Opinion Karachi loves Zubeen Garg, Pakistan Idol takes a petty stance: Music can unite – and divide

Were Zubeen Garg alive, he would likely have approved of Khudgharz’s gesture — perhaps even sung their song at his next gig.

As we watched this scene from Karachi unfold on our Instagram feeds, the ache travelled. “We” bonded with the equally grief-stricken “them”, quickly bringing an “us” sentiment to the fore. This often happens when a tune can transcend — when ‘Pasoori’ is played in India like it’s our own, when Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar’s songs are played and sung in homes in Pakistan. That simple shared sentiment — the loss of a musician that a community admired — dissolves a distance.

Art is about openness; it cannot and will never thrive in isolation. While Khudgharz raised the bar, the recently commenced Pakistan Idol Season 2 decided to forget the roots of the Subcontinent’s music: The show’s producers and judges have mandated participants to sing Pakistani songs so as to promote local talent and culture. “What’s beautiful is that many young participants researched local music and brought rare Pakistani songs to perform,” Zebunnisa Bangash, one of the judges on the show, said in an interview to newspaper Minute Mirror. For her, a question: What is local music in terms of the Subcontinent? The Punjabi folk that Musarrat Nazir crooned in her sparkling voice or the same songs that Surinder Kaur lived and recorded on the other side? Haven’t we imbibed both?

Now, when a participant decides on a Noor Jehan song, will they choose not to sing ‘Awaaz de kahan hai’ because it is part of Mehboob Khan’s Indian film Anmol Ghadi (1946)? What happens to the ragas, which are the same from Lahore to Lucknow, and encompass so many songs across the Subcontinent? Can they get rid of them, too? Will a Pandit Ravi Shankar creation or a Carnatic raga composition not be sung anymore? Will Pakistani band Mekaal Hasan’s song ‘Andholan’ not be sung, given that it is based on a Carnatic classical raga, Champakali? Will the same band’s rendition of ‘Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu’ also not be sung because it was written by Punjabi poet Amrita Pritam?

Judges like Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Zebunnisa Bangash, Bilal Maqsood and Fawad Khan, who have found wider recognition in and through India, should be protesting against this kind of confinement and pettiness. They know what it feels like to be appreciated and followed on the other side of the border and how genuine and generous that affection is. Promoting music automatically promotes local talent. To deny that intertwined legacy is to forget how this music that we talk of exists only through a cross-pollination of ideas.

In times like these, when Khudgharz sings Garg’s song, a different kind of diplomacy unfolds — one that is a reminder that songs often survive political fractures. They may not erase disagreements, but they will keep some hope alive. Music can be a neutral space to build some empathy. Which is why the makers of Pakistan Idol need to learn from Khudgharz. They should learn from Farida Khanum, who recently sang a tribute to Daag Dehlavi — the Chandni Chowk poet rooted in Delhi’s Urdu — from her living room in Lahore. They should learn from Ali Sethi, who often sings Arijit Singh’s songs on Instagram and talks of Singh being one of the finest Indian singers today. One only hopes that Indian reality shows and artistes will not follow the same mindless trend.

Singing each other’s songs and sportsmanship on the field will not take away political disagreements or heal wounds, old or new. But the misbehaviour on the cricket field from both sides and the narrow-minded view of Pakistan Idol worsen the situation. An open cultural exchange is the need of the hour. Only fluidity of art can keep this cultural legacy alive — one that belongs to all of us. That is also, perhaps, the only chance we have at finding a bridge to meet.

suanshu.khurana@expressindia.com