Remembering Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on his 16th death anniversary
Originally Authored By:
"I do not sing to become famous or wealthy. All praise is to God
that I lack nothing. But, when I sing, it's because I inherited this
talent from my great heritage. I thank our ancestors many times, I only
want to impart the message that they themselves imparted and be of
service to you in making you aware of this message."
—Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, 1948-1997
On August 16, 1997, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan died
and the world lost one of the most dynamic singers of the century. For
six centuries, Nusrat's family have performed qawwali music at royal
courts and Sufi centres. Nusrat’s father insisted that he become a
physician. But after mastering the tabla at the age of 16 and
visualizing dreams of himself performing at the famous Khwaja Mo'in
ud-din Chishti's shrine in Ajmer, India, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan began a
33 year journey as the 'mouthpiece for the divine'.
At the old Mehfil-e-Sama grounds in front of Data Darbar in Lahore (now
covered with ugly concrete as part of the new Data Darbar complex), we
used to go to the all-night qawwali sessions during the annual Urs. It
was there in 1972 that I heard Nusrat for the first time, a year after
his father's death and was amazed by the virtuosity of this round young
man. The energy, the passion, pushing the music to its limits with eyes
squeezed shut, everything, the world would one day know him by, were
already there. An enthusiastic Lahori crowd roared its approval,
galvanizing the young qawwal to even more high-pitched and painfully
powerful creations.
A couple of years later, as a homesick student in Germany during the
1970s, cassettes of Nusrat from the Rehmat Grammophone House in
Faisalabad were all I asked for from home. It was Nusrat’s music that
during those long years filled my little room with a power and freedom
that made me proud of my identity. I still remember sophisticated
Pakistanis turning up their noses at his music and saying, “Adam, do we
really have to have this cacophony on so loud?" Yet they were the same
ones, who ten years later used to ask me superciliously, “I'm sure you
haven't heard Nusrat’s latest. Isn’t he great?"
Nusrat had an answer for this when years after, I teased him about his
rising popularity among the alienated elite of Pakistan: “You know this
perfectly good cloth they make in Faisalabad. People won't buy it
unless you stamp "Made in Japan" down the side. I'm just like that
cloth for the ‘gentry’.”
After I returned to Pakistan in 1985, I met an excited travel-stained
group working for Radio France (RFI): Qudsi, a Turkish musician;
Bruno, a French producer and Soudi, a short, chain-smoking Iranian woman
wearing gold earrings, Kenzo silks and a wicked smile. It was easy to
strike up a friendship with this madcap trio, so we went to Bari Imam
together and had dinner at the new Afghan restaurant at Peshawar Mor. I
discovered that they shared my enthusiasm for Nusrat and were in the
process of inviting him to Paris for a series of concerts.
The Theatre de la Ville in the heart of Paris became a cult centre of
Nusrat worshippers and Ocora, the traditional music-publishing arm of
Radio France, was the first to produce LPs and audiocassettes of Nusrat
outside Pakistan. Soudi was the driving force behind the whole
initiative, with her ability to charm everyone from stiff bureaucrats to
reticent Pathan musicians. Her courage, obstinacy and ability to ride
on top of Pakistani buses swathed in her Japanese designer silks were
unforgettable aspects of her personality. We were later to work
together on a music documentary film
Musiques du Pakistan, in which Nusrat featured prominently. The film won a silver medal in Italy.
At an UNESCO conference in Tokyo in 1986, I met people at a reception
who were talking excitedly about a forthcoming festival of “Dance and
Song in the Asian Spirit”, in which they were planning to bring qawwals
from Ajmer in India. “Why don't you get qawwals from Pakistan? The city
of Faisalabad is full of them. And while you're at it, get the
whirling dervishes from Konya in Turkey." They promised they'd
investigate and asked me to find the right qawwals. For me, the choice
was clear.
Back in Islamabad, I discovered that Nusrat was in town for concerts at
the President's house. Rumour had it that his performance was music
therapy for the treatment of the disturbed daughter of the military
ruler. This apparently turned out to be true, for both Nusrat and the
psychiatrist treating the ruler's daughter were awarded the President's
Pride of Performance medal shortly after.
We invited Nusrat for an archival recording at
Lok Virsa
and the Executive Director Uxi Mufti agreed to a shoestring budget. I
felt we needed someone of the highest possible calibre with a deep
understanding of music and verbal articulation for the archival
interview, so I desperately called Sarmad Sehbai to help us out.
Sarmad agreed grudgingly and ambled in late, growling arrogantly, "Yaar
Adam, do you really need me for these qawwals?" and I said, "Please,
Sarmad."
Sarmad opened the interview very nonchalantly, but after the first item,
his eyes opened with wonder and he said, "He really knows all about
classical music!” At the end of the archival recording, Sarmad had
unbent enough to realize that he was facing a momentous phenomenon. I
met Nusrat for the first time physically that night; I met his
temperamental and volatile brother Farrukh ("Farkhi"), his lead
harmonium player Rehmat Ali ("Bhai Rehmat") and his mercurial and
generous secretary Iqbal Kasuri (now Haji Iqbal). I asked them whether
they'd like to perform in Japan, and Iqbal said, “Let’s talk to these
people first."
"These people" were two young Japanese women, Yuki Minegishi and Ritsuko
Takahata, who arrived in Islamabad with clockwork precision in Spring,
1987. We flew to Faisalabad and went straight to Mohalla Lasuri Shah,
where Nusrat, Iqbal and Farkhi met us. Negotiations began, with the
Japanese constantly increasing the money they were offering, converting
yen into rupees with their ubiquitous calculators, the amount rose to a
hundred thousand rupees. Nusrat turned to Iqbal and said, “Iqbal, it’s a
lakh rupee.” That magic South Asian figure was agreed upon and the
deal was clinched. The ladies flew onto Turkey and I began to write the
concert brochure.
When we reached Tokyo in September 1987, we were
taken to the prestigious National Theatre where the performance was
scheduled for the following night. This was the first time (and so far
the last) that a Pakistani musician was ever invited to perform at the
National Theatre. A sense of Asian familiarity suffused the atmosphere
of the theatre, where we took our shoes off and put on slippers.
We were met affably by Mochida, the chief designer of the theatre, who
asked us whether the lighting was adequate. Nusrat said, “We want more
light on the audience”. Attempting to hide his surprise and commenting
that it would be very difficult, Mochida asked why. “Because if I don't
see the audience, how can we have a qawwali?" Nusrat replied.
I quickly explained to Mochida-san that audience feedback was an
integral part of qawwali and some light on the audience to gauge their
reaction was essential. He conceded and he and Nusrat finally agreed on
a gentle and soft lighting on the audience after a great deal of
experimentation.
After we had checked into our hotel, the first thing Nusrat did was take
his harmonium out and sit in front of the television, listening to all
the advertising jingles. “It's five”, he muttered immediately. When I
asked what was five, he told me patiently that the music being used was
based on a pentatonic (five-note) scale.
That night, Farkhi, Iqbal and I decided and see the lights of the city
and we asked Nusrat to come with us. "You go", he said smiling his
usual angelic smile, and “I’ll stay here”. We returned very late in
high spirits and found him still listening to the television music, but
now playing tunes on the harmonium. Farkhi changed, showered and sat
down with him on a second harmonium and they started to sing and play.
He drank sips of water constantly (“To moisten my throat”) in between.
As they squeezed the bellows of their harmoniums shut and prepared to
sleep, I asked what the television had to do with qawwali. “The music
you hear on the television contains the foundations of what the people
of this area are familiar with. If they weren’t familiar with this
music, it wouldn’t be used in advertising. In tomorrow’s performance,
I'm going to blend in
raags with five notes, like Bhopali and
Pahari, into the qawwali, so that everything doesn’t sound too different
to the audience at first. That way we can draw the people to our music
and make them listen more attentively. Let us never forget that qawwals
are missionaries of the Sufi faith of unity and this is how we can unite
(people) musically.”
And that’s exactly what happened on the following day: from the normally
conservative audience of the National Theatre, Nusrat got a standing
ovation. The crown prince (now the emperor of Japan) invited him for an
audience. The prince complimented Nusrat, saying, “Your music is very
strong”.
Nusrat was enchanted with the discipline, hospitality, good manners and
aesthetics of the Japanese people. The only problem that he and his
group had was the food. They just couldn't bring themselves to eat
Japanese food. When they saw me eating salmon sashimi, they were
shocked: “Doctor Sahib, how can you eat raw fish and
kira-makora with these sticks?”
The harried hosts tried their best to bring in food from Indian
restaurants in Tokyo, but Nusrat and his group toyed with it, yearning
for the
dhania-gosht of Faisalabad and for roti. They hated
the rice (normal Japonica "sticky rice" — rice imports were banned in
those days) and asked in vain for basmati or sela.
The Festival of Pakistan at Avignon in August 1988
was the first time Nusrat performed outside in a public concert as a
classical singer. The Sabri Brothers were to open the performance. I
was sipping a drink during the rehearsals, when Ghulam Farid Sabri came
up to me and said, “I'm a little confused. I see Nusrat with his
brother and the tabla player, but I don’t see his
hamnavah (chorus). How is he going to do a qawwali?"
I said half-jokingly, “you could lend him your chorus for the
performance." He was aghast and said with some heat, “This has never
happened before and it's not going to happen now!”
Sensing that I had upset him, I explained to him that Nusrat had come for
raagdari
(classical music) and didn't really need a chorus. "Oh, classical
music, you mean he’s going to sing classical here?" he said, and
shuffled away, quite perplexed. An already committed French audience
was swept away by Nusrat’s performance that night.
Among the many "academic refugees" from the United States who streamed
into Pakistan in the early 1980’s because they could no longer work in
Afghanistan or Iran was my friend Hiromi Lorraine Sakata, Professor of
Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington. Unlike the other
academics, who clung as close to the border as possible, she evinced an
interest in the music of the Punjab. When she heard qawwali for the
first time, she fell in love with the genre.
Nusrat liked her and took her into his circle of friends. Every year
for six years, she came faithfully to the Urs of Data Ganj Bakhsh in
Lahore, to record scores of qawwals for the University archives. Nusrat
agreed to have her at the Urs to listen to him, but getting her
physically into the hallowed all male
mehfil-e-sama area was a
masterpiece of diplomacy by Iqbal, Nusrat's manager. The entire
Mehfil-e-sama Committee met on this weighty issue and finally agreed to
let her in because she was “Asian, elderly and moving towards Islam.”
At the avant-garde Brooklyn Academy of Music in
New York, I joined Nusrat in 1989 from Philadelphia before the concerts.
Lorraine Sakata flew in from Seattle just for the performance. She
decided to take the qawwals to the Museum of Natural History, which was
close to the hotel where we were all staying. The look of childlike
wonder and pleasure on Nusrat’s face as he saw the huge replicas of
pterodactyls and dinosaurs has always stayed with me.
In New York, I rode in a taxi with him along with his nephew (Farkhi's
son, who is now the leader of the group). They both listened intently
to the music in the taxi's radio and Nusrat began to classify different
bits of songs into ‘raag’ schemes for Rahat’s benefit, explaining how
the full raag would sound. Rahat echoed him in song, and I had a free
concert in the taxi.
Before the concert, Nusrat auditioned all the music channels in New York
in his hotel room and during the performance the next night, won the
hearts of the New Yorkers by synthesizing their music with his. “
Pakistani Musicians Who Deal in Ecstasy" screamed the
New York Times.
Lorraine Sakata finally asked Nusrat if he'd like a
short-term teaching post at her university. Under this particular
visiting musician program, free medical facilities from hi-tech
diagnostics to surgery were part of the package. He was delighted with
the offer, but rumblings from his group became apparent. I finally
realized that Nusrat's presence fed over a hundred people (musicians
have a larger family size than Pakistan’s average of eight) and his
departure would mean destitution for the accompanists’ families.
She repeated the invitation every year, and on the third year, Nusrat
agreed, partially because his health had begun to deteriorate.
Diagnostics in Seattle revealed that he had diabetes and had suffered
several heart attacks that he knew nothing about. He also had enormous
gallstones that had to be removed immediately. He was successfully
operated upon for the gallstones, but the doctors cautioned that he
would have to change his lifestyle and go on a strict diet. These were
two things be never did.
During the entire period, Nusrat’s fame grew in another sector, which I
as a traditionalist studiously ignored. I completely missed out on
Peter Gabriel, Phoolan Devi, Imran Khan, and Eddie Vedder, believing
that he could bring qawwali even further. Nevertheless, it was
delightful to behold a chorus of ladies from the Shahi Mohalla singing
for the Lahore remix of "Must, Must" at Nusrat's studio with Farooq Pal
at the mixer.
My friendship with Nusrat grew over the years
and he always visited me whenever he came to Rawalpindi or Islamabad. I
asked him which the best languages for qawwali were: "Farsi (Persian)
is of course the best and all other languages are all right, but the
Punjabi Sufi poets are very special." I remember asking him what he
would like most in the world: "An open free concert for as many people
as possible!' He never got the chance.
I was at Faisalabad for his "qul" (post-burial rites). The
grief-stricken family was looking after solemn men sitting in rows
counting out roast chickpeas with each prayer. None of the beautiful
people of Lahore had deigned to attend, nor did all the fans in the
world have time to react to the superfast Muslim burial.
His grave is a small mound of earth to the right of his father Fateh Ali Khan, covered with a solitary
chaadar.
This obituary was written for the Newsline
, Lahore and graciously made available to us by Professor Hiromi Lorraine Sakata from her personal collection
