ء says…

So we were talking about noori choosing to move away from the beaten love song track and moving towards message oriented music…

I want to take a look at all this, as an outsider, objectively. I want to look at history, especially in context of where I come from – i.e. Pakistan and its cultural influences.

Let’s talk about ‘Love’ first:

Let me start by mentioning the fact that the word ‘Love/Ishq/Pyaar’ has no meaning whatsoever! It’s the most abstract word you can ever know, and no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to pin point what it exactly is.

And that’s the beauty of it all! You can put it in any context and you’ll still find some relevance. That’s what all drama/literature/movies have been about. The setting can be poverty, epidemic, revolution, war, thriller etc., but at center-stage runs a love story. There are no cultural boundaries to this phenomenon, it pervades everywhere.

The good thing about figuring out the whys and how’s of it all is that it doesn’t take much to find a reasonable answer: it’s ‘emotions’!

The pursuit of any art form, in all eventuality, is to resonate with, or (simply) arouse emotions – first of the artist (while he/she creates art) and then of the audience, through their inclusion into the experience.

When it comes to ‘Love’, you go up to the heights, yet dive into the deepest complexities of emotional experience; because that is exactly what it is about. And I think all us who have fallen in love (if even once in a lifetime) can vouch for that without hesitation. Can’t we?
…

Now let’s consider our (Pakistani/South Asian’s) own heritage – our folk tales, our poets (especially the pre-partition ones). The only theme we can see running consistently throughout the lyrical content (poetry and prose) of these times is ‘Love’. Be it the tales of Heer-Raanjha, Mirza-Saahiba, Sassi-Punnu, Sohni-Mahiwal, or be it the most refined verses of poets like Ghalib and Meer, ‘Ishq’ is always the keyword.

And then consider all the Sufi literature – the Ishq-e-Haqiqi concept. There you see how love is elevated from the human to the divine. A perfect example being Waris Shah’s Heer, which according to literati is an explanation of the verses of the Holy Quran (I have even heard some people say that Ghalib’s Persian verses are explanatory of the Meccan Verses of the Quran).

If I were to give my personal opinion, I would say that if there has been a culture that has mastered the concept of ‘Love’ or ‘Romanticism’, I strongly believe that it is the culture of this region (South Asia, Persia and surrounding areas).

Now, if I were to begin mentioning the reasons behind this, then I will need more than just this space, and much greater attention from the reader, as we’ll be entering an extremely complex discourse on history, geography, psychology (and so on) of this region. Maybe I will delve into some of these factors as we proceed. But for now, just to put it in short, ‘this land is a very spiritual one’, and that ‘Love’ and ‘Romance’ are the essences of the life that nurtures itself here (at least it did).

….

Now let me fast forward (time) and take an air jet to the West:

The Beatles, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and then Bob Marley, and now U2; these guys made love songs, many, but the real stuff they are remembered for is their revolutionary lyrics. Each one of them has attained legendary status, a lot for their musicality, but much more due to their lyrical content – which, in each case talked about change; talked about a better, freer and peaceful humanity; talked against oppression and violence.

This too has a context: It starts from the European Renaissance and then moves on into times of War, Revolution, Nationalism, Capitalism, Communism, and then back to Capitalism…

When we are in really bad times, we are so engrossed that we start forgetting the past and stop thinking about the future. However, if ever given a chance for retrospection, we will realize that us Humans have been in a state of major flux and violent change for over 200 years – ever since the French Revolution started. Compare the number of paradigms coming up in the last 200 years with those over the 2000 years prior to that: the scale has more than quadrupled!

Obviously, artistic expression has been tagging along in the same journey – at least in the West it has. And we also know that the West made sure (for the sake of business, if not anything else) that the phenomenon spreads everywhere else – that’s Imperialism for you.

And so we have it that one fine day, sometime around the Partition of Indo-Pakistan, this young man, bored (yet inspired) by translating Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment into Urdu, decided to write a masterpiece of his own; it’s called Thanda Gosht, and the writer is our very own Saadat Hassan Manto. Oh he’s still talking about two lovers in this story, but the context is ‘partition’ and so is the focus of attention.

And then a decade or so later, another socialist revolutionary, by the name of Faiz Ahmed Faiz writes from his prison cell:

Bujha Jo Rozan-e-Zindan Tau Dil Ne Yeh Samjha
Keh Teri Maang Sitaaron Se Bhar Gayee Ho Gi
…
Chamak Uthay Hain Salaasil Tau Dil Ne Yeh Jaana
Keh Ab Sahar Teray Rukh Peh Char Gayi Ho Gi

Once again, it’s love in context of revolution!

All these guys were icons of their times (legends after demise). Nonetheless they belonged to a tradition that was continuously being imported from our great grandmother – the West.

Now the purely emotional ones will end up taking sides and understand this as an ‘us-versus-them’ thing. The intelligently emotional ones, however, will understand and appreciate in all this the positive side of being human (humanity anyone?), before anything else!

To be continued…

I remember when noori launched into the mainstream (2002), our tag-line was that we are a clear departure from soppy love songs – that we had consciously decided to stay away from the lovey-dovey track, because all that was coming out in the name of love was total crap, and that, especially in these times, the needful was to bring about change at a different level. To focus on the minds of people (youth in particular) – try to make them think responsibly and to dream purposefully.

I’ll be very honest. This was all Ali Noor’s idea! He’s the one who had always been inspired by revolutionary western rock music and the progressive writers’ movement (a la Manto, Premchand et al).

I must also confess here that the first idea in this direction (again) was provided by me – when I wrote the lyrics for ‘Mein’. But honestly, I was not at all aware about it: Noor had made this melody and he asked me to write words for it; I wrote spontaneously, Noor did all the interpretations and, right there and then, we found a new purpose for noori!

I was in awe, firstly at the fact that he made something I had just written off hand into something really grand (a big ego booster for me), and secondly because this brother of mine has a mind that works at the speed of light – the conversations we had that day (somewhere in 1996) opened a brand new chapter for both of our lives! … Although it still took me another 6 years to assimilate it, he was already at work starting that very day…

Truth is that I have never (and I mean this) on my own initiative written a non-love/message/social-change oriented song. It has always been in collaboration with Ali Noor. Whereas Ali Noor kept writing more and more such songs, all with his own initiative, while I was busy partying at college/university (I rejoined him in the effort once again in 2002, when we had to pen down some remaining songs for SKMHJ).

Ok, I wrote ‘Jo Meray’ on my own – which isn’t much of a love song, but then, that song doesn’t have any lyrics to start with!

And this brings me to point out a major difference between Noor and I: he is a real life person, who works with (and hence comprehends) tangibles mostly – he dreams, but his dreams are practical dreams – like becoming a rock star, changing society etc.

I, on the other hand, am an abstraction freak. I have my own world, full of romanticism and highly impractical agendas. From the age of 3 to 15, I have spent more than half my day, roaming outside in my lawn, talking to myself, telling myself that one day I will be this super hero, with supernatural powers etc.

I still have these ‘unreal’ dreams by the way. But I have learnt how to refine them and make them more in sync with the knowledge fund of our time (and that of the ancients too).
Secondly, I have come out of my ‘love thyself’ syndrome to quite and extent, and have tried to link my dreams with humanity in general. Yes, today I dream of a future human being, with capabilities and potential far beyond what we have today… I love mythology, and I love the supernatural!

My dreams may not be real-life, but they are future-life for sure!

Lastly, in retrospect, when I wrote Mein, I think I wrote it about myself and my elevation from all the issues of reality. But Noor interpreted it as the Story of a Mad Man – even the video (which was never shot) was planned out like that. And look at me, I have never even told Ali Noor that I wrote it with myself in mind!!! I guess he will find out, himself for the first time, with this post.

Gee man… thanks for calling me a psycho!
And I guess that also answers the question that ‘who’s right?’ in all this… right?

No! … this is not a question of who’s right and who’s wrong. In fact, this difference is the very basis of what makes us brothers gel so well.

We are like the yin and yang. Even our stars made us like that!

It will be interesting for the reader to know that Noor and I are equinoxes. Our birth dates (23rd September and 21st March) are those very days of the year (give or take some approximations) when the duration of night and day is the same! And while I mark the beginning of Spring, Noor announces the coming of Autumn (the two most beautiful seasons of the year). …

… Man I am taking this vanity thing beyond limits!!!

I am gonna stop here or I’ll lose total control…

I have something else to say as well… I am not finished yet. But I will give you respite, and give myself a day or so to recollect my thoughts…

As always, I wanted to write something else, and went in another direction altogether

I suffer from vanity for sure!! … Any prescriptions??