadly looking with tears in his eyes at his old house. He turned to me and asked in a low voice: “Is this the new ‘baysura’ (out of tune) culture”. My father often used to say: “Hamid Ali is the Ashiq Ali of the future”.

Now to the ‘takkiyahs’ outside the old city. These were primarily inns for travellers to stay in. When musicians and singers, as well as travellers, from outside Lahore came they used to stay there. The oldest is located on Bansanwala Bazaar, where legend has it the great Taan Sain stayed during the reign of Akbar the Great. But this was primarily an early 19th century phenomenon. The problem was that as the gates of the old city closed at sunset, travellers had to find a hotel of sort. Some found favour with musicians and these ‘takkiyahs’ had large open spaces, where musical performances often took place.

A famous one outside the Mochi Gate was ‘Takkiyah Mirasian’ where some very famous musical performances have taken place. Over time we see each ‘gharana’, which means family but in the world of classical music it means a school of music, had a favourite ‘takkiyah’ and it was here that the masters taught their pupils in what we today call the ‘Ustad-Shagird’ institution.

Before the Partition the rich and educated classes patronised a particular ‘gharana’. After 1947 this institution has been badly damaged. This happened for a special reason. As most of the masters and pupils left at the Partition, a host of local musicians were left without support. Even the musical instruments manufacturing shops closed, leaving just a handful. It was in such circumstances that the institution of radio helped such suffering masters and their musicians. Lahore was fortunate to have a radio station, as also did Peshawar. It took a whole year after the Partition for the radio station of Karachi to come up.

For music and news Radio Pakistan Lahore was the one to tune into. The huge financial gap left by the departure of patronage of princely states was just partly filled in by Lahore’s radio station. The classical masters, singers and musician performed on miserable fees, but they had one advantage, and that was that they became known to the masses. Private invitations abounded and filled in that financial gap. Among the very greats were the ‘tabla’ maestro Qadir Bakhsh, who had coached Ustad Allah Rakha and Ustad Shaukat Hussain. Lahore’s radio station had also launched the careers of Noor Jehan and Muhammad Rafi.

After 1947 the first radio chief was the great Z.A. Bokhari, who himself was interested in classical music. He introduced recitation of ‘marsiya’ and verses of Allama Iqbal. It seems that the religious leaders of Lahore and the Punjab, invariably illiterate in matters of classical music, started a campaign against vocalists singing ‘thumris’ and ‘dadras’ by terming them ‘sensual and amorous in essence’ as a report then stated. These mullahs had absolutely no idea that a ‘dadra’ is a complex composition sung in a ‘tal’ of six beats in two equal divisions of three, but which stresses on words, while a ‘thumri’ stresses musical lines more than words. The new establishment, especially after Jinnah’s death, were comparatively alien to such fine arts, buckled to the illiterate, as they still do in the process denting the immense musical talent of Lahore.

Then came the ‘fatwa’ that the ‘thumri’ and ‘dadra’ were not Islamic as they were allegedly Hindu in essence. That sweet sounds have a ‘religion’ was unknown till then. This forced a lot of talent to seek employment elsewhere. But then this gave comparative importance to the ‘khayal’ and ‘ghazal’ genre, which was linked to Amir Khusrau, and in a way to Lahore, where he was one of the ‘Nao Ratan’ of Akbar. As the ‘khayal’ as a musical genre was much more structurally malleable, the mullah accepted it without too much fuss. Just like moon-sighting was deemed not the work of scientists and astronomers but religious ‘heavyweights’, so also classical music was being pontificated by this belief-based class. From the beautiful green land of five rivers our culture was being pushed to barren deserts.

What was even more amazing was that legendary musical instruments like the ‘Veena’, the ‘Sarod’, the ‘Pakhavaj’ and even the ‘Sarangi’ were dubbed Hindu instruments even though their origin lay in the land over time. Local extremists bred on the Partition hatred forced the closure of shops manufacturing these instruments. It was a catastrophic loss to Pakistan and to Lahore. It seems today that ‘Jinnah and his secular Pakistan’ was being given a ‘pious’ dye. To add to these events the demand for these instruments, naturally, collapsed, forcing instrument makers to seek other avenues of earning their livelihood. The famous Anarkali shop of the great Rikhi Ram closed and they now are thriving in Delhi.

Lahore also had a large number of shops dealing in the harmonium and tabla, which today are the two largest selling instruments. The only saving grace was when in 1976 the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz using his influence with Z.A. Bhutto created in a basement of Radio Pakistan Lahore a ‘Classical Music Research Cell’. When the Ziaul Haq regime took over this cell faced immense problems. Its existence was questioned. Today its archives have been damaged considerably. My impression is that the new dispensation have made an effort to save the cell.

The pioneering role of Radio Pakistan in the promotion of classical music has been dented. The state and its institutions have limited resources and our bureaucrats unlike their predecessors fear it. The television channels are not interested because of viewership concerns. One major effort has been undertaken by the Hayat Ahmed Khan Foundation, now run by his daughters Ghazala and Gulrukh, both trained classical musicians. Gulrukh’s son Haider Rehman is an outstanding classical flute player. Few other private efforts have taken up the cause to regain lost ground. But much more effort is needed. Why should not Pakistan also return to its musical treasures by educating the future generation better in the words and sounds of our land?